A month on, the jungle is still tree-mendous

Pura Vida! As we say in Costa Rica (it means `pure life`and can be used as a greeting and a reply to `how are you`?).
I can hardly believe I´ve been in Costa Rica 5 weeks now - although time has flown I´m already feel totally used to it! Unfortunately, there has been so much rain some days the last few weeks that we couldn´t do surveys and were stuck on our deck (our kitchen/dining room /living area) for a few days. The last week has been pretty sunny (except one thunderstorm so loud we all jumped!) so we`ve got back into the swing of things. I´ve started to lead a few surveys now I know where I´m going, although the older staff and volunteers are there to correct me if I get confused! Most of the time it`s fine, except on night walks, which are just plain disorientating in the jungle.
This last 3 weeks I`ve got to know some of the local people. It seems they`re all related on the Osa Peninsula, with everyone I meet somehow being linked to Miguel`s house down the road! They`ve all been taking good care of us - this week Juan came round, sang to us again and cooked us dinner with his friend, another Juan, who wants us to teach him English. Christian, a local guy, invited us to his bar (the jungle `local`, only 30 mins drive away!), cooked for us and made us cocktails, although he only charged us for 1 beer each! We`re all trying to learn Spanish and them all being around a lot makes me want to learn even more so that I can understand them properly!
Last Friday, we had a competition day, where, in teams, we had to find and photograph as many species as possible, with each species having a different number of points! It was great to explore the forest and we saw so much, including firey-billed aracaris (look them up!), and all 4 Costa Rican monkey species. A troop of squirrel monkeys came right up to the trees next to us, it was incredible to see them so close. Not that we don´t get a lot of close-ups, I was in the shower the other day when a troop of spider monkeys came over my head! We`ve had agoutis (like little capybaras) on camp a couple of mornings and now have a resident black hawk (who seems to have scared off the resident vultures). The Thursday before competition day, Sarah, the principle investigator, turned up with a load of stranded surfer dudes who`d driven into (and got stuck in) the river near camp. We took them in for the night but they were kind of crazy, and I don´t think they appreciated being woken up at 4am when we were getting ready to leave for competition day!
Hasta Luego xxx