Arrival in Bagaces

I have arrived in Costa Rica! Yesterday morning I said my goodbyes to Rulo and hoped that he would enjoy his 6 month stay in doggie heaven (AKA rural Texas). After a short 3 hour flight from Houston, I was picked up by the field manager, Wiebke, at the airport in Liberia and driven back to Bagaces (along with Susan, the head honcho of the project and UCLA prof who was on the same flight). We soon arrived at the houses in Bagaces: the yellow house (named surprisingly enough for its yellow color) and next door to it, the pizza house (named because many years ago it used to be a pizzeria). I have a room in the pizza house which will be nice because there are less people here and most of the cooking and hanging out occurs in the yellow house so I might actually be able to get some work done on my days off.

After checking the room for biting insects and scorpions (none so far) and sweeping out the ever present dust, I emptied out my 2 suitcases of belongings onto the little wooden shelves and settled in for a semi restful night on my foam mattresses. I tried to wake up before 7 since I will have to get back into the routine of getting up at 4am for field days. Ah, the joys of monkeyland!

So...the news so far:
The good news: 1) We have wireless internet here!!! Can you believe it? Wireless in Costa Rica? Sorry, I am still a bit shocked since when I worked here 7 years ago we had to take the bus 30 minutes to Liberia to go to an internet cafe to send emails. And we had to walk uphill both ways in the pouring rain to get to work and...man do I feel old now. We've come a long way baby! This means it should be fairly easy for me to keep in touch. Yay!
2) Everyone seems nice
3) I'm living in a pink room with Piglet on the door.
The bad news: 1) After talking to Susan and Wiebke, I discovered that 2 of the 4 experienced assistants had dropped out recently. So now instead of the normal 6 assistants (plus Wiebke) that it takes to keep the project running smoothly, we have 3 assistants (with 2 new ones coming this week). Since my experiment depends on identifying all of the monkeys that I am videotaping and that are in the vicinity of my model snake, I am a little worried and frustrated right now. There are always setbacks in field research, but this is definitely going to be an interesting experience.
2) Termites have taken over my bathroom.
3) I'm living in a pink room with Piglet on the door.

I head to the field for the first time on Monday. I can't wait to see the monkeys!

Pictures to follow...