Zoe's first post

Well, we’re finally here.

Coming out of the airport, we were met by one of the Mariposa staff. Getting into the car, Jeremy asked, “Mama, where’s my seatbelt?” There weren’t any, which I thought was very nice. I fell asleep on the way back, and so did Jeremy, but Mum stayed awake. I think. But, for the short time that I was awake, I did look around. There were billboards—and in Spanish! Fascinating. The last thing that I remember seeing before I fell asleep was people dancing and having fun in what looked kind of like a tennis court without the net.

Once we got to the hotel, we were led through the dark to the cabin. (I laugh at myself for this.) We looked around the two rooms that they showed us, then settled down in the one with more beds. I was supposed to sleep in the other room, but we squashed in. So, if you know me and animals, you probably know that I usually don’t freak out around giant spiders. But, in the room we were in, there was a huge one. No, I didn’t scream. But we did go and ask someone to get rid of it. By the time we got back, it was gone. I have no idea where it went. The night was VERY hot, because we had to stay under the sheets, due to the lack of mosquito nets.

Jeremy and I woke up early, to the call of several roosters, maybe the occasional monkey or toucan. Mum had moved over to the other room. After trying to get back to sleep for an hour or so, Mum came back in.

That was when I was told that the ‘giant spider’ was actually a scorpion. Ahhhh!

We went outside, and all of the enclosures that I had thought were empty suddenly had things in them! One had a bunch of monkeys, and another had two toucans, possibly a parrot, and some other kind of bird. Then we came back to the room, and I’ve been writing this.