When I travel, one of my top draws to any destination is the opportunity to see wildlife and nature. Given that, I can't believe it's taken me so long to visit Costa Rica! Costa Rica accounts for only 0.03 percent of the earth's surface, but contains almost 6 percent of the world's biodiversity. I was excited to see sloths and other furry creatures, but I never expected to see and learn about the incredible variety of frogs and birds populating the incredible country. I was there for less than two weeks, and visited a few different locations throughout the country, but there's so much left to explore!

I spent the first few days horseback riding, through small towns and countryside in Guanacaste, on a native Criollo paint horse. This is the lovely Leyenda!

Sometimes the most entertaining animals are right nearby!

We moved on to Monteverde from there. The bed and breakfast we stayed in had a little forest in the back, with a very popular hummingbird feeder- there were this many birds at a time pretty much always!

We saw three different kinds of venomous snakes in Costa Rica, on various walks through forests. This was the first, and he was small but deadly.

This little agouti was a very avid snacker. We also saw kinkajous, coatis, and peccaries (a rare sight!). It was incredibly helpful to have a knowledgeable guide on our nature walks, to tell us about the animals and help spot them.

Another amazing advantage of guides is that they typically have scopes that they carry with them, so in addition to spotting lots of animals, we were able to view them in incredible detail, and take photographs using the scopes (called 'digiscoping') which was really fun! This bird is pretty numerous in CR, and his colors were so vibrant.

We visited a butterfly and frog park in Monteverde to learn more about some of the creatures we'd seen and were hoping to see. The camouflage on this butterfly is pretty effective, and the insides of his wings are iridescent blue!

We so so many awesome frogs, including this one which is emblematic of the country, the red-eyed tree frog.

When the lines between nature and bathrooms blur...

Not all of the frogs we saw were full-grown... there were thousands of tadpoles in various stages of development in this pond!

We then went to Manuel Antonio, a famous nature reserve park with a wonderful diversity of wildlife. With yet another amazing guide, we spotted lots of new friends!

These crabs hang out on land; I had no idea! The ocean is almost a 20 minute walk from here.

Commonly referred to as the Jesus lizard, because he can walk on water!

And finally, at long last, we saw a sloth!! Sloths are not only adorable, but super fascinating. There are both two and three toed sloths in Costa Rica; one is diurnal and one is nocturnal.

There are three different types of monkeys and we saw all of them. Here's a cheeky capuchin who had stolen a loaf of bread from some tourists and was eating it slice by slice.

One of the most incredible things we saw was this bodysurfing iguana. We spent almost an hour watching him catch waves and wading back to shore...

These were just a few of the menagerie I saw in Costa Rica, and I stayed along only part of the Pacific coast. I got so much inspiration for future watercolor paintings. I can't wait to go back to discover even more!

Wandering Laur Fine Art

When I started planning my first trip to Italy this spring, the Wardrobe Refashion Challenge seemed like an excellent excuse to seek out ways to buy used and handmade garments as souvenirs. Thrift stores and flea markets are some of my favorite places to shop at home, and at first, finding these options abroad was proving challenging. I like to shop in smaller cities with an eye for bargains and an element of the hunt, but many of the shops whose information was available in English or had been blogged by foreign tourists seemed a little pricier and in major cities. Our trip was through Venice, Bologna and Ravenna. Since Venice is both expensive and very touristy, and Ravenna was only a one day stop, we decided that Bologna, a famous college city, would be the place to shop. I had trouble finding anything there to suit my taste until I discovered a few foreign language search tricks.

Here are two ways I used to find places to shop using Google Translate.

1. Translated Search - Easier for people who don't like language puzzles. Very simple and straightforward, but I found that the end results were a little less good. Just use the search terms you might normally use (e.g. flea market Bologna) to search the web, but choosing the English -> Italian options. Keep in mind that you might need to try several variations of word combos, since what is a "recycle shop" in one language might be a "thrift store," "ops shop" or "used clothing market" in another.

La Piazzola
This open air market was found using the first method. Every Friday and Saturday there is a huge market that has sections devoted to both new and used items. There were housewares as well as clothing and accessories, but one big surprise was the number of counter-culture type booths.

I purchased a fabulous handmade vintage dress with sailboats for only 10 Euros. My partner who is not doing WR Challenge got a new Italian belt and underwear.

2. Hybrid Search - In this method I translated many different phrases for what I was looking for into Italian, and put them into a regular Google Search.

By scanning the search results in Italian for repeated phrases, I picked out new search terms that were more natural in Italian such as "usato e vintage," "negozio dell'usato," & "mercantino dell'usato." I looked at the translated versions of these sites to see what I had found. Repeat the process until you find the best search terms. While doing this, keep in mind that if the search page prompts, "Did you mean...?" and gives an alternate phrase, the answer is probably yes.

Mercatopoli
Since this one was part of a chain, it seemed like a jackpot choice. There were 4 just in Bologna, and if we ever went to Italy again they seem to be everywhere. The selection was like a lower end thrift shop in the U.S., but I did see some amazing things such as the handmade vintage dress that I purchased for 6 Euros.

Cose d'Altre Case
Our biggest haul was from here! They had a great selection of very nice housewares, clothing, jewelry, books, etc. They also had framed and unframed prints that would make excellent souvenirs. We picked up a hand-blown carafe, an enamelware pot, a men's shirt and a women's shirt for just 20 Euros.

We had a great time shopping in Italy, and will probably continue our thrift store adventures on future trips. So if you have any suggestions for the best search terms in other foreign locations, please add them to the comments!

~Kari
http://ikyoto.etsy.com

NY Handmade Collective Travels: Costa Rica

How-To Find Foreign Thrift Stores & Flea Markets