All posts by XanderCogan

The eldest son of Mama Globetrotter.
Xander

Hobbiton

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New Zealand was my favorite part of the trip so far and my favorite part of New Zealand was Hobbiton.

Hobbiton is the place where the hobbits live in the Lord Of The Rings, and it is not just a normal set. They have it located in the middle of a huge sheep farm, and all of the hobbit holes have been preserved. The 40-odd hobbit holes are all on one hill, with the topmost one being Bilbo’s house.

We took a tour of the village, and I really liked how each of the houses was decorated to represent a different job. Like one house might have a pottery wheel, with vases and pots scattered around, or another might have a fishing pole and a bucket.

As we looked around, we noticed that some hobbit holes are smaller than others. The tour guide explained that when they were filming, they needed the hobbits to look tiny, so they had some houses that where big, and the needed Gandalf to look tall, so they had some houses that were smaller than a person.

After we poked around Hobbiton for a while we went into the “town” to get to the inn where we were going to have a banquet dinner. It had a river flowing through it, along with a lake, and several houses. One even had a waterwheel! We went into the Green Dragon Pub for a feast.

After a bit of drinking ginger beer and talking, they opened up a set of curtains, and there where three tables, each with a massive feast laid out on them. The feast was great, with plates of delicious chicken, lamb and potatoes, and much more. There were vegetables and bread rolls laid out around the dishes. There was a fire in one corner, and sitting near it was a cat. The waiter explained that the cat’s name was pickle, and that when they where filming the Lord Of The Rings, they found Pickle on the set, eating the mice in the hobbit holes, and they decided to keep him. When we where done feasting, we walked back through the dark village, carrying lanterns. It was a night that I’ll never forget!

Xander

The Kittens of Costa Rica

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In the place we are staying in Puerto Viejo, there are two little kittens. Their names are Cyber and Space, they are brother and sister, and both are ardorable. Cyber is a ginger male, that is slightly larger than Space, and is playful and fun. Space is a teensy little tortoiseshell, that is sleepy and sweet. They both enjoy exploring and playing with each other, and they often play in the bushes, and it is unusual for them to stray too far from the common space.

I like the kittens because they can fit in my hands, and they fall asleep in my lap. Sometimes when I am  watching something on my iPad they will chew on my headphones, (Which isn’t great) climb up on me to head butt me, or nip at my fingers when I wiggle them in front of them. I also like just looking at their tiny faces, and giving them kisses, or nuzzling them. I think it is cute that sometimes when I try to play with them, instead of nipping me, they start licking my finger, or when I scratch the side of their throat, and they seem to just close their eyes and go to sleep within seconds.

The kittens, however, are not the only animals here. There are also five dogs, and they are everywhere. At any given moment, there are at least two dogs in sight, and they often come to sit under the table that you sit at. They are all big, the smallest one being a black lab, and they wander away from the home, often walking with us to the corner store down the street. Two of the dogs are the brothers of a dog at the pizzeria next door; everyone’s related here they say. One day when we were in moneteverede, we saw the same dog at the bakery we went to every day when we were in town, four kilometers away. It was the same in Drake Bay. The animals here ar pretty lucky because it’s all very free range.

Xander

The Monkeys of Manuel Antonio

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After a nice beach day, we headed back to the car, but we saw a couple of tourists looking at two or three monkeys, so we looked around when we got to were they where, and there where probably a dozen or two monkeys. Daisy and I spent some time handing them leaves, watching them, and getting them to touch our hands. Suddenly, a monkey jumped near Mama and Daisy, because they had a tote bag, and it hissed, leapt at the tote bag, stole a shopping bag with our dry clothes in it, and ran off with it. The monkey scrambled up a tree, and then dropped it. We got it again, but we are lucky it didn’t run off with the bag. After that, they just hung out, randomly sprinted around at breakneck speed inches from our legs, and took the leaves we gave them. One once held Daisy’s hand with both of his, and one grabbed mine too.afetr a while, the monkeys gradually lost interest as they realized that we didn’t have any food, and we continued on our way.

Xander

The Airplane Hotel

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After a road trip from Atenas, a little town we stayed in for a night, we arrived at the Costa Verde Hotel. It is a regular hotel, with a couple of pools, a big hotel building, and a couple smaller cabins, but the twist is that there are two airplanes that you can stay in.  The one that we booked, the 727, was an entire plane, with two rooms at either side, two bathrooms, a deck opposite the entrance, a small kitchen, and a little living room. It was more or less like a hotel room, except longer and rounded, but the bathroom in one room had the cockpit that you could climb into, with pilot seats, and the other side’s bathroom had a view of the tail holes were the propellers and engines used to reside. It was a nice place, and the room Daisy and I stayed in reminded us both of the Titanic. The property was also nice, it had several pools, restaurants near it, and a host of animals including black toucans with big yellow beaks and green eyes, and tiny squirrel monkeys that we spotted. I throughly enjoyed our stay!

Xander

The Coatmundi

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The coatmundi is an animal that we see a lot in Costa Rica, that is a medium sized mammal that looks like an anteater-raccoon mix. They are about three feet long, weigh from 10-15 pounds fully grown, and they can live about seven years in the wild, but fourteen in captivity. They are omnivores, their diet consists of eggs, fruits, inbertibaes, and even small birds and animals. The coatmundi is one of the more famous Costa Rican animals, and we saw them a lot in our backyard in Monteverde.