If you are thinking of visiting Tortuga Lodge before you read Patty’s post, I want to make it clear that we do not guarantee Crocodiles in the garden.

Patty Chang Anker

So we’re happily looking at a mama boa constrictor (her baby pictured above) high up a tree in the garden at Tortuga Lodge (gotta love Costa Rica, where one can say such things non-chalantly) when William, our ever-enthusiastic guide suddenly drops his voice and says “Do you see anything interesting over there?”

Where?  We’re looking…we’re looking…Shannon takes a step forward and William stops her, points: “Right. There.”

There, on the lawn in front of us, perfectly camouflaged against the edge of the canal, is this 6 foot crocodile.  Well, he looks about 6 feet.  I want Max to lie down alongside it so we can get a picture to scale but he won’t do it.  Coward.  Vacation brain is setting in:  it doesn’t really occur to me that this is a wild animal until William says in a perfectly even, calm voice:

“Now listen to me.  If this crocodile charges us, I want you all to run in different directions.”

Whatchoo talkin’ bout Willis?!  Run in all different directions?  So we have a 1 in 6 chance of being EATEN????  I am a yoga teacher.  Speed is not my thing.

Take a look at this crocodile’s teeth:

Yowza!!!  We back slowly away, in awe.

There are poisonous frogs here, venomous snakes, deadly bugs, giant reptiles, wild cats, shark and barracuda infested waters, and what have to be the most bloodthirsty mosquitoes on the planet.  We humans are like fat little babies (new, naive, delicious) in this prehistoric jungle.  Why come here?

For adventure, for nature, for perspective, for this (also in the garden at Tortuga Lodge):

Tilt your head sideways (yeah, technology is not my thing, either) - see the bat rocking side-to-side second from the top?  It’s nursing a baby bat.  Incredible.

It is disorienting, unnerving even, being out of one’s natural habitat.  But the chance to see something truly different, truly mindblowing?  For this Bronx girl, it’s the Trip of a Lifetime.

If you are enjoying Patty’s posts and have not done so already, don’t forget to vote for her blog  on Babble.com’s Top Mom Blog List. All you have to do is go to http://www.babble.com/babble-50/mommy-bloggers/nominate-a-blogger scroll down to “Facing Forty Upside Down,” and click on  .

Last Thursday Patty was number 33.  She is now (Jan 5, 2:40 pm CST) number 30.  If just 70 of the people reading this vote for her,  “Vacation Time is Precious Nation,” will have busted her into the Top 20. I’ll be reporting on Patty’s progress in future posts. One other thing, they don’t say when the voting ends, so please vote right away.

Coming up: “Word!”  We teach local children English, and start a black market for Sillybandz. http://upside-down-patty.blogspot.com/2010/11/word.html