Sometimes, it's best not to joke. . .

The other day, a fellow called in his credit card for a reservation. He had been e-mailing the owner, who handles most of the e-mails for reservations. I asked his name and e-mail address so I could e-mail back a confirmation after the charges on his credit card went through.

He seemed like an amiable fellow, chatty, asking questions and cracking a joke or two. After I got his credit card number and read it back to him, I just wanted to confirm that I had the right information.

Me: "So you live at XXX, 78th Street, Apartment 2B, correct?"

Him: "Uh, how do you know that?"

Me: "I have a gift when I talk to people."

Him: "Errrr." Then dead silence.

I had to tell him that I had his reservation form up on the computer, though I don't think he was still all that entertained.

Personally, I would have preferred beefcake. . .

Plenty of e-mails come in here at the hotel, and sometimes folks do make an error and copy the hotel in their missives or just plain send it to the wrong address.

This, however, is one of my favorites:

Hi Babycakes!

It would be great if you could print out Marc's email about the directions to the hotel. It helps us a lot to get there. Thank you so so so so so much!

Could you also bring your Costa Rica travel book?

Thank you!

I love you so so so so much forever and I miss you like crazy here!

A first, and hopefully the last. . . .

I went to my first funeral here in Costa Rica on Sunday. Miguel and Gerardo, who are the stalwarts of the maintenance here at Tree Houses, lost their son/brother, when he was electrocuted while working on power lines in the Sarapiqui region.

The church was packed and it was a warm and sunny day. After the funeral was over (Catholic Mass), they placed the coffin in a car and everyone walked to the cemetery, which is just down the road from the hotel here. It was about 1.5 kilometers from the church and with all of the people walking and driving, traffic was backed up for quite a distance.

I couldn't follow the service all that well, as I was in the back and my Spanish isn't nearly good enough to catch the meaning of a Mass, but it seemed like a nice service and there were a lot of tears and condolences throughout the service.

Breaking ground. . .

On the new tree house. . . Blogging time could be limited as we'll be full-up with guests, and there will be plenty to do with getting supplies and materials for the new tree house.

Not to say that we're going to go dark, but it may be sporadic for a while.

Yes, another excuse, but we work with what we have!

Bittersweet. . . .

The other day, we said adios to Chewie. The little pup (now close to 12 pounds) found a home where the owner can take care of her and devote the time and attention that she needs. With all the tree houses being full and Bejuca, Mini-B, Sweetie and Chewie, it was a handful a lot of the time. Luckily, the new vet that Lucy found in Florencia has an adoption wall and it took about an hour before Chewie found a new home.

She's only a few miles down the road, living with a gentleman that was looking for a good dog at his place.

It was sad to see her go, but the way things work around here, another little one will wash up here soon.

Toot, toot. . .

It's not often that we toot our own horn here (except to family members, who make up 2/3 of the 3 readers of the blog and are already tired of hearing about it) but when Lucy logged onto TripAdvisor.com the other day to see if we had been praised or flamed, she was pleasantly surprised to see that the hotel had been named one of the top hotels by the Web site.

There's no red carpet, no paparazzi (the art department is still holding out), or groupies.

The award is for best service, and we're in the top 25 for all of Central America, at No. 16.

Basically, we're guessing, that we got more good reviews than bad in 2011 and that's a nice thing to see.

TripAdvisor.com has its ups and downs (they once put another hotel's reviews on our site, and they weren't flattering) but more and more folks are using the site these days when they are deciding how to spend their hard-earned moolah.

So, long-winded post short: you don't have to take our biased word at how good a spot this is, there are others that will attest to that fact.

Which brings us to a question. . .

What to call the new tree house? We already have the Frog, Sloth, Toucan, Monkey and Hummingbird.

There is a front-runner and it is the national bird of Costa Rica. Bonus points to anyone who can name it, and actually pronounce it (it starts with a Y).

Lucy, who speaks excellent Spanish, has a hard time wrapping her tongue around the pronunciation, which delights Darling, Patricia, Seidy, Miguel and Gerardo. For some strange reason, I don't have a problem pronouncing it, and my Spanish isn't very good at all.

So, feel free to drop names and ideas and keep in mind that Ma and Pa Eidson check in on the blog occasionally, so nothing too dirty!

Another excuse. . .

For why we have been sloth-like in the postings. . .

We're adding another tree house. The ground-breaking will start in less than a week and this will be tree house No. 6. It will be the largest and most private of the bunch.

Miguel, Gerardo and myself cleared the way through the jungle (without having to cut down any large trees, which was a bonus) and then shoveled a lot of rock (large and small) for the road.

The road is all finished, and we're just waiting for Palomino and the boys (who built the Monkey and the Hummingbird tree houses) to wrap up a job in Monterrey and head down here this coming Monday (in theory).

The tree house should be finished in a couple of months, as the fellows know what they're doing and we're not in the rainy season.

Sloth rescue. . .

Yesterday, Gerardo pointed out a young sloth that was on the ground by our driveway. Some of the guests ooh-ed and aah-ed and took some pictures and Gerardo put it back into the tree before he headed home for the day.

About 5 minutes later, we looked out and the little critter had climbed down the tree and was crossing the driveway.

Sloths on the ground are just pathetically slow, like a 300-pound man trying to crawl under the barbed-wire on a military obstacle course and getting his britches hung up on the barbs.

Lucy and I went over and got it to latch onto a broom handle, where we took it to another tree on the other side of the road. It came back down. Not normal behavior for the critters.

At that point, we called Proyecto Asis, a local wildlife rescue center about 10 minutes away.

We got some laundry baskets and picked up the sloth and put it in a basket with some towels and Lucy vamoosed over to Asis, where Alvaro (the owner) checked it out. It is a youngster, only about 5 months old, and not quite sure how to fend for itself, so it was a good thing that it is at Asis now.

It will stay there for a few more months, then Alvaro will let it loose at Asis, where it can join the other sloths. However, we may ask him to bring it back here; can never have too many of those critters around.

New Year's resolutions out the window. . .

So, the blog is off to a roaringly slow, sloth-like start for 2012. It's been pretty hectic around here since Christmas with loads of families coming through and there has been plenty to keep us busy.

Still, those are just excuses and we'll start trying to ramp up the blog for the new year and see how things progress, though that wasn't a resolution.