Down the Road

Sarah: Today was a really fun day for us. A man named Juan Carlos drives a van shuttle service, so we asked him to pick us up this morning. He arrived at 6:45 and drove us to the top of the road, where we began our journey down. Today we wanted to walk the entire road down into the valley (10km) and stop at all of the businesses and shops to meet people and introduce ourselves. First of all, it was a beautiful walk! Being so high up we had great views of the entire valley and cloud forest, so we spent a lot of time admiring God’s creation around us.

We started the day with a really great (and super cheap) breakfast at a Soda, owned by Elsa. She happens to be the mother of Michael, who is a friend of Rigo, Liseth’s husband. (Did you follow all that?) Michael went with us to Palmar Norte when we visited Rigo’s parents. So, we had a nice visit with Elsa, and she even offered to teach me how to make authentic Costa Rican bread sometime. We look forward to continuing a friendship with her and her family in the future.

Continuing down the road, we stopped at some more restaurants and lodges and met lots of new people. There really are not very many shops or pulperias (places that sell food like a mini-tiny grocery store) in this whole valley, we found out! We did go to a very classy art store that had beautiful woven baskets and jewelry and pieces of art from all over Latin America, but unfortunately it was out of our price range. The owner hails from Holland (yay Dutch!) and is married to a Colombian woman, and they travel all over Latin America to find artwork and then sell it in the valley. He is also a biologist and will be a great resource for us!

Have we ever talked about the rain here in Costa Rica? Right now we are in the rainy season, which basically means that it is supposed to rain a lot every day. It rarely starts before 11:00 am, and it can possibly rain on and off (or just on) until around 6:00 pm. The last week and a half have been wonderful days, with only short periods of rain throughout the day, but sunny for the most part. Today was more what one should expect during the rainy season. About halfway down the road (about 10:45) it started raining on us. And as I write this now at 5:30 pm, it is still raining. We still had a great time visiting with people, but our walking speed increased quite a bit and we were both huddled under one umbrella while heavy rain and thunder were all around us! During one of the heaviest times, we met a woman named Ercilia who invited us in to wait it out for a bit. She is a friend of Liseth’s and was really nice. Her 6-year old daughter, Monica, kept bringing out things to show us, like her brand new puppy (yay!) and some of her favorite school books.

Once we got closer to our home, maybe a couple kilometers away, it started raining hard again so we stopped for lunch at another lodge. David ordered trout, and as you can see by the picture, he got a whole trout. We left while it wasn’t raining quite as heavy, but not too far into our final descent, we got poured on again! It was an adventure, and a very fun day of meeting new people and exploring new places.