We had left La Fortuna and our little casita with no bathroom doors but lovely pool and friendly evening toads, when Gerardo picked us up once again. We drove on decent roads up up up – almost to the Poas Crater. There was one small landslide to avoid on the road – it covered our – its unusual to have more than one lane in each direction.
We stopped at the La Paz waterfall. It is now a fancy hotel and spa and you have to pay money for the extensive tour and viewing platforms, but Emily knew the humming bird feeders just off reception would be good – and darn if we didnt pick up FOUR new lifer hummingbirds.
Gerardo highly stopping at the Starbucks plantation for coffee and pastries, and then we had only about another 30 mins to Villa San Ignacio – the same lovely gardened hotel where we slept the first night we arrived.
It was interesting how the terrain changed during this driving time – to include the dairy area, the area, and finally the hills. We did see one Mennonite church, reminding us that our friends in Mennonite and Brethren Marriage Encounter had been invited to present M.E. Weekends down here.
We lunched here at the Villa, joined by the McClungs friend Fabian again. He will be working in the US soon, in Kansas, and will visit them in August. We stayed behind with Daniel while they went off to visit with Laurens birthmother, which evidently was a lovely visit. Daniel enjoyed the pool, the pool table, and some crazy chess (I dont really know the rules, but I think some were bent a bit).
Then we were off to the restaurant where McClungs always wrapped up some of the mission trips here. Very good and typical Costa Rican food. We tried to order only in Spanish. Mine was Ollas con carne - bowl of meat. In effect a broth with very tender beef, potato, yucca. Rice on side. David had fajitas - which of course all Americans know about. Many dishes came served on a
Before I wrap up this blog – I wanted to include a photo of the typical shower because weve seen it everywhere and it makes good sense – the tap is about 12 from the floor. I guess the idea is that you run the water until youre happy with the temperature, and then move the lever to make out the showerhead. Or is it just a good way to wash your feet alone?
We have seen so much, culturally and with new animals, and found so many new life birds, and enjoyed practicing our meagre Spanish. In general everyone is friendly – and we learned that to hear buen dia from passersby, which confused us at first – almost the Bon Dia of Papiamento in Aruba. David and I dont want to end our Spanish lessons – surely its good for the old braincells as well as helpful in some future travel.
David is off shopping at a grocery store for bags of coffee to take home - I should have asked him how many new birds we picked up. We always guess how many
we hope for, and mine was 32 - after all, we had seen many in Arizona and Texas - but I know we surpassed 50. And that barely scratched the surface of our big book on Costa Rican birds. Hes back - and told me our life list is now 535 and 71 of these are from here. (Now if I can just convince him to count the 3 we have seen elsewhere but failed to get a photo....)
Ha Ha - life continues. as do and birding. One is never finished. He just ided the photo I had labeled as unknown, Its another type of seedeater - our US equivalent of sparrows - and if we learn our sparrows this summer we could count quite a few more. 😊
