Day 27: Lost Singlet and Smaug

Today we left the beach.
I got up at about 9am, even though I'd woken up much earlier, I just didn't want to get up before everyone else in our tiny room did, especially since I was on the top bed.
We had our rations of toast and eggs, luckily for me, Sonya had been kind enough to leave us some gallo pinto that she had made before she went off to church. While eating our breakfast, Jose informed us that even though he slept under a bed last night, he had a comfortable sleep, and that the only issue was turning over. Since from his chest down was underneath the bed, he couldn't simply roll over because his hips wouldn't allow, so he would have to pull himself out from under the bed a bit before rolling over, how amusing, I thought. I was told that usually trips to the beach with the Cordobas were like this, simple with no big fuss.
After breakfast we packed up a bit, before Jose, Jorge and I, headed to the beach for one last swim. It was already boiling hot so even though the warm was again like bath water, it was still refreshing and a nice way to wake up. Today the waves were massive, and we were having fun trying to body surf, or simply lying on our backs floating in the water.
We didn't spend long in the water, and when we got out, we had our rinse off, but then something wasn't right. Jose's singlet couldn't be found anywhere. We looked everywhere. I even checked the roof of the little portico. It was nowhere. And I mean while Jose does have a lot of clothes and a lot of singlets, it is beside the point, why would everything else be left bar Jose's singlet. I figured since Jose is quite small, a child probably had fancied it and nicked it with his little paws.
We headed back to the house, and when we got there, there were some strangers, friends of Sonya, who were there for lunch. We didn't stay around for lunch, and after having quick showers we loaded up the car and left. However, four minutes down the dusty road, luckily, I realized I didn't have my pounamu necklace, the one that Jose had given me before he left New Zealand. So we did the short trip back and I rushed in and grabbed it. I was so relieved not to have left it behind.
Since it was getting close to lunch, we headed to a place on the coast just inland from Caldera called Mata Limon to have lunch. Jorge joked that we were going to have lunch in San Ramon which was 2 hours away, but since it took 8 minutes to go back and get my necklace we could no longer wait that long.
The restaurant was called Leda, and was absolutely packed. We did, however manage to get a table. Something about all restaurants here is that there are always a little starter plate called bocas. These are usually displayed on the serviette container that is found at each table, and come with no prices so I don't actually know whether they cost money or not because they seem very mandatory.
I had a huge hunk of chicken along with some other stuff on the plate too. And while we ate, we could look out through huge open doors to a little lake which had people swimming in it and seagulls flying around. I felt sorry for one of the seagulls who had a sore leg and couldn't walk properly.
We then left for home, taking the old road home, avoiding the traffic of the new highway that gets you to that area.
Pretty much as soon as the we got home, the others dressed up and left for church. I decided to stay home.
I had a brief visit from Teto, just because he had been hanging around at the grandparents house all day.
And then I got a message from Cheng, a friend of Nicola's who arrived on the same day as me here but had spent the last four weeks doing conservation work with turtles and visiting the country. He told me that he had arrived in Heredia yesterday and was flying out on the 31st, and was wondering if we could catch up tomorrow.
I asked whether he was free tonight too and turns out he was. So when Jose got home I filled him in, and we decided to go to the movies and see The Hobbit that night. We picked Cheng up from his B&B at about 6pm and headed to the mall for dinner before the movie at 9:15. It was cool to catch up with Cheng and hear about his experiences, he was absolutely buzzing from everything he had done.
We got to walk around the mall a bit, and played in a TimeOut type place for a little bit while waiting for the movie. At one stage, Cheng and I were playing Air Hockey and we were getting so into it that the puck kept on flying off the table. As a result one of the staff members came over and without saying anything, changed the puck to one that moved less on the table. I preferred the other one.
We watched the movie in 3D with chairs that recline slightly depending on how much you lean into them. I enjoyed the movie so much! I just wanted it to keep going, and I think Cheng was of the same frame of mind. However, Jose who actually hadn't seen the first one, agreed with what one of his friends had said the other day saying that the costumes and masks looked so fake. I of course defending Weta workshops bitterly.
We dropped Cheng off at his B&B deciding that he would be coming with us to a country club up in one of the surrounding hills tomorrow.

Family lunch

Day 26: Beach Time

Today, despite the late night, we were up early, half six, because today we were off to the beach.
It was just the family today, which was nice, just the four of us.
I had been told to pack for three days, cause it was a possibility that we would be staying 1 or 2 nights at the beach. We set off, stopping of to have a quick look around the towns of San Mateo and Corotina before reaching our destination. One interesting thing about the churches here is that they almost always face towards the west.
Our destination was the house of Guisella's cousin, was just a few kilometres from the beach of Bajamar.
When we first got there, there were only 5 people, Guisella's cousin Sonya, her two daughters, her husband and a grandson. Soon after arriving, we went to the beach. Sonya's husband decided he would take all of us, minus Guisella who didn't come, in his ute. We went to a little beach club which had places where people could barbeque, playgrounds and showers. We put down our stuff, put on some sunblock, and started off walking down the beach. A little later, Jose and I went swimming.
The water was insanely warm, it was warmer than bath water, it was crazy, but so nice, I felt like I could have stayed there all day. Also while at the beach, Jose and I spent some time making some sand sculptures, mine started off as a shark fin before becoming a turtle, and Jose went for Mordor.
It was very different to see lots of people riding horses along the beach. In fact in the whole surrounding area a lot of people roe horses.
We had another swim before it was time to leave.
Back at the beach home, we had lunch before just relaxing for a bit. The heat here was immense and it was very hard to cool down. I spent some time swinging in the hammock in the shade of a leafy tree escaping the heat.
Jorge then decided that we, him, Jose and I, would go have a look at another beach just down the road from the one we went to earlier. This beach was called Guacalillo and was quite stunning. It was a dark sand beach like the other, with cool cliff faces along parts of the beach. We climbed up some of them to see the vista from higher up. There were people racing around on quad bikes and a few people swimming too. Jose and I walked up one of the hills of the cliffs. I found it very hard to get up because I was wearing jandals that were now wet so my feet kept slipping on them, and there was no way I was taking off the jandals because who knows what creepy crawlies are lurking in the the grasses. Up there there were big black vultures flying around, I was waiting for one of them to take flight to get a video of it, but no matter how much noise and movement I made, I think I was just to far away.
We went back down, and by now the sun was starting to set, so we decided to jump into the water. It was just so relaxing to be in such warm water watching the sun set on a cloudless day. Until I felt something touch my leg. I think it was probably just a log or stone, but it was enough to freak me out and make me move a little bit down the beach. We got out probably about 20 minutes before the sun was to disappear, dried off, took some pictures and drove to a nice little hill to watch the sun set the rest of the way.
It was such a beautiful sight, the colours were amazing.
Once the sun had disappeared we headed back to the house. On the way we passed a little marshy lake, where Jorge spotted a whole lot of intensely pink flamingos, we got out and had a look.
And then, the funniest thing happened. Jose gave me a lesson on how to destroy jandals in less than 10 seconds. He was trying to get a closer look, since the birds were right out in the middle of this little lake. So he started to walk out onto the seeming dry muddy surface that stretched out into the lake. After taking about 4 steps, he realized it wasn't so dry after all, and his feet had sunk into the mud. In his desperation to escape the mud, he ripped the strap of the jandal out from the sole and had the jandals flapping around his feet as he came out. I was in stitches laughing.
We got back to the house, and others had arrived, more family. We had dinner separately to the others just because Guisella had brought stuff with us. It felt like we were on rations because she hadn't really brought much food with us, so she was planning out how best to spread it out, because we were going to be staying the night.
At about 8pm we headed to the beach club that we had been to earlier in the day. There were to be fireworks happening. Heaps of people had turned up and while we waited for the fireworks, Guisella and Jose were teaching me some dance moves saying that I would be needing them for New Year's.
The fireworks went off pretty much without a hitch, a few fell over and fired along the beach, I did feel a bit close for comfort, but I made sure there were a few people who were in front of me to protect me.
We then went back to the house, and went to bed a little later.
The sleeping arrangement was quite funny. We were all in this small little room that had a bunk bed with two single beds. So, I slept on the top, Jorge and Guisella slept tops-and-tails on the bottom, and Jose slept on a mattress with half his body underneath the bunks.
We fell asleep to the sound of cicadas and a heat whirring away, even though for me it wasn't cold.

Playa Guacalillo

Day 25: Tranquilo

Today, I did absolutely nothing all day.
I woke up just before 9 and I heard that there were other people in the house, they were little children and some parents too.
Since yesterday I had meet so many new people, it can be a bit overwhelming seeing people all the time. So, I decided to hide out in my room until they were gone. They ended up staying longer than I was expecting so I snuck into the shower, got out, and then went back into my room to hide some more. They left by 10am, at which time I emerged from my room.
All I did today was hang around the house watching YouTube videos, listening to music, and trying to read Jose's book. I find it very difficult to read because the grammar structure is so confusing and because of this it takes me like 5 minutes to read each page. I think I get the right meanings most of the time.
Jose slept most of the afternoon, and when he woke he wanted to watch a movie that he really likes that he was telling me about yesterday when we were walking home from the bus. It is called 'About Time'.
Turns out he couldn't end up finding it on Netflix so we couldn't watch it. I then discovered that Jose's family don't own any movies, and don't actually have a DVD player. This was a huge shock to me, because I always think that every family has a DVD player and DVDs. This meant that we couldn't just go down to the DVD store to hire out a movie. Although, Jose did try to see if we could borrow his uncle's DVD player, but he wasn't home at the time.
I didn't leave the house at all today, except for going for a run in the evening. While on my run, I was running past a big open bush area, and I could see some smoke coming from the place. Sure enough as I got closer there were big flames in lots of different areas so smoke was spilling out from the area into the suburb of San Francisco, and into my face. There were many firefighters and people watching from their houses. When I got home I smelt like smoke. I was told that at this time of year it was quite a common occurrence with the plants being dry and people throwing the smoldering cigarettes into the bushy areas. It was not a normal thing to be able to see a huge cloud of smoke from the front yard of the house, it reminded me of the time in New Zealand when we could see the smoke of the Pack Ice building burning down from Galloway park.
Another thing about today was the planes. Since I am nearing the end of High School, over the past year I have been thinking more and more about what I want to do once I leave. So, of course I have been thinking about it while I have been here too. One thing that has made a big impression on me this trip is the planes. Before doing the flight here, I was quite an anxious flyer, but after flying half way around the world by myself, I think I actually quite enjoy it now. Also, home is very close to the airport, so I am always seeing and hearing planes fly over head, and I always wonder where the planes are going. I think that right now, my career is having a turn towards something to do with planes.
The rest of the night was quiet, we ate dinner with dim light again, as for the past week one of the lights in the kitchen has been playing up, and then just sat around.
Jose and I watched a random movie Speed Racer. I don't think it is that old of a movie, but it seemed as though it was. I think random is the best word I can use to describe it.
I went to bed very late, or should I say early.

Since I didn't take any pictures today, here is a picture of my room

Day 24: Adrenaline Junkies

Rather than hitting the shops like I usually would have been had I been in New Zealand the day after Christmas, we spent the day at the theme park here called 'Parque Diversiones'.
Now, something about the house here, is that at night time, an alarm gets set for certain areas of the house, including the kitchen, but not the small lounge which has a window into the kitchen.
Yesterday, Jose had told me that we were to be leaving at about 8:30 in the morning. So, when I woke up at 7:30 I thought it would be time to get ready, plus Jose's parents are usually up at 5:30 anyway.
However, when I walked out of my room, nobody was there. I kept looking around thinking surely someone must be up, if not Jose then surely his parents. But as I ventured further and further into the little lounge, I could see that no one was in the kitchen and nothing was set out for breakfast.
Suddenly, there was this huge noise, I had set off the alarm. The sensor had picked me up through the little window into the kitchen... I stood there in shock not knowing what to do. I walked back to the doorway of my room, waiting for either Jose or one of his parents to come out, but it was nearly another 5 minutes before Jorge emerged from their bedroom. The alarm had stopped in the meantime.
All he said to me was "Tranquilo" :)
I jumped in and had a shower, and when I got out there were two of Jose's friends at the kitchen table, Rodolfo and Josue, turns out they were coming too.
We left just after 8:30.
The price of the tickets surprised me a bit, they were $15 USD. I think I was expecting it to be a bit most expensive, like it would be in New Zealand.
I wanted to keep my camera with me, but the others said it wouldn't be a good idea to be leaving it in the places that they supply to put personal property before each ride. So it went in the locker that we got  with the stuff the others had brought too.
After not having been on a rollercoaster for probably 5 years, I was quite nervous.
We started off on one called 'Boomerang'. It took you backwards up a slope before releasing you doing loops, then being pulled up another slope, before going back the way you came, but backwards, hence the name boomerang. Jose and I sat right up the front, making me even more nervous.
However, once we were going, I loved it. I got off the ride buzzing.
So we did it a few more times since there were no crowds, during which another one of Jose's friends, Julito, arrived.
We did all the rides at the park, from the tower type, to water park types to fling you all around types.
But on none of them, not a single one, did I make a noise of either fear or excitement, in some cases I would actually talk on the ride. I would just sit there smiling without a sound.
The water rides were interesting since it wasn't exclusively a water theme park. No one was in togs, or anything better suited for water. There were two water rides, one in a little blow up, 2 person boat, that went down a hydroslide, and the other, a big group ring ride.
I came out wet from the waist down on the first, but I was far better of than those who went with Josue. This is because he knew a trick to get really wet, so those who went with him, including Jose, got saturated all over.
We had a quick lunch, well, it would have been quicker if I was by myself. See I went to a place called Spoon, which is a cafe/Costa Rican style food place, which had hardly any queue, so my food was ready in about 5 minutes. While the other 4 decided to go to Taco Bell, which had a mountain of people at it. Being the person who doesn't want to sit down at a table by myself, I waited probably about half an hour while they waited for their food.
After lunch, we went on some more rides. Ones that probably aren't the best after just eating a whole heap of food, but, hey, none of us had an issue.
My favourite ride of the day was actually the one that before going on it freaked me out the most. This was because the ride before we went on it, there seemed to be an issue with it because they did a ride with no one on it, to seemingly check things were ok. It was one of those rides where you all sit down on two tiers and get spun around and flipped back and forth. Turns out later in the day they actually stopped people riding on it. Freaky.
At about 3:30 I found out the the godchild of Guisella and Jorge was being baptised at 5pm, and we were supposed to be going too. So of course, I started to make us move along, and cause I wanted to get my camera out and take pictures of the place. But Jose just decided to say we wouldn't be able to make it in time, and said not for me not to rush.
However, we ended up leaving about 30 minutes later by bus, and left the other 3 there.
Turns out, the second bus we took, while it got us in the general area of home, we had to walk quite a while, ended up taking about 30 minutes. We got home just after 6 when everyone was arriving home from the baptism.
While, we had missed that, there was another event for us to go to. This event was at the aunty of Guisella's house, and was for taking down the little Christmas shrine that every house has.
There were so many people that I didn't know, which sometimes just makes me want to hide.
There was a whole little ritual that happened with the 'shrine' or as they call it here a 'portal', this took about half an hour, before we had lots of food.
Supposedly every house with a portal has to have a little event when they are about to take it down for the year. Jose told me that's how people get fat.
We then got home, and just relaxed for the rest of the night.
Turns out that Jorge and Guisella had left the aunty's house an hour before us, and had gone to another house for dinner. I thought they were already in bed, it had just been lost in translation.

Taking a nap with my new friend

Day 23: Christmas!!!

Christmas day was here!
I got up at about 8:30 to find everyone including Melania who had actually stayed the night, eating breakfast in the kitchen. After breakfast, we all sat down in the lounge and opened presents.
Outside the door of my bedroom there had been a stack from Guisella and Jorge, so the three of us children each had a whole pile to open. At this time I also gave the presents I had brought from New Zealand to the family.
They all really liked the gifts, and I liked mine too. I got some Costa Rican t-shirts, sunglasses, a Costa Rican flag, a copy of Jose's second book, and a photo frame with two photos of my family here.
The amount of presents that Melania and Jose got was astounding, they were mostly clothes.
Immediately after opening all the presents I got the Christmas songs playing, hung the flag up in my room and put the picture frame on the bedside table.
I got ready for the day, and then followed Guisella and Jose to the ranch at the neighbours' house (Jose's godparents). We started to set up the area for the big Christmas lunch of 36 people, which included getting tables and chairs from different houses, cleaning them, and then arranging them so that they weren't in the heat of the day. The weather today was perfect, there was not a cloud in the sky, and therefore it was boiling hot.
Once it was all set up, we returned home and just relaxed for a bit. It was about 1:00 when things kicked off. First off all we had some of the younger ones come to our house to show us some of their presents, before we all headed over to the ranch for lunch.
There were so many new people that I had never met before, and, of course, I hardly remember any of their names just because there were so many new faces.
We sat down and had a lunch of ham, bread, salad, pasta, rice and chickpeas which was accompanied by ice tea and fresca for me. It was quite a different spread of food to what I am used to, but good all the same.
We then just sat around for a while, talking at the tables, having photos taken, and running round with the little children.
Then it was time for dessert.
Now, in New Zealand, for Christmas we usually have so many different types of dessert that we pick from, well in reality we eat them all. Here there was just one little one, that we each had an individual little container that we ate it out of. Rebe had made it and it was a delicious mousse.
The coolest thing was the container that it was served in though. As it came with a bottom and a top, and you took the top of and attached it upside down to the bottom and it became a little stand for the dessert.
After dessert, there was more present giving. People ended up with more piles of presents than what they could hold, since every relative seemed to give everyone a present. I gave out the rest of my presents at this time too.
The celebrations kept going, and while people came and went there was never really less than 24 at any one time.
It was about 5:00 when things started to die down, I was now inside the ranch, with Jose, Melania, Rodolfo, Laura and one of the relatives from England and they were discussing the presidential elections that are to happen next year.
It was very interesting to listen to, and I thought the relative from England had some very sound logic about it all. They came to the conclusion that none of the candidates was any good. How great.
After this, I spent about half an hour telling Rodolfo all the issues in New Zealand, which he was quite interested about. Both these conversations were so captivating that I barely noticed that by the time they were finished, everyone had gone and everything had been cleaned up.
We returned home, and Jorge opened up the rest of his presents in front of us, including Melania, Francisco, Rebe, Naty and Teto (Ernesto). Also, during the day I had received more presents from Melania, Laura and Rebe, it was very kind of them all.
A little while after Rebe, Naty and Teto left, we all headed off to their house for them all to show us the presents they had received in the day. It was a lot too.
I had seen their house multiple times, but this was the first time I had been in it. It was a very nice two storeyed house that had spectacular views towards San Jose.
After we had been shown everyone's presents I had a quick little game of FIFA Teto. He scored very early on, and I was just being told we had to go when I managed to slot one in. I didn't mind leaving at that point with a draw.
We then just got home and chilled out for the rest of the night, listening to more Christmas music.
What an awesome Christmas experience for my first Christmas outside of New Zealand.

Not even everyone

Day 22: Burnt Pavlova and Christmas Songs

Christmas Eve was finally upon us today!
While today was not a day filled with going to heaps of places, it ended up being quite a busy day once it got off the ground.
When I can sleep in, I take the opportunity, today was one of those such days. I woke up at 9am, and as usual hardly said a word until my stomach was full with breakfast.
After breakfast, I realised that I had quite a bit to do today. I had to finish wrapping Christmas presents for tomorrow, which meant heading out to get some present labels, make a pavlova, including buying the ingredients, and most important of all filling myself with christmas spirit by means of Christmas songs. The songs started early. After breakfast, the computer was plugged into the speaker system, and the music started to play, and really it didn't stop until the end of the day. I shocked everyone with my knowledge of Christmas songs and I think I even shocked myself. The morning was spent just bouncing around the house to the jolly tunes of Christmas while Jose cleaned the fronts of the kitchen cabinets. I offered to help, but as usual the response was 'tranquilo' which is used to mean 'relax'.
Just before we set out, I got Jose to come into my room to try to help me sort out who I was giving what presents to. In preparation for coming here, we had bought specific presents for the main family members, and then other things for other family members, who I would be giving them to was the task that was at hand. It was very difficult as hind sight is a wonderful thing and I wished I had known more of who was in Jose's family before I arrived so I could have been slightly better prepared with what sort of presents to bring with me. After a long while I managed to assign most of the gifts to a family member bar a few which I thought I could decide on later.
It was about midday when Jose and I braved the heat and set out walking to grab some present labels and the ingredients for the pavlova. There had been a debate between Jose and Guisella as to what type of cream I was needing, Jose was saying evaporated milk and Guisella was saying sweet cream... I was just standing there thinking, I just want cream, normal cream that comes in a bottle :) Sometimes specific food items are very hard to explain. Also, both sugar and cornflour encountered problems with translation... we seemed to get there in the end.
The shop where we bought the present labels was just around the corner, right beside the oh so tempting bread shop. I bought 10 labels which I thought was going to be enough. We then walked to Wal-Mart which was insanely busy, just like all the supermarkets are in New Zealand on the 24th. It is as though the world cannot cope with having supermarkets closed for one day and everyone has to buy twice as much as what they need for Christmas day and take ages to do so.
It took a while to get through Wal-Mart and they had everything I needed except for kiwifruit. Jose told me that we would be able to get it at a fresh food place just around the corner from their house.
So we walked home dropped off the stuff before grabbing the kiwifruit from the local shops. It is funny, because even though this group of shops is just around the corner, and almost everyday I have been driven past it, I had never visited it until today. There are some quite good shops. I think I will be venturing to Cosechas (The fruit drink place) sometime in the not so distant future.
We got home, and Jose went off with Melania, and I started to do some wrapping.
A little while later, Guisella told me that she had received the cornflour and electric mixer from Rebe and I could start on the pavlova. Now, I have only ever made pavlova once before, and I mean that was in no means a disaster, but neither did I do it all by myself. But, I thought, hey, I'm a kiwi, this should be in my blood.
I was using a recipe from Annabel Langbein and after wasting one egg, getting the mixture all over my hands and not being able to locate a bowl scraper, I spooned the mixture out onto the baking tray and it looked great.
The next hurdle was the oven. The oven in our house has two elements and therefore 3 different settings, just the top, just the bottom, or both. Guisella thought just the bottom, but I thought the one at home in New Zealand has just the top, so I told her to put it just for the top one. Also, the recipe called for the temperature to be at 180 degrees celsius for the first 5 minutes before dropping it down to 130 degrees for another 60 minutes. I set it going, and started on the dishes (scrapping out the left over mixture from the bowls and eating it).
I had set a timer, and I looked in to the oven after 4 minutes, and to my horror, the top was completely brown already. It had 61 more minutes in the oven and the top was already brown.
I quickly opened the oven and grabbed it out just as Guisella walked into the kitchen. I half explained to her what the problem was, and then we rushed off to the grandma's house to use her oven. The recipe said it was important not to open the oven while it was cooking, so yes, by now I did not have high hopes for the pavlova.
We put the pavlova in the grandma's oven, but this oven was in Fahrenheit. So Guisella put it at 300 degrees, but I thought that might be too high; I was becoming over protective of the pavlova and didn't want it to burn. This time only the bottom element was on, and I decided that it should be turned down to 200 degrees because there was confusion as to whether the oven was actually in Fahrenheit or not.
I did not leave that kitchen for the whole time it was cooking. After 40 minutes, I decided to actually check to see whether 200 degrees Fahrenheit was the correct temperature. Turns out it should have been at 270 degrees Fahrenheit for the whole hour. We decided that we would increase it to 270 for the last 20 minutes and leave it on for another 10 minutes after that. Who says you can't play around with pavlova, we even opened the oven lots to check to see how it was going.
Once all the time was up, we left it is the oven to cool, but it was looking swell.
While I was waiting I had a quick Skype with the family in New Zealand, since it was Christmas day there already, and Jose arrived back a little later.
Just as we were finishing up the Skype call, when the family was just about to press hang up, Guisella ran into the room to say 'Feliz Navidad' and made it to the computer just as they hung up :(
Later I grabbed the pavlova out of the oven since it was only very slightly warm, and left it on the bench in our kitchen. My worry now was that the centre wasn't cooked enough and the pavlova was going to cave in.
At 8pm we were set to go to mass at the church just around the corner.
Before we went, we had a quick dinner, and I made the cream for the pavlova, with a whisk, with the extra weight, I was certain that it was going to cave.
Nevertheless, we got dressed up for church and headed there for the Christmas eve service.
It was a different church to last time, and was a nice little ceremony that lasted an hour. I understood nothing really though, and only went by cues from those around me.
After church on the way home, we saw two car accidents, a common sight here, a sad occurrence the day before Christmas though.
Then at home, all of us, us four, plus Melania and her boyfriend Francisco, sat down for tamales, and pavlova while listening to all the Christmas songs I could find. The pavlova turned out to be amazing!
A little later Melania and Francisco left leaving just the four of us and the music.
It was a nice quiet evening ahead of the huge festivities tomorrow with a whopping 36 people set to attend the Christmas day lunch.

The final product

Day 21: Bumpy Rides and Smoking Volcano

Days like these are ones that make you feel extremely lucky and fortunate.
What an awesome day today was, one of the best days yet.
Yesterday I had been told that we were off to an active volcano today called Turialba. This volcano can be seen smoking away during the day from Heredia, and it quite a cool sight, and we were off to see it.
At 7:30 in the morning, 4 of us, Jose, Jorge, Rodolfo and I, headed off. Turialba is on the other side of San Jose, through a city called Cartago and was like a 1hr 30min drive.
Driving here, while interesting outside the vehicle, it is also interesting inside the vehicle for me too. The family have a van that can seat 12, and I always sit in the back row where I can stretch out my legs. However, sitting at the back there, I can't sit up straight because my head hits the roof. Also, in Costa Rica in the town streets there are so many speed bumps. Like if you think we have a lot in New Zealand, you haven't seen Costa Rica. In a stretch of 400 metres, there can be 5. They aren't just small ones either, these are ones that every time we go over them, you get lifted off your seat, it is important to be ready for them, so you are in a comfortable position.
When we first arrived at the base of the volcano, it didn't look that high, and we first went to a little cultural tourist place, called Monumento Nacional Guayabo, which had relics of an old Costa Rican village. Something that was interesting about the place was the prices. For Costa Ricans, it only costs 1000 col, but for foreigners it is a whopping 6000 col. I thought that seemed a bit crazy.
The place was quite a nice little walk, seeing some rock carvings, the old type of grave site, and stone remains of an uncovered village. Also, while at the place, there was another little walk that we did. This took us just through some of the bush in the surrounding area. We saw lots of little ants carrying leaves, dragonflies, awesome little frogs that were amazingly well camouflaged, I had no idea how Jorge could actually spot them, but the best thing of all was that we spotted a wild toucan high up in the canopy. It was an amazing sight, from seeing one in a cage yesterday to now seeing one out in the wild. All the while we were here Jorge seemed to be on his phone. I soon found out why, I think.
We left this place, after Jorge gave the mostly blind person who was in control of helping park the cars 2 oranges, and headed back up the gravel road we had come from.
We stopped in this little village place, and a few seconds later a blue Toyota Hilux pulled up beside us and a man jumped out. Very soon, this man was going to show himself to be quite the person.
Turns out he was one of the best friends of Jorge and he lived in the nearby area. We went to a little restaurant on the side of the road, which, Memo, the friend of Jorge, knew the owners of. He seemed to know everyone in this little village, as he said 'hello' to everyone who walked into the restaurant or simply passed by. We had an amazing lunch of rice and beans, this is not sarcasm, it was really good, accompanied with iced tea. After that we followed Memo up the road and parked the van.
Really I had no idea what we were doing, I never get told anything.
Before I knew it, the four of us were jumping in the back seat of Memo's Hilux, holding the cakes that were on the seats, and heading up the road towards the volcano.
Memo seemed very interested to know more about the land in New Zealand, and I soon found out why. After stopping at nearly every farm on the way up for Memo to give presents to children and a cake to each family, we arrived at his farm, about a third of the way up the volcano.
At this time I should probably let you know that the volcanoes here are not like the ones in New Zealand, they do not get snow, and nor are they all just rock. They have grass and trees and life.
First we pulled up at Memo's house, which I found out he built himself. It was perched on the side of the hill with amazing views out to towns below and on a cloudless day you are supposedly able to see the sea. The view was spectacular.
We then took a walk to some of the farm sheds to have a look at how things were done here. I was so surprise to see that there was equipment with a 'Waikato' label on it. Explains why he was so interested in the land of New Zealand.
We then saw how he had nice little barn stalls for the little calves, they were all quite timid, but one then started licking my hand. I think it must have been because it could smell the cake I had been holding.
The next thing I knew, the three young ones of us, were jumping in the back of the ute, not just the back seat, but the actual back, and heading up the volcano.
We picked up someone from one of the farms along the way, and continued on up. Very shortly after we set off, the road changed from relatively smooth gravely to rocks. While my bottom was fine because I was sitting on a big container that was in the back with us, Jose's and Rodolfo's were taking a beating from all the bumps. Because the volcano is active right now, it is actually close to the public. But because we were lucky enough to be with Memo, he had keys to get us through the big gates that keep out everyone else. The highest point of the volcano is 3440m above sea level, and the climb up to the top we very steep at times. There were two times when we Memo stopped the car to make some adjustments to how it was set up, and before we started going up again, we would roll back down a bit. I have to say that was quite freaky. But it was so much fun riding on the back and I had faith in the Japanese Toyota construction. We made it to the top, and
what a sight it was. On one side there was the fuming volcano and on the other, towns and cities far far below. It was amazing.
Up there it was quite windy and soon it was getting cold as the day was drawing on. We spent about 1hr at the top, exploring all the different parts, seeing all the different views we could and saying all the 'ooohs' and 'aaaahs' that we could. It was honestly incredible.
It was about 4:30 by the time we started to head down, and yes, we did go back down on the back of the ute. This time Jose and Rodolfo joined me on top of the container for a slightly more comfortable ride. The cold of the altitude coupled with the wind from the moving made us chilled to the bone, which didn't help us keep our grip on whatever we could hold on to.
We arrived back at Memo's house after dropping of the farmer guy, and by this time all my hands were absolutely numb, and we tried to get as much of the fading sun as we could. It was at this point that Jose took to mocking me for wearing shorts while they all wore longs. This is because earlier in the day it was so hot, and I had been exclaiming how I couldn't believe how anyone could wear long pants with the heat. I was now getting it all back on me.
The colours of the sky as the sun set were incredible as we sat down and feasted on cheese toast with cake and fizzy drink, it was very appreciated.
The evening was incredibly cold, and we began our descent about 40 minutes after sundown. That was after waiting about 20 minutes in the freezing car for Memo to stop talking to some other people.
We got down from the volcano, said goodbye and many thanks to Memo and headed home.
It was an incredible day.

Up the top of the volcano