The zip line tour the day before was a hit with everyone. The group returned full of energy and stories of the view of the rainforest from high above. Darcy had been scared. She cried. By the end of the zip line she was grinning ear to ear and an expert. Everyone made sure to tell me her story of bravery. She wasn't the only one apprehensive. The Spanish teacher had her own moment. They all got to see the volcano in its glory without the clouds.
That night we were left alone to do what we wanted. Most of the group went left into town. Our small group of 5 adults and 5 kids turned right into the volcano area. We ate dinner at a place recommended by our hotel bartender. We were told to eat the beef, which I did. It was a fine meal, but the beef was a tad too done and it wasn't anything I couldn't get back home in the States.
The cab ride back to our hotel was quite entertaining as two of the men in our group insist on acting out their words in place of using Spanish. Madison and Darcy have found this quite amusing in their father, but I was in the cab with one of the other fathers and seriously thought I would pee my pants when he got annoyed at the cab driver who stared at him as if he were from outer space. It had been the same cab driver who brought him to the restaurant two hours prior and so he felt the cab driver couldn't be that stupid.
"Dude. You brought me here like two hours ago. You seriously have to remember that. How many other fares of Americans have you brought to this restaurant tonight? Remember where you picked me up? To bring me here? Well, take me back there." All of this while gesturing with his hands and arms and upper body. It took one of the kids in the cab to speak Spanish to get us back to the hotel, the name of which we had forgotten. We pretty much told the kids to tell him to follow that other cab, the one with the rest of our group inside it.
We ended the night on our porch of the bungalow imbibing on the country's drink of choice:
Our tour guide told us: "Put it in coca cola, it tastes like rum. Put it in fruit juice, it tastes like vodka. Put it in glass with lime, it tastes like tequila. Drink it and drink it, it tastes good and makes people happy."
We felt it was important to get some of the culture and so we purchased a bottle in town and tasted it in coca cola and then did shots mixed with fresh limes. It tasted, both ways, like what I expect a glass of gasoline to taste like out of the lawn mower. The after taste reminded me of tequila. My stomach and head the next day reminded me not to have any more.
The next morning came sooner then we wanted. I skipped the breakfast buffet as the stomach was churning from the culture of the night before. The parrots of the hotel were up and with us at breakfast to say good-bye, as were the bartenders and hotel employees.
The ride on the bus was long and very wild. The roads in Costa Rica aren't paved and are probably a lane and a half wide so as you come around the corner on the side of a cliff you are hoping no one is coming around in the opposite direction. Many of our group was popping Dramamine like lifesavers, but I just chose to close my eyes and look out the window occasionally. We weren't going far just around the lake, but the trip took 4 hours due to the road conditions.
At one point as we barreled down the road, our driver, Wilmer, who spoke not a lick of English, slowed the bus, stopped, put the bus into reverse, backed us up and stopped. Our tour guide, Alonzo, got on the microphone and told us that a howler monkey was outside sitting on top of an electrical pole. We all got off the bus and snapped picture after picture of what we thought we would have seen in the rainforest the previous day.
Turned out the monkey was lame and not at all impressed with all of the humans snapping his photo. We piled into the bus and Wilmer continued down the road. Our next scheduled adventure was a sky walk tour over the rainforest on swinging bridges, and Alonzo was determined to keep us on track.
Lunch was at a roadside place where we ate chicken and beans and rice while the rain came down. There was a little tourist shop attached to the restaurant, but it was full of things we sell here in Florida at the beach shops and so we all bypassed it and got back on to the bus.
By the time we got to the rainforest the sky was dark and so we all put on our rain gear and split into four groups with four different tour guides. We headed off in different directions and different bridges. The weather was muggy despite walking deep into the forest, but there were no mosquitoes as we were too high up.
The first bridge wasn't so high and there was netting along the sides so I was able to cross it. I had investigated this before arriving via the website and so I felt comfortable with the netting. I did not look down and yelled at anyone who wanted to jump up and down on the bridge as we crossed it. I had Darcy and Heather on my side as well and so everyone was quite kind....for awhile.
The views were amazing from the bridges and we climbed higher and higher into the clouds. I got brave enough to peer down and over some of the bridges, but I had to stop to do it. The tour guide ended up with me and he found it quite amusing to make fun of my fear, but he was also kind and did not let the kids make the bridge swing too much.
As we rounded our last bridge the rain came down hard. I did not care as I had no plans to scurry or run across the longest and highest bridge of them all. I was first in line with both hands holding on to the sides and so we were somewhat wet by the time we got back to the bus. We were the second group to emerge from the forest and so the next two groups were soaked through their clothes by the time they climbed aboard. Alonzo would not let them sit down and so they stood next to us dripping on us as the bus took us to our new hotel.
It wasn't far down the road and by the time we pulled into the tiny town the rain was gone. The hotel was in the middle of houses and the children ran out of their houses to stare at the large bus and the Americans. They sat on their porches or stood in their yards to talk about us and gawk as we unloaded and hiked to our rooms.
We ended up in an upstairs room in a line with our cohorts. We all had balconies that butted up against each other and so we spent a lot of time climbing from one balcony to another as we opened bottles of wine and snacked on peanuts. Eventually the others discovered us and we invited them over to the dark side for some needed relief of being off the bus.
View from our balcony
The proprietor of the hotel took our dirty laundry and wet clothes and told us it would all be done by morning. The kids took off and went exploring in the town while we relaxed. Dinner would once again be on our own, but for now we just needed to enjoy each other on solid ground.
