Adventures in Costa Rica

Friday morning we got up early to go have breakfast with Jonle and no water.  I asked Marta if she could turn on the water to our bathroom and she expressed surprise that it wasn’t working.  She turned on something and we could hear a noise in the walls, but no water.  So she filled up a plastic tub with water and brought it up for me.  I washed my hair and bathed in this bucket of freezing water and then used the water to flush the toilet.  Then I got another tub for Cailtyn to do the same.  So cold showers was not as bad as it could get!  We just told ourselves tomorrow we can have hot showers at home!  We had breakfast in a typical restaurant in San Joaquin with Jonle.  I had gallo pinto and Caitlyn had egg and meat and coffee with a spider floating in it.  Actually, she sent that coffee back and got a new pot.  The food was delicious, with handmade tortillas—my last gallo pinto of the trip!  We took the students into San Jose for souvenir shopping and Laura Stough and I went to the Special Education Department to say hi to people there and make sure they know we are still interested in working with them. 

Back at CPI I went to my last Spanish class—I managed to finish my book last night so my Spanish teacher and I were both able to stay awake.  We ended class early to do evaluations and for the students to present their project on family structure and celebrations.  We enjoyed their presentation which was accompanied by singing dancing, and props!  For our final night we went to a restaurant near San Jose, called Machu Picchu, a Peruvian seafood restaurant.  It was very nice and a wonderful way to end our trip.  Back at the casa, Caitlyn and I packed and used the leftover tub of Caitlyn’s bathwater to flush the toilet.  Marta had brought us a two liter bottle of water to brush our teeth with, so that was nice—especially since Caitlyn washed her shoes in our tub! 

We got on the bus at 5:30 Saturday morning to go to the airport.  It is amazing how fast these five weeks have gone.  I think all of us have been challenged and dealt with difficult situations, especially our experience in La Carpio.  We leave with a great appreciation for the Costa Rican culture, as well as a greater appreciation for the things we have back home.  While I will be glad to be home, I am also looking forward to my next trip to Costa Rica!

Our last real excursion was a trip to Poas volcano.  When it started pouring rain about 4 a.m., I had my doubts about this trip, but Percy seemed optimistic.  We had been driving about 20 minutes when Luis and Percy discovered we had a flat tire and we had to find a “bomba” which is a place that repairs tires.  It turned out the rim was cracked, so they had to buy a new one.  We all waited in the bus while the wheel was replaced and then got back on the way to Poas.  On the drive Percy looked over at the volcano and said it was clear and was excited that we would be able to see the crater.  When we got there, still pouring rain, one of the park rangers told Percy he had just been up by the crater and it was clear, so we hurried up the path in the pouring rain and strong wind.  At the top, we were greeted with fog and the smell of sulfur.  Although we waited in the pouring rain for about 15 minutes, the clouds didn’t clear and everyone was freezing.  I was wet up to mid-thigh.  We finally gave up and went back down to the visitor’s center and gift shop.  Percy had promised the students souvenir shopping at three places:  the gift shop at the volcano, another souvenir shop, and a shop near the restaurant where we were having lunch.  The second shop where we stopped was on the side of the mountain and they had fresh strawberries grown in the area, which were delicious, and samples of Costa Rican wine.  I noticed the cashier keeping track of how much money our group spent and had Percy’s name written on the list.  I asked Percy if he was getting a kickback and he said he was getting free cheese and the more money our group spent, the more cheese he got.  Unfortunately they were out of cheese, so he was going to have to get his cheese later, or that is what he told us.

The restaurant where we ate had typical food: rice and beans with whatever meat you chose.  I had a vegetarian plate and the group had arroz con pollo.  We all had strawberry and water drinks, which were great.  They had a huge wood fire place, which they started up when we got there and I was able to get my pants almost dry.  The girls went next door for souvenir shopping and then we all headed back to Spanish class.  Again, I was reading my book and my teacher dropped her book twice, which indicated she was not enthralled with my reading.  For break we had bean empanadas—my favorite!  Tonight was our last night with our family for dinner, and always it was delicious.  When we got upstairs our water was just trickling, so Marta turned it off.  I thought she was going to turn it back on, but she didn’t so Caitlyn missed her shower!

On Wednesday morning, we scheduled a visit through the Humanitarian Foundation to La Carpio, one of the poorest sections of San Jose, to volunteer for a morning.  We weren’t sure what to expect, but this is the section of town that my Spanish teachers had told me even the police were scared to go to.  This neighborhood is built on the fringe of a huge landfill.  Standing at the end of the street near the clinic, you look down the road and see a mountain, which is a mountain of trash.  We were meeting Gail Nystrom, the foundation director at the clinic, which was built with funding from the foundation.  Upstairs is a preschool also supported by the clinic where children come and receive instruction and support; it provides a structure to their day, with thematic “units”, songs, and artistic activities.  There were two schools in the neighborhood that we saw and these are the schools that have three shifts of students each day due to the huge numbers of children in the neighborhood.  While we were waiting Percy talked to one of the woman who had just received a “house” from the foundation and asked her if she would take us to see her house.  Her house cost $4000 and consisted of corrugated tin walls and ceilings with three tiny “rooms.”  She had a “sala” or living area with a small stove, and a sink.  The slanted roof of corrugated tin over the sink held the family’s toothbrushes and toothpaste tucked behind a board that the tin was nailed to.  The small couch and chair were worn out with holes in them.  There was a very tiny bedroom for the oldest daughter, who was a teenager, which was like a closet with a small bed in it.  The other bedroom was about twice the size with a mattress on the floor; this was the bedroom for the woman and her four other children.  The woman was so pleased to have this new house and a safe place to sleep at night with her children.  La Carpio is rows of houses like this, interspersed with small businesses and more substantial houses.  As people work and save money, they might convert the tin of one wall to a cement wall, or put in a cement floor.  Gradually, they will build up a house.  As they replace a tin wall, they will put the old piece out for someone else to take as that person “upgrades” his or her own house.  Some of the oldest houses (15 years old) do look like small houses you would see in another village somewhere, but no one has a title to their land or house.  They all started as squatters building shacks out of tin or whatever other materials the people could find.  Most of the people in La Carpio are Nicaraguan and many are undocumented.  Crime is unbelievably high.  We saw adolescent boys walking among groups of school children.  Percy told us the drug dealers start early trying to make customers out of the children.

We went on a tour of the clinic which has one doctor and files of over 5,000 patients.  This clinic doesn’t receive government support because many people are undocumented and are not part of the social security system, so the clinic relies on donations and support from the Humanitarian Foundation.  Ambulances do not come to La Carpio at night, so women who are pregnant need to plan to get to a hospital before they go into labor unless they start early in the morning.  There is a small police station next door to the clinic, and we were told that some women just go to the police station at night and babies have been born on the couch in the station. 

Our volunteer activity consisted of walking with a group of children down the street picking up trash.  One of the things they have been trying to teach the children is that their lives will be improved if they are not living in trash.  We all put on latex gloves and headed out with large trash bags.  It is hard to describe how dirty the streets were and how disgusting the trash was.  We walked down one street and filled about 6 large trash bags full.  The trash would be floating in stagnant water in parts and there was a dead decomposing rat on top of one pile.  Percy told me once he was helping with trash pick up and there was a dead cat in the road that had been there a while and was partially liquid.  He wouldn’t touch it but a small boy just picked it up and hoisted it on his shoulder to take to the dump.  The children were great and very enthusiastic about getting the trash, especially one little girl who looked about 3, who had to have the glove tied in a knot at the wrist to keep it on her hand.  Gail drove us along the land fill to see how huge it was; you could smell the methane gas as we drove by; this is the environment that these children are living in every day.  This was one of the most eye-opening experiences our group had and I think we all learned a great deal from it.

After class, Caitlyn and Jonle and I went to the mall to order a birthday cake for Jonle’s son Diego, to buy mother’s day gifts for the Monteverde teachers, and to eat dinner.  I have never seen such an ordeal as ordering the cake and I told Jonle I was not sure that she would actually end up with a cake.  There were three people working there and the two women passed the task off to the man, who seemed to not know what was going on as he repeatedly had to ask the women how to do every step of the order.  I wanted to just take the order form from him and fill it out myself because I could have figured it out faster than it was taking him.  Jonle said it went better than the last time she ordered a cake there.  We ate at a Persian Mexican restaurant (what a combination!) and I had excellent falafel!  We got home after 9; our family was asleep but we still had cold water!

On Tuesday we went for a tour of Café Britt, where we learned about the history of coffee and how coffee was made beginning from the seed, to harvesting the beans, processing the beans, and making coffee.  The tour was very entertaining, as always, and there was a very large crowd with people from all over, from Australia to England to several states, to Chile!  Kelsey and Stefani were involved in the tour—Kelsey was taken off to find a coffee bean in the cafetal (coffee farm) and Stefani demonstrated how to taste coffee.  We were all impressed that she was able to give a slurp loud enough for us to hear.  We ended the tour with a trip to the souvenir shop, lots of samples, and lunch in their café.  I mentioned to Luis our driver that we didn’t get a sample of the coffee liqueur this time, so he went over and asked for one.  The woman first told him since he was the driver, he couldn’t have one, but I noticed he got one after all.  Lunch was delicious, typical food with a great salad bar and green tomato and passion fruit soup! 

We were late getting back to Spanish class and it was almost impossible for me to stay awake after that lunch.  I am reading a book in class, Única, mirando el mar.  This is a fictional story about people who live on the fringes of the dump of San Jose; the people are known as buzos (divers) and build houses and find everything they need from digging through other people’s trash.  Although the book is a novel, it is based on real events.  They have been planning to close this dump for years, but can’t get another community to agree to allow a new dump or landfill to be constructed.  It is a very interesting book, but I am just reading it aloud to my Spanish teacher and I notice that she drops the book occasionally in class, which signals to me that she has dozed off.  I am trying to read it at home so that we can just discuss in class and I don’t put us both to sleep.

Tuesday night we went to Kelsey’s Tica mom’s house for the famous Costa Rican finger/toe nail painting.  Caitlyn had palm trees and Pura Vida painted on her toes.  While butterflies and flowers are most popular, I had Mr. Weasley’s image painted on my toenails, even his red bow tie.  Of course from a distance, it looks like I have dirt on my big toes, but I know Mr. Weasley will be honored.

We had a leisurely breakfast Sunday morning and left for Cahuita National Park around 9.  We started with a hike along the beach under the trees.  Right at the beginning of the train we saw three sloths, a juvenile on a tree by himself taking a nap, and a mother with her baby moving around very slowly in a more distant tree.  Farther along, we met a troupe of howler monkeys, moving through the trees.  Percy said this was two troupes, and there sure seemed to be quite a few.  We watched for a while as they crossed the trail very close to us.  There were lots of mothers with babies on their backs and males sounding out warnings to the tourists.  Farther down the trail we saw a white-faced monkey sitting by herself on a tree, as if she were posing for us.  It turned out that she was sick (repeated vomiting) and perhaps this was the reason she was off by herself.  Although Percy was looking for vipers, we only saw lizards, spiders, and lots of leaf cutter ants.  We had to circle around a huge mound right in the middle of the trail with a hole in the center where some tourist had stepped and crashed through. 

After our hike we relaxed at the beach and jumped in the waves, which were very strong.  Under our feet we kept feeling something that no one wanted to touch.  I reached down and grabbed a sand dollar and we watched the tiny feet wiggle on the underside as the animal tried to get its bearings back.  They were literally everywhere under our feet.  We got out and showered off and went for lunch at a hotel on the beach.  Right in front of the restaurant was a street vendor selling “patís” which are baked pastries with either a spicy meat filling, plantain filling, or pineapple filling.  This is a food that is traditional to the Afro-Caribbeans and Percy told us one family makes them and the children and grandchildren carry them from the house up to this point to sell.  As soon as a batch is brought to the stall, they are almost all sold out.  I bought a pineapple one (the last one) and people were lined up waiting for the next batch, which was coming in 20 minutes. 

After our lunch at Cahuita, we began the long drive back to Heredia, which was pretty uneventful.  We got to our house just before the rain started and were very disappointed to learn that we still had no hot water.  Marta told me that her brother-in-law had been there on Friday but she forgot to mention the shower to him.  Gerardo thinks he may have to buy a new shower head (which is the part that heats up the water).  Also of interest in front of our house was a pile of broken pieces of asphalt (the road is just a series of holes and rocks) with a pipe covered by a plastic bag sticking out of the middle and water seeping out into the road.  Marta told me on Friday she noticed a broken water pipe and is hoping to be able to call Monday morning to get someone from the city to come fix it.  She hadn’t noticed it on Friday till it was too late to call someone.  I asked if they didn’t have an emergency number for the weekends, but she said she didn’t think so.  It is hard for me to imagine leaving a city water pipe leaking all weekend long.  Also, there is this big pile of asphalt in the middle of a very busy road. 

Saturday morning we got up for breakfast and were delighted to see that the hotel had prepared gallo pinto for breakfast—well some of us were, anyway.  They also had eggs, toast, and sausage for the gringos.  I was amused to hear a Spaniard at the next table ask the waiter if they had plátanos.  “Plátanos maduros?” asked the waiter, surprised because there was a tray of fried plantains at the buffet.  “Plátanos” insisted the Spaniard.  After a couple of rounds of this, the Spaniard finally said, “bananas,” to which the waiter replied, “Ah, bananos.  No.” 

We all loaded into the bus and headed to Playa Manzanillo for a hike along the beach and up to a scenic overlook.  This area of the Caribbean coast is less developed than the Pacific side, so the roads are terrible, but there are fewer tourists and many more animals that can be seen.  On the way there we saw a sloth in a secropia tree that was out in the open.  We could see it moving around in the tree—often you see only a brown fur ball in the tree.  We watched it move slowly in the tree for the while and then drove on to the beach.  It was drizzling at first, but Maggie had brought her umbrella so it soon stopped.  We saw lots of crabs, including some very large ones, lizards, and a huge black spider which Percy plucked from her web so everyone could get a closer look.  Although he played around with her for a while, he couldn’t get any other volunteers to hold her.  We also found the noni fruit, which Percy explained had medicinal value.  It smells incredibly bad.  Percy told us that one time he was showing this fruit to a group and asking them to smell it.  One guy wasn’t paying attention and when it was held up to him, he took a big bite.  Then he threw up all over the place.  Smelling it, you can’t imagine how bad it would be to taste it.  

At the lookout point, we took lots of pictures and then walked around the beach a while and looked in the tidal pools.  We saw lots of crabs which blended into the rocks so well, you wouldn’t see them until they scurried across the rocks to get away from you.  We also saw water cockroaches, who had flattened themselves so close to the rocks they looked like fossils, but Percy assured me they were still alive, and small exotic fish swimming in the pools, along with sea urchins.  It looked like a small aquarium to me. The best find of the day was by Kristin, who found an eel in a small pool in the rock.  It was black with a bright yellow chain pattern and showed us its teeth when we looked at it.  Percy told the group to watch out, that it would jump and just then the eel struck out toward Stefani.  Everyone jumped and no one was hurt, but I am pretty sure most of us thought Percy was just kidding about the jumping.  He encouraged the eel to swim back to the ocean as a wave broke and we continued on with our hike.  The only other adventure on the hike was the wiping out in the mud of Caitlyn and Kelsey, the two Croc wearers, giving Percy another opportunity to comment about the appropriateness of Crocs for hiking, but both girls remain loyal.  We drove into Puerto Viejo for lunch and to walk around and look in the shops.  For lunch Percy and I had the Caribbean rice and beans, which is cooked in coconut milk and really has a unique flavor; the rest of the gringos had burgers and fries.  We stopped at Playa Negra, a black beach of fine volcanic rock.  I walked along the beach, crossing in three places small streams of fresh water (very cold) emptying into the ocean.  Small boys were in the streams with large nets, but I am not sure what they were catching—by the time I got up to them they had dispersed.  The most interesting sites I saw on the beach were the tourists, including a woman my age (or younger but lots of time in the sun) wearing a string thong bikini.  I remember when I was in high school, no one would wear a bikini unless you had no bulges; I saw that the rules have changed and are retroactive even for my generation.

As we drove up to the hotel, a three-fingered sloth had just fallen out of a tree near the reception area and people were gathered around to see her.  You can’t imagine how slowly they move until you watch them, and it was fascinating to be this close to one.  We could see the ecosystem that was her body—the algae growing on her fur, the small insects crawling around and the moths hovering close to the surface of her fur.  I asked Percy if he could put her in a tree, but he said it would stress her too much for him to pick her up—it was best to just let her make her own way to a tree.  We left to clean up, while she slowly made her way through the hotel grounds. 

We met at the church 5:30 Friday morning for our trip to the Carribean coast and our visit with the indigenous group, the Cabecares.  We had an orientation to different Costa Rican cultures on Wednesday and Gail Nystrom, who is the director of the Foundation that supports this group, told us some of their history and their struggles to improve their lives.  When they came to her for help, they were literally starving to death on their reservation.  Through her foundation, she has helped them.  For example, a man would work 8 hours chopping brush each day for a farmer, who would give him a bottle of milk.  The foundation bought them a cow.  They have built schools and community centers.  The women have been taught to use materials such as palm bark, seeds and small stones, and natural dyes to create handicrafts to sell for money to buy food.  The latest achievement is the building of a bridge across the Zent River, which they must cross to get to town or to medical care.  This was done with a grant from the Dutch Embassy. 

To get to the reservation, we had to drive through a banana plantation, and Percy gave us a lesson on bananas!  The bananas are covered with blue plastic bags as soon as the bunch is fully developed.  This has several purposes:  it protects the fruit from pesticides, it helps the bananas ripen a week faster, and it protects the fruit from birds that would eat it.  It is blue because there is no blue food (tropical birds don’t know about blueberries).  Bananas are still picked by people in Costa Rica, who cut the branch and carry it to a metal carriage system that runs through the field.  The bananas slide along the bar to the road, where they are loaded onto trucks.  There are about 25 people involved in the managing of a banana field.  The trees have to be checked every day to see when the bunches are ready to be wrapped.  Each bunch is tied with one of 8 colors of plastic tape.  This is a color code that tells the pickers when it is their day to be picked.  The flower is cut off and one banana left by itself at the bottom of the bunch.  This is the banana that will be cut off to determine the quality when the bunch gets to the processing plant.  The banana trees here are hybrids and the stalks grow fast, so that they cannot support the weight of the bunch of bananas.  So the fields are laced with orange twine bracing the trees against each other to keep them from falling over.

After we passed through the banana fields, and saw the occasional cocoa tree as well, we arrived at the reservation.  We were greeted by a graduate student from Dartmouth who was gathering her thesis data, and a group of Cabecar women.  Cristina was the leader of the women and had organized their presentations for us.  First we heard from two high school students.  In March a high school was opened and the girls told us they had classes in all core subjects including English.  We had brought a donation of 10 kilos of rice a little over 10 kilos of beans for the high school; since it has not been officially recognized by the Ministry of Education yet, it receives no money for lunch for the students.  The second presentation was by an older woman who wanted to show us how they care for their pigs.  She pulled a little chanchita out of a sack and put down a plastic bowl.  She gave us pegibayes and a banana to feed it.  Percy sampled the pegibayes, which were cooked and we gave all the students a taste.  Percy also tasted the banana, which was a box banana.  Our second presentation was by a woman who showed us how they took seeds from plants, drilled holes in them, and strung them into necklaces.  We all helped punch holes in the seeds, and Stefani pushed them through the needle on the string.  She had brought a branch of a plant, Lagrimas de San Pedro (tears of Saint Peter) to show us how the seeds looked growing.  Finally, Cristina brought a sack of corn and we all got to help break the dried kernels off the cob into her sack.  The corn was Indian corn, very colorful.  Cristina told us that after it is taken off the cob, they grind it and use it to make a cooked dish or a drink.  They also feed corn to their chanchas!  During all presentations we asked the women to tell us how to say things in their native language, to encourage them to see the importance of maintaining this part of their culture.  We then “shopped” from the different women who had crafts to sell.  There were necklaces and earrings, lots of small animal figures, a hat and purses, wind chimes, and baskets.  We tried to make sure we bought at least one thing from each woman; since we were a small group, they would not be selling as much.  Cristina also gave several of us gifts of animals she had fashioned from the palm bark.  It was incredible for me to see how much their crafts have developed since the first time I came to visit the Cabecars.  Some of the animals were barely recognizable back then and the baskets were lopsided.  The animals today were very clever, with whimsical details.  The necklaces were some you would see in stores.  The women were then served lunch (provided by our group) by Mariam, a woman who runs a pulperia built with the help of the foundation.  This has helped the Cabecars by eliminating a two hour walk (after 2-3 hours just walking to this point) to get to the nearest store.   While they ate, we went on a walk.

The building of the bridge eliminated the killer hike we used to take to visit the Cabecars, but we knew the students would not want to eliminate all challenge from this trip.  We did an hour hike across the bridge, which was a little nerve-wracking, down a road to visit the elementary school and to see the clinic they are building.  It was hot and sticky, as well as pretty muddy.  Percy let the students go ahead and then threw rocks into the trees next to them to make them jump, thinking there was some animal stalking them.  Although it was nothing compared to the previous hike, it did give everyone a small taste of the Cabecars’ lives, lots of walking for everything they do.  Back at the meeting point, we loaded on the bus, stopped to have lunch, and drove to Limon.  We drove up to the highest point in Limon where we could look out over the city and see the coast line.  Limon is one of the seven provinces of Costa Rica and its capital city is Limon.  The culture here is Afro Caribbean; many Jamaicans came over when the railroad was being built and settled in this area.  Many of the people speak English, as well as Patois, their native language.  Percy told us he loved Limon and would walk all over the city in the day, but not at night.  There is a lot of drug activity here and it is very dangerous at night.  We drove around the city a while and then headed out of town to Puerto Viejo and our hotel.

Our hotel is right on the beach and after checking in, Caitlyn and I walked down and played in the waves for about half an hour.  We had dinner in the hotel restaurant which is a typical structure, open air with a conical shaped palm leaf roof.  As I sat in the hotel restaurant, I have seen bats flying around the roof, as well as ventures across the floor by cats, toads and crabs.  It is kind of like a dinner theater, with unpredictable performances.

Although we have been staying with this family since 2002 and have always had hot water, the hot water heater was not working when we arrived.  Marta said she would tell Gerardo on Monday—she had no idea how it worked.  Monday morning I woke up feeling like I had been run over by a truck, having alternate fever and chills.  Marta told me I had the gripe quebra huesos (breaking bones).  After several doses of Cipro I returned to life and by Wednesday I was at about 90%.  Unfortunately, we still have no hot water.  Tuesday afternoon, I asked Roy if he could come look at it; he came up, fiddled with it a bit, then said, “Es malo” and went back down stairs.  Well, we already knew that!  Wednesday morning I mentioned again to Marta that we still had only cold water and that gringos don’t do well with cold showers!  She apologized and said she would remember to tell Gerardo today.  She doesn’t have hot water in her part of the house and has always taken cold showers, so she really has no idea how the heaters work.  She did say she understands that if you are not accustomed to cold showers, it can be difficult.  After class Gerardo came up to our room and tried everything we had already tried; he told us it must be a fuse, wrote down the model number, and said we would have hot water tomorrow!  Good news, but unfortunately it didn’t come true.  When we left early Friday morning for Limon, we had a full week of cold showers!  We are really hoping that when we get back, Gerardo will have had some quality time with our shower over the weekend.

Sunday morning Scott and I got up early to go to Mass at the cathedral, only to find it completely closed.  We heard bells and tried to walk toward them, but couldn’t tell what direction they were coming from.  We decided to see if they were coming from the Convent.  When we got there we learned that their mass was at 9:30 and that this was yet another church burned by William Walker.  So we considered that we had tried and walked back to the hotel for breakfast.  After breakfast, we loaded up to drive back to Costa Rica.  Our return trip was fairly uneventful.  We again lucked out at the border and there was no line when we got there.  We all did a little duty free shopping and then headed for Liberia, where we stopped to have lunch.  Liberia is the capital of the province of Guanacaste and they were still celebrating Guanacaste Day, which is July 25, the day Guanacaste became part of Costa Rica.  There was a live band playing in the street and lots of cowboys and cowgirls on horses with numbers pinned to their thighs—their competition entry number.  They compete for prizes such as a new saddle or liquor, according to Percy.  The men are seen strutting around the square drinking.  Percy told us this goes on for about 5 hours, riding around drinking, and at the end of the day you have lots of drunk cowboys.  There was a huge line at the restaurant, but Percy told them we had called ahead a reservation and we all cut to the front and went upstairs.  This restaurant was popular because it had a balcony overlooking all the action.  The owner was glad to let us cut in line because we were eating and leaving (Percy told the waiter to hurry up—he had to take us to the airport); he told Percy he hates these festival days because Ticos will come in and order a few drinks and stay at a table all day, so his income is greatly reduced.  Today was Maggie’s birthday so Percy had the waiter put a candle in a piece of Tres Leches and we all sang Happy Birthday!  Then back to the bus for about 3.5 hours to San Joaquin de Flores, where we all met our families in front of the church—our new meeting spot.  Marta, Aniela, and Roy came to meet Caitlyn and me and help us drag our luggage to their house.  Marta saw Scott with the baskets and was glad to know that we didn’t have to haul one this time!  We had dinner and got to bed early.

Saturday morning we got up for breakfast and drove toward San Juan de Oriente, a place where artisans sell pottery and other souvenir items.  First we stopped in Nindiri, where Percy had learned the previous day that there was a celebration of their patron saint, Santa Anna.  We first headed for the church, where there were Mariachis playing songs in front of a large statue of Santa Anna, which would later be carried through the town in a procession.  There were also little girls dressed in traditional costumes performing dances.  The star of the show was the Nicaraguan Cardinal who was here from the Vatican to say Mass on this festival day.  We watched him proceed into the church with his “funny hat” and Percy kissed his hand!  We then left the church and wandered through the square.  Vendors were selling traditional foods such as the dish Scott had the first night.  We stopped to play some carnival games:  shooting small plastic figures with BB guns and rolling marbles into holes with numbered points.  Scott won a plastic doll and a water pistol; I won a doll and Caitlyn won a doll.  We gave the dolls to little girls in the park and Scott foolishly gave the water pistol to Caitlyn who used it on several people.  Back on the bus, we headed toward our target destination.

At San Juan de Oriente, we started off with a pottery making demonstration.  The pottery they make is similar to that in Guaitil in that it is made from clay the people gather; the design and style, however, are different.  Each of us had a chance to sit on the stool and shape a pot or something approaching a pot!  Then we went shopping.  Again I decided I needed to drive down to buy some of the huge pots they sell there.  My favorite this trip was a wire display with ten black and white speckled hen pots on it.  I wanted the whole wire rack and all ten pots!  Of course, the rack was welded and there is no way it would fit in a suitcase and I couldn’t see myself hand carrying 10 clay pots, so I had to give up the vision of that on my front porch—but it was very affordable if I could have found a way to get it home!  You would have thought Scott might have seized the chance to prove himself a model husband and take it back for me, but he was not up to the challenge.

When we had bought all the pots we could carry, we went to Catarina, with a beautiful scenic view of Masaya Lake, a salt water lake that fills an inactive volcano crater.  It was a clear day and we could see Mombacho Volcano.  As luck would have it, as soon as we sat down for lunch a Mariachi group wandered in the restaurant and we were treated to three songs, including Pobre La Maria!  More shopping occurred after lunch, including some very unusual magnetic stones, large baskets—we saw the guys making them amidst the hens with their chicks scratching in the dirt, and souvenirs.  I was excited to find the artist from whom I had bought two small paintings four years previously and I treated myself to two more.  The find of the day, however, seemed to be Stefani’s marimba.  As we were driving away, we had to stop for Percy to run back and buy one for Scott and for Kristin.  And he got them cheaper than the price Stefani had paid—bulk discount!

When we got back to the hotel, we set out to walk around Granada.  As Percy and I walked toward the cathedral, we noticed we were the only ones—everyone else had wandered off to shop at the different vendors set up in the square.  We looked in the cathedral and asked one of the women there what time the mass was:  5:00 today and starting at 5:30 on Sunday, then 7, then 9.  I had asked at the hotel and the woman had told me 6 today, and 5, 8, and 9:30 tomorrow—wrong on all counts.  She had also told Percy that the internet computers in the lobby weren’t working and then he saw someone using them; when he asked her, she just said she didn’t know anything about computers!  Percy and I read the plaque that told us this church had been burned down by William Walker, the filibuster who tried to take over Central America and who was for a short time president of Nicaragua.  Since we were the only ones interested in the town, and we had seen it already, we went back to the hotel to rest.

For our last night in Nicaragua, we ate at El Tercer Ojo, a restaurant remembered by Caitlyn for their peanut butter and chocolate crepes.  We were seated at a long table with an open roof above our heads.  Next door, at the Convent, a wedding between two rich Nicaraguan families was taking place.  As the bride left the church, fireworks exploded right over our heads!  Some of the girls ran out to see the bride and the rest of us watched the show through the open roof.  Everyone’s food was delicious and it was a wonderful last evening in Granada.  We walked back to the hotel past the wedding reception and peeked in.  It was quite a celebration.  This was an incredible trip, and I know there are several in the group who wish we could stay longer in Nicaragua.