The best things

Tree frog we found during some pruning

Newest nest!

One of my most favourite things to do on the farm is to go for fruit hunts with Isaac.  We get on our boots, and head out in search of a tree full of ripening deliciousness.  It's similar to a banana hunt (but on banana hunts I find I'm always a bit more nervous about snakes because we are usually in the cafetal and it just seems more snaky to me. Also, Rocio and Diego saw a boa in the forest across the street the other day!)  We've picked limon mandarinas, and guavas (which are like a giant tough pea pod - not like the english "guava"), limons, starfruits, oranges and lately the best one ever - manzanas de agua.

 A couple marañón fruits - who knew - a cashew too!

Manzanas de agua are these red skinned, white fleshy fruits that get all cracked and wrinkly when they are ripe and have the most refreshing floral fruit explosion taste you have ever tasted!   Yesterday we went out to get a bag full (to eat and make juice with).  Isaac climbed the tree to get the best ones, while I stood below him, alternating between dodging the super ripe ones that fell from his shaking, and catching the ones he was tossing down.  I don't know why, but it's just the best thing ever!

View from our picnic spot

Isaac made a friend

Today, we went on a horseback adventure with Selimo (a man I met on the back road while I was walking the dogs one day).  He really, really wanted to take us for a horseback ride in the mountains, so last time I ran into him we set a date for this morning (which I am very proud of because this was all done in Spanish - right from the first time we met him).  Anyways, he told me it would be "tranquilo," which I then told to Isaac, so we were both looking forward to a nice little ride.  Well, like most activities in this country (birthday parties, tamale making, etc.), why rush through something when you can take your time and really enjoy it!?  We left at 8, and got home around 2:30.

At one point, we came to a fork in the road.  Selimo said something which I thought was "okay, we'll go up this way and come down that way,".  Isaac answered and then looked at me and said, "Perfect."  I hadn't gotten it quite right.  We were going to "go up this way, all the way to the top, then come back down, and go up the other way, all the way to the top, then come back down and go back up the other way halfway (to his cousins house, who has tilapia ponds, where we are going to stop and have lunch).  We didn't have any money, but he insisted.  At the top of the second mountain we stopped, and he pulled out bread and tuna, and pink drink.  We parked ourselves on the grass, overlooking the entire valley.  It was so nice, Isaac and Selimo talked, while I half-napped, and after about 45mins we hopped back on the horses.  We went to his cousins for lunch, which was a plate full of rice, veggies and a whole fried tilapia fish each!  I'm not the best whole-fish eater...but as Isaac ripped off the deep fried tail and chowed down, I realized I'd better just go for it, or else I might miss out!  After lunch we headed down to her backyard where the ponds were, and sat around and talked for another hour with Selimo's cousin before we got on the horses to head home.  It was great day, and thankfully a bit overcast or I might have melted.  And, I hope we're able to walk tomorrow!

The greeting party on the way home

Tamale Party!

Big spoon!

About a week ago Rocio called the house in the morning and told Isaac that I should come down because she was making tamales.  Of course I ran down right away, not knowing that Isaac failed to tell me before I left that I probably wouldn't be back until sundown.  If you know anything about tamale making you would know that it is an ALL DAY thing, not just a couple of hours (which is what I thought).  Also, let me start by saying that Rocio had just spent the previous day making 1000 tamales in 12 hours with about 25 people for a fundraiser at Diego's school.

Colourful ingredients

I got down to her kitchen to find her mid-tamale making (she had started at 5am, and by this time it was just after 8).  I helped out by mixing up the batter in a HUGE pot, which we then poured into an even bigger pot on the fogon (wood stove) that was full of boiling meat juice (maybe lard?).  We stirred it all with an enormous wooden paddle, and when it was done Pancho and Jose had to come and take it off because it was too heavy for both of us to lift.

Ready to wrap

Then we headed out to the pagoda and got ourselves all set up.  All the fillings were already out, along with a big stack of cut banana leaves for wrapping (hence the 5am start). (The banana leaves are also the story behind why she was on a tamale making marathon for the second day in row - the school was going to get rid of the extra banana leaves, so she brought them home to use herself!).

Stockpiling...

Muchos piñas!! 

The first step in tamale making is to spoon some batter into the center of two banana leaves stacked on top of one another (that was my main job!).  Next, I passed the leaves down to Rocio who put 1 spoonful of rice, 1 piece of carrot, 1 piece of red pepper, 1 piece of green bean, and 1 piece of pork (and nothing more) carefully in the middle.  Once all the ingredients were safely in the middle, Rocio pulled each side of the banana leaves up, rolled it down, folded up one end and then folded up the other.  This makes one tamale - but tamales come in piñas, which are two tamales back to back, and then tied in a special way with some string.  So, I spooned batter, Nina (Rocio's friend) put on the rice, and Rocio did the rest.  Once we had our first 100 (so 50 piñas), we put them in a big pot over a fire and let them cook.  And we continued...240! We made 240 tamales, cooking the last batch at around 4pm.  It was a long day, but a really wonderful experience.  And so worth it because fresh home-made tamales are DELICIOUS!  It wasn't long before Rocio had Adrian hollering at passing cars that we had fresh tamales for sale!

Ready to eat!

Friday the 13th and On

So we had a bit of a crazy day on Friday the 13th. Started normal enough, headed out bright and early to the beach for the day. We were only there about an hour when I had the misfortune of stepping on a sting ray! I don't know if everybody knows what a sting ray barb looks like but it's basically a small serrated sword that injects poison.....perfect. Medieval beast of the sea. So he whipped that bad boy out and lanced me with it, and I proceeded to experience the worst pain of my life! Also I think he hit a vain or something because the blood was gushing!! I hobbled up to the beach with Naomi's help, and luckily this had happened to my little brother before (at the same beach actually!), so my mom knew that heat was the only thing that helped the pain. They started filling up bags of scorching hot beach sand and pressing it on my foot while I struggled with life. Finally we got me in the front seat of the truck with my foot in a cooler full of hot water for the drive over the mountain to town, where we stopped at a pharmacy for a shot of painkiller. My foot had stopped bleeding during the drive, but as soon as I stepped out of the car in front of the pharmacy, and a whole street full of people waiting for the bus, the hole in my foot started spurting blood again. Like squirts shooting out all over the place!! Ohhh the looks of horror! People were concerned that us being gringos thought that a pharmacy was good enough for this issue and one guy told my dad that we should go to the hospital! Pharmacies here are great, we just walked in and the doctor gave me a shot of this kick ass painkiller and sent me home.  And on top of that there was an earthquake in the capital that the whole country felt (luckily it was a deep one and didn't cause any damage) and a lightning storm that night that knocked out our power for a few hours, and our phone and internet for a few days! Arg

Here are some photos of Rocio and Naomi making "Pan Casero" a typical little spiral bread thing...

Here I am doing some staining on the bedroom unit...first coat!

Here I am wizarding some math skills into Adrian.  He comes over every afternoon to work with Naomi on his math (and then gets to use the computer!)

The Garden is coming along, we've got some greens planted and built a bamboo support for the cherry tomatoes. I found this little Fer de Lance in the wood pile just chillen', don't worry only the most poisonous snake ever. Off with his head! Below is a shot of a super sketchy kids' ride we spotted in San Isidro....wish I could have seen it in action to watch it shake!!

Pura Vida!!

Corcovado!!!

Crocodile in the Sierpe River

Shwelicans

Bearded Tourist

Happy May, and a late Mother's Day!!  We wanted to share some photos from our latest adventure.  Naomi and I took off for a few days down to Drake Bay and Corcovado National Park. We stayed a a beautiful little place on a hill just up from the beach. We had a deluxe tent cabin sent back from the future, raised up on a platform. Drake Bay is a boat mainly a boat in only community as the roads are pretty borderline. The boat ride starts in a little town called Sierpe and winds down the Sierpe river, through mangroves till you hit the Pacific.  From there you go south till you hit the bay.

Mangroves

After dropping off our stuff, we toke off for a hike along the south-coast trail (think West Coast trail but Tico style).  You hike right along the water, past so many hidden beach and through awesome jungle.  The next morning we woke up at 5 for a guided tour of Corcovado National Park, which is an hour away by boat. Amazing animal party!!!!  We went on a 5 hour walk through the forest and saw........four kinds of monkeys, a tapir, a bunch of birds, a sloth, an aguti, some bugs and things, and some amazing trees and forest! 

Our Uber tent for 4 days

We had to keep reminding ourselves that we were in the wild because there were so many animals it felt like a zoo. After getting back to the tent we decided to take the kayaks out for a paddle down the coast and up the Agujitas river. The sea was a little rough with a few swells but once we got to the river it was some tranquil paddling! (It was sort of a Lincoln adventure, for those who know about Naomi's dad -kinda sketchy...but really fun!) The next day we went on a snorkeling trip to Cano Island and on the way there we spotted some spotted dolphins having breakfast! Snorkeling was amazing, lots of bright tropical fish swimming around. We also saw a White Tipped Reef Shark and a Hawksbill Sea Turtle!!!! Turt!!!!!  Naomi conquered her looking underwater through goggles phobia, too.  We beached on Cano for a deluxe lunch laid out by our tour guide Vincent. Then it was back to the mainland!!

Agujitas River 

The following day we had to pack up and head home, which was the usual bus riding epic, other than when the bus got stopped by some cops! The cops came on and were looking at everybody and ended up stopping right in front of us and asking these two guys some questions. I guess they didn't answer them right because next thing we knew they were taking them off the bus and cuffing them!!!! After this happened I remembered that one of the guys had changed his shirt a little while earlier, like he was trying to change the way he looked or something.  I think they were illegal aliens from Nicaragua.

We hope you like the photos!  Pura vida!!!

Scarlet Macaws

the Magnificent Frigatebird

Spotted Dolphin

Squirrel Monkey

Baird's Tapir

Sunset in Drake Bay