What a trip!

Tuesday

The alarm went off at 6. I had finally fallen asleep. I had counted backwards from 900 by 9's, then from 1000 by 10's and from 1100 by 11's. Then I gave up counting. Sleep came later.

We stayed in bed until 6:30, then I took a shower and Chris took his. I checked messages on Facebook and Yahoo. At 7 we walked to the main area for breakfast. Gabriel brought a cacao fruit and opened it. He showed me how to eat some pith. I also tried the bean, but it wasn't good.

Around 8, we left for Suiza to meet Andrea and her father. They took us to see a property, then to her mother's natural foods store. I bought some honey and a Bach flower remedy. Back in the car, she admired my shungite necklace so I gave it to her. She asked me to type it into her phone so she could look up shungite.

Then she took us to see a second property. After that, we went into Turrialba to a coffee shop near the train station. I got a fruit smoothie. Some shared a cinnamon roll. Then we looked around at the old household items decorating the walls.

We said goodbye to Andrea and walked around the downtown part and stopped in a few markets and shoe shops. I bought a pair of black shoes. Then we continued walking. And all of a sudden I found myself on the ground. I never saw the hole in the sidewalk, but was told that is what tripped me up. Anyway, I had an oopsie, which concerned me far more than the light scrape on my knee. They pulled me to my feet and we walked to a fire station. I think we were going there anyway, but Herberth asked for something to put on my knee. I asked Jessica for her phone translator and use it to say I needed dry underwear. She understood, so we left the men there and she drove us to a clothing store. She helped me find a pair of under pants and some shorts to try on. The clerk said I could not try on the underwear, so I asked if I could buy it first before trying on the shorts. She took the tag off and I was allowed to wear it. I came out of the dressing room with my chosen pair of shorts on. She took the tag off of that, too. Then Jessica and I stood in line to pay. For some reason, my brand new credit card did not work, so she paid with hers. Then we drove back to the fire station.

The guys were ready to leave, so we did. Chris did not notice that I was wearing different shorts even though the wet ones were black and the new ones are white. We went to a place called CATIE, sort of an agricultural college and research place. We met Angela there. She took us to meet the director-general, which Chris had requested. Chris offered to volunteer there after he retires. And the man replied that they needed someone to train the security guards after noticing the army logo on Chris' business card.

We headed back toward the hotel. Herberth made us stop on the way so he could jump out. We didn't realize that he had spotted our hotel bartender at a bus stop. So he put her in the front seat and he climbed in the back of the SUV. Then we continued to the hotel. We split up to get ready for dinner. I washed out my shorts and jotted notes for my blog.

When we met for dinner, Herberth wasn't there. So we used our bit of Spanish to communicate while Jessica and Gabriel used their better English. We ordered and started eating. Then Herberth arrived and the drinking started. Here and there I had a tiny taste. But mostly we talked. Or I listened and tried to figure out what was being said. Chris had one piece of pizza left and I tried to figure out how to cut it in half by slicing parallel to one side rather than bisecting it. I came up with half the square root of 2 times the radius for the radius of the remaining slice. But how to get the distance between the radii?

Then I got tired and went back to the room but Chris stayed. I took some supplements and worked on my blog. I read e-mail and Telegram messages. Chris came back and then we got ready for bed.