Thur Aug 10
Today was a lazy day. Like the other days we still woke up around 6/6:30am but we didn’t go for a morning walk or outing. It just looked too dreadfully hot out with hardly any cloud coverage. Instead we enjoyed our cool, air conditioned Airbnb. I made a little brunch of beans, rice, and fried eggs with hot sauce. We also had our daily fruit bowl, today was cantaloupe and apples, then we took a mid morning nap in our hammock. It was a hot one, but our hammock was in the shade and there was a nice breeze. I felt so at peace, dozing in the hammock while listening to different bird songs.
After our nice, long siesta we awoke to our neighbor’s dogs greeting us. We got up and decided to go for a bike ride to explore the area a bit more. We biked to our nearest town, Paraiso, then continued on. On one dirt road we were held up by a herd of cows. They stared us down and held their ground as we approached, but in the end they moved to let us pass.
We happened upon a nature conservation center. Two friendly Ticos eagerly shared details of what their center is and the part it plays in their local community. They told us that they were resting and recovering after hosting college aged volunteers all summer long.
They had some local honey for sale. after sampling a few we took home a little glass bottle for 2500 colones. They also told us about the mariola bee which is a very small, stingless bee that produces a very special medicinal honey. James and I walked a little around their property, they have a beautiful collection of plants and an expansive nursery. But the mosquitos were abundant so we cut our tour short.
We biked back home and stopped at the Gringo market on our way. We picked up some mushrooms, zucchini, carrot, broccoli, onion, ginger, garlic, dragon fruit, green beans, a spicy orange pepper, ground beef, yogurt and more aloe drink. This came to about $30. We biked back, put our stuff away, then biked out to catch the sunset at the beach and to say goodbye to our English friends we met yesterday. We ran into our gardener’s dog Maddi (we gave her that name) and she was thrilled to accompany us to the beach.
We got there and enjoyed the sunset while Maddi stalked fish in the shallow pools. After sunset, we said our goodbyes and went home where I made a stir-fry dinner: ground beef, green beans, broccoli, mushrooms, onion, ginger, garlic, and honey over chicken broth rice.