After Manuel Antonio, there were no significant destinations to visit.  Most of my time was spent at the homes of various friends.  I spent some more time with Ines enjoying Piña Coladas and “Troba” music, basically solo guitar and voice music.  Some of it was inspiring and gave me creative ideas.

I spent two nights with Hugo and his family in a small town outside of San Jose called Turrucares.  Life there was very quiet and relaxing and we spent one of the evenings chatting late into the night.  We spent father’s day at his parent’s house, where two of my classmates lived over twenty years ago.  It rained hard in the afternoon and we passed the time singing Spanish Karaoke.  Most of the folks seemed to timid to sing, so Hugo’s mom and I provided the entertainment.

The next day we visited two different farms, hiking all around and picking fruit with either a machete, a long pike-like tool, or just our hands.  Half of the stuff I’d never heard of, but we all tried something of every thing, just eating it straight off the tree.

The final day, I basically ran errands.  Got my haircut ($10, not as good a deal as with China…and no massage!), went to the dentist ($38, fantastic deal and an excellent cleaning), led an informal tech discussion at the Ministry of Education, and to the market in San Jose for gifts (cheaper to buy them outside of the city). We had three large meals the last day, the final meal being Chicharrones, various cuts of succulent pork baked and fried, and homemade tortillas.  So good, but I felt so full.  In fact, I didn’t mind that I only had one crappy little cinnamon cookie on the flight back as my only meal until around 4pm the next day.

All in all, it was another fantastic trip.  I’d never experienced such a long time between being out of contact with people before, and that certainly was the highlight.  I look forward to getting back more frequently as some business and/or teaching opportunities may present themselves.  There will be new places to visit too.  On the top of my list:  Rio Celeste, Guanacaste, and, some day, Coco Island.

After being rained on in Cerro Chirripo and sitting in the hut trying to warm up, my thoughts immediately went to our next destination:  Manuel Antonio National Park, a national park of lovely beaches and rainforests teaming with life on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica.  I knew I would appreciate it one way or another.  I especially looked forward to getting back to the ocean and beach, after many years.  In fact, I think the last time that I went to a beach to enjoy the sun, sand, and water was in Veracruz, Mexico after a climb of Citlaltepetl.

Jorge had warned me that Manuel Antonio was a different world, being visited by loads of foreigners.  Before arriving in Manuel Antonio, we first had to drive northward many kilometers over a dirt road before arriving at the coastal town of Quepos, a rather ugly and dirty town which is the staging point for going to Manuel Antonio, only a kilometer away sitting up on a hill above the ocean.  In Quepos, we grabbed an inexpensive dinner and then headed into the town of Manuel Antonio.

Jorge was right; one of the first hotels that I saw was obviously foreign owned, under a title of something like, “The Gaia Hotel”, or some sort of nonsense like that.  Fortunately, it turned out to be easy to avoid.  Our hotel sat on top of the hill.  It lacked a view of the ocean, which was disappointing, but it was family owned and inexpensive.  Both Jorge and I were very tired.  While Jorge waited for his godson, Ricardo, to arrive by bus from San Jose, I retired to my own room for some needed quality sack time. 

The next day, Jorge was still wasted from the hike up Chirripo and elected to stay and prepare for a conference he was attending soon and sleep.  Ricardo and I went down to the beach and spent the better part of the afternoon there.  The body surfing was awesome; I jumped back into it right away.  It took me back to my time in Charleston, SC.  Later, we made plans to get up early so that we could enjoy the national park, on the otherside of the hill, the next day.

We had breakfast and headed out to Manuel Antonio National Park.  The park is actually relatively small, at least by what I could tell.  There are only a few trails that wind around the beach cliffs and into the rainforest.  By the day was over, I would have hiked them all.  Our first trail hike was up to a small waterfall, maybe twenty feet high.  Along the way, I got a new sense of life on earth.  This rainforest was just crawling with critters, and instead of looking out into the density of it, I ended up looking at my feet, making sure that some strange crustacean wasn’t trying to attach itself to me.  We saw numerous critters:  land crabs, large spiders, very poisonous snakes, and we heard monkeys.  The trail to the waterfall is surprisingly hard to follow.  There are a few rock-hopping moments across the creek and one area that you need to climb roots.

Continuing our walk back on the main path, we came across more animals:  The very cute “titi” monkeys and even a sloth.  I’d never seen a sloth before and it was fascinating to watch.  It moved in slow motion, crawling upside down along a sturdy branch.  Beyond the sloth, we arrived at a narrow ithsmus with beach on either side.  We stopped here and Jorge and Ricardo elected to go swimming on the left side.  The waves weren’t big enough to be fun, I figured, plus, I wanted to keep walking.  Since Jorge and Ricardo had been here before, I decided to go explore the rest of the peninsula

The peninsula was sparsely populated with people (I only passed one person), but was loaded with animals.  Again, I became concious of my feet.  Without other people around, there was only me to scare the animals out of the path.  This was to become common during the day.  As I walked, various things in front of me scurried of the trail to safer ground, usually these small land crabs with blue bodies and bright orange legs, or iguanas.  I had one iguana pass in front of me quickly – it started my heart pounding.  I also saw some sort of rodent that was about the size of a large cat that looked like a cross between a rat and a horse.  Wonder what they’re called?  I spent most of my time at a viewpoint off the trail where I could look down the cliffs at the waves crashing against the rocks.  I stayed here and stared for a long time.

The peninsula isn’t very big and I was back around and hour or an hour and a half later.  I relaxed in the shady part of the sand as Jorge and Ricardo enjoyed the water.  After our picnic lunch, Ricardo had to catch the bus back to San Jose.  Jorge gave him a ride to the bus stop and I spent the rest of the afternoon alone walking the rest of the trails in the park.  The more remote areas are only fifteen to twenty minutes by foot, but that’s enough to significantly thin out the crowds.  Again, life was everywhere.  I enjoyed popping out into a remote part of beach and then rock-hopping my way to the sandy part.  The most impressive encounter though was with a family of “Cara Blanca” or “White Faced” monkeys.  One had it’s young clinging to it’s back and the entire family wasn’t happy with our presence there.  I had run into a guy that I met while body surfing the other day with his family and we both got to enjoy the Cara Blanca monkeys brandishing their monkey teeth at us (check out the video).  Eventually, they moved on so I could continue on.

By the time I made my way back, I was ready to swim.  And, just as I had used the ole tool shed as a place to change into my bathing suit (really), a ranger was walking up the beaches saying, “Closing time!  4pm!”  I couldn’t believe it closed so early!  Well, I slowly made my way back, opting to walk the shores alone instead of the crowded trail that everyone else was taking.  Along the way, I took a great panorama shot of a huge rain cloud over the ocean.  Eventually, I made my way out of the park onto the public beaches and saw Jorge waiting for me.  He still wanted to swim; so did I.  So, while he stayed in the more shallow area, I went out further and rode the waves until sunset.

Did you know that Costa Rica, the peaceful democratic country with plentiful protected lands and rainforests with beaches on both oceans, has mountains higher than 10,000 feet?  I had no idea.  In fact, the highest tops out at 3819 meters, or 12,529 feet.  Well, if I was going to be in Costa Rica for three weeks, a trip to Chirripo was a must do.  Jorge, who had already hiked it ten years ago, and I drove through the central mountains, past Cerro de la Muerte, the mountain of DEATH (so named ’cause folks went up there and froze), down into the San Geraldo valley where we drove up dirt roads to the small village of San Geraldo de Rivas, a tiny little place where the Chirripo river comes crashing through.  There are only a few restaurants, hotels, and houses here, but it is a legit town even with a rural school.  We arrived at our rustic hotel with a very comfortable eating and relaxing area, and spartan accommodations.  The first thing we did was head down to the hot springs for a relaxing dip.

Chirripo is a carefully guarded national park.  No camping is allowed in the park.  Instead, you must sleep at the hut, which typically must be reserved months in advance.  Since we were visiting in the “winter”, aka the “rainy season”, there was no problem in reserving space.

The next morning called for a 5:00 AM departure in the hotel owner’s SUV up the road about 2km to the trailhead.  By 5:30, we, along with the only other two people staying at the hotel that night, a couple of young American college students, Matt and Kate, started hiking.  I was surprised by the elevation of this mountain, and, thankfully, I had done a tiny bit of homework a few days before and learned that the elevation gain from the trailhead to the hut is substantial – nearly 6,000 feet.  Beyond to the summit is just over 7,000 feet.  Well, this would be quite a stiff first hike of the year.

Much like the Cascades, the trail starts low in the forest and is humid.  Many parts of the trail are muddy, but are easily managed.  We had all started out together, but I decided to eventually pull ahead an hike at my own speed, which also afforded me the opportunity to try out the new video camera.  I waited for the group every two kilometers or so.  The total distance to the hut is approximately 14 km.  It’s another 5 km to the summit, and more to the lakes and beyond.  There’s a “hut”, which is huge and unused, at the halfway mark with potable water piped down from high above.  I waited here again and when we were all together, we headed up again.  This next section is the most consistently steep, finally reaching a high pass at 3200 feet where you begin descending again, just so you can go up a final steep section one more time!  I enjoyed waiting for the group at this nice vista into a large burn area that resembled Icicle Creek Valley in Leavenworth, Washington.  About thirty minutes later, we were all together.  This time, I hung in the back and slowly made my way to the hut.

We arrived quite late, almost 3pm, and checked in.  This hut wins out as the nicest hut in Central and South America that I’ve been to.  It’s clean and has nice facilities.  There’s even satellite internet, which just blew me away.  The rooms have two bunks each and we ended up rooming with our student friends.  Of course, Jorge snored, and the American guy, Matt, also snored.  There should be a victim’s group for people affected by snoring (Kris, do you know of any?  Haha).  Many people decided to get up at 2:45 – 3:00AM so that they could arrive at the summit by sunrise.  Eh, heck with that.  We preferred to sleep in until 5:00 and start then so that we could enjoy the views the entire way.

We set off in chilly weather, but soon enough the sun hit us square in the face.  In my opinion, the terrain becomes really interesting beyond the hut.  What makes Chirripo special is that it sits on a very high plateau covered in stunted green vegetation and lakes.  The “peaks” around are not much more than hills or bumps along this vast plain.  But, the regularity of the greenery and the quantity of lakes that dot the landscape make it different from other places I’ve been.  I was hiking much faster than Jorge and told him that I’d wait for him at the flat grassy spot known as the “Sabana de los Conejos” (Savannah of the Rabbits).  However, when I arrived, I noticed the big bulky clouds making their way up the valley.  I scribbled the news, “Vamos que vienen los nubes” in the mud and started up.  I made my way up the trail and when I arrived at one of the two passes that you visit en-route, I began passing all the people who had left for the summit.  By the time I arrived on the little knob, there were only three people left.  We chatted briefly and they headed down.  I had the next hour or so to myself on the summit.  It was really nice relaxing and watching the clouds wisp all around.  The top is a great view point, looking down on lakes all around and other smaller summits.  The summit was clear for about thirty minutes and then was cloudy off and on from then on.

I asked the time when Jorge arrived and he told me, “9:30″.  “That can’t be!”, I thought.  The only clock I had was on my iPod, which I always keep handy.  Sure enough, even though I had no reason to doubt him, it was only 9:30 in the morning.  I thought it was at least 1:00 PM.  Talking to Matt and Kate later, they also experienced the same sort of time warping.  The rangers did speak of Chirripo as a magnet of energy that attracted aliens…  With this much time, I decided that I’d keep going and visit the numerous lakes below.  Jorge said that he’d had enough and was heading back.  As is his nature, he warned me numerous times to stay on the trail because it’s easy to get lost in the clouds.

The trail became much smaller once I turned off the main trail and headed for yet another pass which would drop me into a remote bowl where around seven significant lakes were situated.  Parts of the trail were hard to make out.  I had ideas of visiting some other lakes that I’d seen from the summit, but that would most likely mean going off trail.  It wasn’t the fear of becoming lost that dissuaded me, but, on this section of the trail, the brush was more constrictive and the most common plant up here, a bush that grew to a sphere of about five feet, featured sharp foliage.  I was feeling kind of lazy anyway and didn’t feel like being pricked for about two miles, so I just hung around these lakes.

One of the areas was a flat bog with brilliant green grass.  Someone had used rocks to create some sort of alien signal in the middle of the bog.  There was also a “Ama a Dios” rock message – “Love God!”.  I went to the two largest lakes which were connected by a lazy stream.  Here, I found a large flat rock in the middle.  I made y way here and then lay down on my back and took a nap.  This was just awesome…until the rain woke me up.  It wasn’t much, but it least made me realize that I should get up and start  moving, slowly at least.  “Hmm, should I go visit another summit”, I thought.  I decided that I would leave this basin and see what the weather did.  It’s really impossible to tell.  Since it was early afternoon now, the clouds had taken over.  You could still see fine, but periodically everything would be socked in, and would clear moments later.  The rain got a little harder and I decided to continue on to the hut.  Good choice.  By the time I got to the Sabana de los Conejos, it opened up.  Many of the cliffs around me now had cascades appearing all over them.  Three kilometers later, I arrived back at the hut very wet.

I switched into my long underwear and dry socks, but I never seemed to really warm up until I went to bed.  We had scheduled to stay up here two nights, which was a good choice, since the driving rain continued into the late afternoon.  Jorge had made it back in time before the rain had started.  Matt and Kate had decided to visit the Crestones, a small granite rock formation high on the slopes opposite the hut, and had gotten drenched as well.  We put on as few of our slimy wet items from the day before as we could get away with, packed up, and headed down.

I marched fast down the mountain passing several porters (who charge $30 to carry 14 KG of items up to the hut).  It was barely 6:00 and they had obviously left early (2:00 AM) and were moving fast.  Man, that would be a tough job.  Much further below, I began encountering others on their way up the mountain.  It seemed to be a much bigger group going up than coming down.  I hiked the extra 2 KM down to the hotel and arrived around 10:15.  I heard some scurrying somewhere in the back and the patrona came out and greeted me.  “Is the kitchen open?”  “Yes, of course!”  So, I ordered the typical Costa Rican breakfast and savored it, waiting for the others.

Today was laid back.  I woke up around 7am to find the house empty and spent some time working on some website content.  Later, Hugo and Ronald, former youngsters participating in the exchange program, and I went to the Volcano Poas.  We went there as a group twenty years ago and it hasn’t changed much since then.  I don’t recall if the visitor site was there or not; I think it was.  As we walked along, we made jokes, much in the same we did those many years ago.

The very top of the volcano is the site of the extinct cone and is now a pretty lake filled with rainwater.  But, don’t let the clear water fool you – it’s so acidic that only the toughest bacteria live in it.  About 3-400 feet below is the active crater, which has a large 2km circumference.

Later that evening, I met Jorge at his parents house and we drove off to his home in Aserri.  I was a little hungry so asked if we could stop for a hamburger or something quick like that.  So, Jorge took me to “Varones” hamburger joint for an authentic Costa Rican hamburger.  You thought that Burger King or whatever was unhealthy, you haven’t had something this fattening and greasy.  The hamburger and fries were tasty; both were drenched in some sort of yellowish relative of mayonnaise and tons of stringy onions.

We were to have an early start this morning, but it always takes an extra long time for wives and children to get ready. So, in fact, the morning was quite leisurely and I helped with various domestic activities, well, mostly hauling vegetables and fruit from the open market that is set up on Saturday mornings in the square. Oh yes, and we planted a tree in the backyard.

We set off around 11am for the Arenal volcano in the northern/central part of the country. The route is tortuous, full off curves and hills, but lovely. We passed through rich hilly and mountainous country punctuated by villages and lovely retirement homes along the way. A few areas of the road had been damaged badly from earthquakes. The volcano eventually emerged from the clouds revealing it’s near perfectly-shaped cone. Around this area, Jorge and his wife own some land and we stopped for about an hour and planted more trees. We also cut down some “pipas” and “guanabana”. I haven’t even tried the “pipas” yet, but I’m pretty sure we don’t have either in the US. Basically, everything grows down here plentifully with very little effort.

We arrived at the comfortable little hotel and enjoyed the rest of the evening relaxing in the pool and enjoying the perfect view of the volcano. Jorge explained that we were quite lucky to be able to see the volcano as clearly as we could, especially this time of the year. But, later, the clouds engulfed it again.

The next day, Jorge woke me up around 6 so I wouldn’t miss more views of volcano, which now had thin lenticular clouds sitting on the top of the cone. Around 6:30, the clouds had formed again, enveloped the cone, and slowly descended lower and lower.

We decided to go visit the “hanging bridges”, one of the many touristy walks through the rain-forest canopy in the vicinity of the volcano. While it was way overpriced (two different prices for nationals and visitors), I enjoyed it. To my surprise, Jorge and his family, having already been there twice and opted to wait by the car. The girl at the ticket counter estimated an hour to an hour and a half. I had no watch with me and ended up staying two hours. Time flies when you’re having fun. The canopy walk is a two mile loop and has a couple of rougher trails that connect different sections of the loop and one dead end trail to a waterfall. There weren’t many people visiting, but most everyone had a guide with them and were walking slowly. I didn’t want to blast through this, but I also wanted to go solo through the rain-forest. So, I made good use of the connecting trails and looped around more than once, finding plenty of solo time. Everyone else I saw was bypassing the other trails, except for one party whom, upon seeing me climb back up the trail from the waterfall, I persuaded to go visit the waterfall.

“How far is it?”
“Oh, 150 to 200 feet vertically.”
“Is it worth it?”
“Of course, you’re in a Costa Rican rain forest! Here’s your chance to see a beautiful waterfall nestled within a mossy cliff.”

I didn’t quite say it that way, but they ended up going. Anyway, as for animal life, I saw one large tropical bird (heard many of them), a caravan of ants hauling leaves, and a ton of monkeys swinging through the trees. Later, when I finally returned, I saw that two bulls had somehow busted down a section of the fence and had ran through the parking lot. I laughed watching a group of kids trying to scare each into thinking the bulls were coming back.

We returned back to the San Jose area afterwards, taking a different route to take in new and different scenery. We stopped along the way in a small town whose main square featured lots of shrubbery sculptures. I liked this town a lot. It sat high on a ridge between two valleys. The misty clouds passing through gave it a mystical feel. Around 5pm, the clouds opened up again and dropped more heavy rain on the landscape. Jorge dropped me off at Hugo’s sisters house in Alajuela where I’d spend one night and day before setting off together with Jorge to Cerro Chirripo.

I was up at 5:25 AM this morning.  We needed to leave by 6am in order to arrive at the rural high school by 7am.  Jorge works in the education department as an organizer of education counselors.  He arranged me to give a presentation of sorts to all of the teachers on web technology and trends, and maybe a bit on of China as well.  I didn’t prepare at all for the presentation because, up until the day before, it was fairly vague.  But, in the end, it went well.  The school is situated in a pastoral setting in the foothills above San Jose.  We met the director, a colleague of Jorge’s that he respects very much, who took us to the room where about thirty educators and teachers were waiting for us.  Jorge gave a brief introduction and we were off.

For the first part of the presentation, I just gave a bit on my background, how I ended up in China, what I was doing there, and what I had been studying lately.  This was almost exclusively in Spanish, which I hadn’t seriously spoke in seven years or so.  But, it went surprisingly well.  As I started to talk more about technology, my skills broke down and one of the English teachers, Julio, kindly offered to help out by translating.  At this point, probably more than half of the presentation was in English.  I mostly talked about what I had been studying lately – Web 2.0 and social internet technologies.  I talked a bit about Facebook, WordPress, and even Tim Ferriss, but the majority focused on Twitter.  Of course, I had no answers for them about how to best use this technology, but I shared some of my plans that I had for the team in China and some theories about how to take advantage of it.  It was mostly about showing them the technology, sharing my observations on the transformation of Twitter, and some rough ideas on how they could perhaps use it in the classroom.  It’s all about enabling communication.  The teachers asked challenging and thoughtful questions, each of which generated discussion:  privacy, open source vs. Microsoft, and how to train people to be creative are just some of the examples.  All in all, the presentation went about an hour and fifty minutes.

It was humbling and inspiring at the same time; here was this small rural school that obviously doesn’t have one tenth of the funding that a school in the US has, but the passion and potential here is tremendous.  It just goes to show you how many people can end up doing great things, it’s just a matter of the opportunities that present themselves.  Jorge and the director, Isabella, obviously have a good relationship and the potential to do great things.

The rest of the afternoon was spent with Jorge touring this part of the valley.  We hit numerous little sites:  a dam, the ruins of the oldest church in Costa Rica (from the mid 1500s!), hot springs, and more churches (each church we visited had Virgin Mary legends associated with them and relics to help prove the legend).  We breaked for a late mid-afternoon lunch in an open restaurant situated up on a hill with a grand view.  Many restaurants are open like this – basically, there’s very little to constitute the walls, so one feels like very close to nature.  While here, enjoying typical Costa Rican food, the clouds burst and dumped a sheets of rain down on the land.  We stayed longer and chatted while waiting for the rain to ease up.  It did an hour later or so and we headed back to Aserri to rest a bit (I also hit the internet cafe) and get ready for dinner at a famous “chicharron” restaurant.

“Chicharrones” are another typical food of Costa Rica – various cuts of barbecued pork served with different types of salsas, rice, beans, and corn tortillas.  Very tasty, of course.  The restaurant was absolutely packed; this was, according to Jorge, one of the most famous chicharroneras in the country.  Later on, three men started playing a giant marimba followed by a “Cimmarone” band accompanied by “mascadas”, typical clowns of Costa Rica.  They roamed all over the restaurant and danced by rapidly spinning back and forth, causing their fake arms to swing around and around.

Around two in the morning, the roosters began their singing routine right outside the window.  I got up and closed the window and fell back asleep, still sleeping well even though I was periodically woken up by them.  I had a leisurely morning since Jorge had arranged for me to meet a friend of his, Ines, in downtown San Jose around 11:30am.  At breakfast, I suddenly remembered how sweet and tasty the fruit in Costa Rica is, which started with manga (with an “a”, not an “o”, which is a larger variet of mango), papaya, watermelon, pineapple, and miniature bananas, all of which pack extra flavor down here in this tropical climate.  That was followed by scrambled eggs, toast, and tea.  Later in the morning, I toured all around the house, which I realized was larger than I thought; there were other family member’s houses all connected together loosely.  We also went into the back where I met the various chickens and roosters who enjoy making so much noise in the middle of the night.  There were also a couple of “terneros”, I think that’s the right word, which was basically described as a small bull.  In the back, just beyond the gate, is a small river, which is quite low right now because we’re just entering winter (more accurately called “the rainy season”).  Later, we toured through other parts of the property which even included a small furniture factory, a soon-to-be-completed new storefront, and several small gardens.  As always, I was impressed by all the large flowers and even learned the names of some of them, although now I can only recall a handful.

I left for downtown on the bus around 10:50 and had a conversation the entire way with a man who was also waiting at the bus stop with me.  At the final stop, in the middle of downtown San Jose, I waited for Ines, a freind of Jorge’s who had kindly offered to show me around the town in the afternoon.  While waiting, I bought some water from a Chinese woman who owned a small store nearby.  She didn’t seem so impressed that I was attempting to speak Chinese to her, maybe because all of a sudden, speaking Chinese became very difficult and I could barely muster the words to ask for the price of water.  Switching language skills, especially as a beginner, is tough.  About five minutes later, Ines showed up and we were off.

Ines was an excellent guide and tourist companion.  I won’t go into all the details of the various places we went, but at one point she asked if I preferred museums or natural scenery.  Of course, I replied natural scenery.  Even though I do prefer that, I also rationalize that I can enjoy the museums some years from now when I’m really old.  I enjoyed seeing the local markets, which did remind me a lot of China but with more touristy items and more approachable salespeople.  There were numerous “street food” eateries within the market which tempted me for lunch, but Ines wouldn’t hear of it since Jorge had relayed the information that I had asked for an antacid to calm a bit of heartburn the night before.  This is typical Jorge, managing the details to perfection.

After lunch, we went to Ines’s neighboorhood, Coronado, on one of the slopes of the hills surrounding San Jose.  Like all the other neighborhoods, really more like their own towns, the center consisted of a church and a small park facing opposite.  Except, this was the only church in Costa Rica that was in the Gothic style.  Inside, we met her mother, who was kneeling reading in one of the pews.

To take advantage of my request (really my expression of preference) of preferring the “naturaleza” to “los museos”, we drove up higher into the mountains to a place called “Cascajal de Coronodo”.  It was like driving into another world, tranquil and enveloped in misty clouds.  Apparently, this area is quite often covered in wispy clouds, the kind you find often in the Cascades, especially after rain.  The air was cool and invigorating. I enjoyed walking around immensely; this was my favorite part of the day.  Afterwards, we arrived at Ines’s house to meet her mother and Jorge, who had just gotten off work.  We enjoyed some coffee with “gallo de papa”, semi-spicy and tasty potatoes wrapped in a corn tortilla.

Jorge and I returned back to his house in Aserri, another small “suburb” of San Jose complete, of course, with a church and a small park.  Here, we decided to try some of the local Chinese food.  Yes, to my surprise, there are quite a number of Chinese run establishments here.  I quite often see the familiar characters when driving through the town.  Apparently, Costa Rica has made an effort in the past two years to develop relations with China.  I need to read more about this.  Anyway, these Chinese were quite taken aback when I greeted them with “Nimen hao”.  The whole family came out from the back and we chatted briefly.  Again, switching languages was difficult and it felt like I had forgotten half of what I had learned.  But, I was able to carry on a simple conversation.  Back at home, we enjoyed the Chinese food which nothing like the food in China, of course…especially with the french fries.