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.

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