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On Sunday I traveled to Monteverde over dirt roads and a fairly nice highway for 4 hours. Saying goodbye to my San Joaquin family was tougher than I thought it would be, but necessary to meet my new Tico Family. The ride was bone jarring with my insides hurting afterwards.

The chartered minibus was packed with every seat taken – only students for CPI. I met a teacher going home to Monteverde who was originally from Suriname. That is a South American country formerly a Dutch possession. She’d lived in Miami and didn’t have much of an accent – odd tho Dutch is her first language. She began as a Spanish student at the same school I’m attending and basically never left. I don’t seem to have taken any photos of her - she had a club-girl look with short purple hair and a quick wit. We figured the school put someone like her on every minibus for entertainment. It’s May as I fill in this detail and I can’t recall her name.

The climb to about 9000ft into the Monteverde area – Santa Elena was on windy dirt roads. I was met by my new family and taken on a short trip around the homestead on the side of a mountain. They have 4 dogs and a number of horses to be determined later. One is a calf of 13 months. After having a beer, they took me on a short hike up the mountainside. Along the say, we saw a macaw, wild sugar cane and Orlando used his machete to chop off some sugar cane that we chewed. As we climbed higher, the growth changed into canopy and we headed into a heavily forested area and found a trail. Along the trail we saw many strangler fig trees. These grow outside other trees and eventually kill the inner tree. Lots-o-pictures of this including from inside where the originally tree had disappeared completely and only the strangler was left. Then it was time to head home, but not before snapping some high quality photos from the mountain out over the gulf and into the pacific ocean many, many miles away.

It seemed there was a fair today at the town fairgrounds, so we headed there to see what was happening. It was a fairly tiny extravaganza – perhaps 4 rides for the kids and 7 or so food stands. There were 2 stages with music on opposite ends of the grounds. Tejano on one side and rap on the other. People watching was the main attraction with a mix of ethnic skin, to Indian, to black, to white and very white. The touristas stick out on site. As far as the locals go, most of them seem to have lived in this place all their lives. They know everyone else and their entire life story. There’s usually history between their families with interrelated businesses of some kind.

After eating a plate of veggies and some kind of meat/fat/crusty thing (later learned these were chicharonnes), we people watched some before heading home. The sun had already set and it was pitch black. The parade walked by as we walked home. Somehow we found our way to the end of their road and up the step hill to their home with just a hint of twilight remaining from over the pacific.

We watched a Disney movie Agent Kody Banks I think and I found myself dozing off around 7pm. As I write this, the fair is still going – echoes heard off the mountain slopes.

I’ve left out the mosquitoes and other flying insects that I can’t identify. I was able to snap a few photos of flowers that I’ve never seen before, but missed a huge purple butterfly. I was too slow and it was raining. Ah, the rain. It is a light rain and nobody seems to notice it. They don’t wear raincoats or bother with umbrellas. It rained like this as we walked to the fair. Even my cotton shirt didn’t get soaked. Somehow it was as though there was no rain when it ended. I don’t know why.

Tomorrow is my first day of school here. It should be interesting.