Day 12
Tuesday
This morning we got up very early. I got up even earlier than everyone else because I wanted to write on my laptop, but I had left my laptop in the Pura Vida office hooked up to the broadband and they had locked the door during the night! So I had to wait from 4:30 until 6 when a staff person got up.
We then bid Jenna and Lucinda a happy/sad farewell—sad that we were leaving them behind, but happy that it was best for them. We headed for Southern Costa Rica and Panama!
Justin in one of his famous, weird sleeping positions–this time across the aisle
American brand products reign supreme…
…but native vendors still rule the retail end.
On the way, Urie was passing around pictures of his grandsons and saying, “Any girls interested in a couple of nice boys?” One of the girls remarked, “Even if we were, we couldn’t do anything about it.” Urie replied, “This is just to whet your appetite.” He added in warning, “but wait ’til after tour!”
On the way, we stopped at a small beach town for lunch. Many of us simply went to the supermarket and got granola and yogurt for lunch, and took it out to the beach to eat. Some went to restaurants and had nice meals for 3000 colones ($6). I went to the beach and sat under some palm trees and watched the gorgeous ocean roll in. It was a beautiful day.
Some ships near one of Costa Rica’s largest ports
The beach!
Chillin’ at the beach
Wading in the water
The Carribean Sea!
While I was up at the showers rinsing my feet from wading in the breakers, an African who spoke English-Creole came up to me and was begging for money. When I wouldn’t give him that he said, “You don’t trust me. Come to restaurant, buy me meal.” I told him no, but I’d go get my leftover granola from lunch. We had bought these little bags of granola for lunch and they were very filling and most of us could only finish half of them. He nonsensically responded, “You don’t understand! This is too strong for me!” He then repeated his plea for me to buy him a meal.
Waiting for Urie and Benjamin
Urie (choir director) and Benjamin (assistant choir director) went to a very nice restaurant where they got a first class meal—for $10.5 each. As we were standing around the bus getting ready to leave, Benjamin came barreling down the town’s dirt street and slid to a stop. He panted out, “When are we supposed to leave?” “Five minutes ago!” “Well, we haven’t got our food yet—wait for us! We’ll be there!” He turned tail and sprinted back down the street. Half an hour later when they finally showed up, we gave them a very hard time—they’re supposed to be our examples, after all. On the bus, Urie was giving excuses: first he said that he and Benjamin had an argument. I thought maybe they couldn’t decide which restaurant to go to, so they went to both. But no, Urie was only joking about having an argument. What had happened is that the restaurant was closed and was going to open in several minutes, and they waited for it to open. When it did open, apparently the cooks were still getting ramped up and it took a while for them to get their food. Next Urie said something to the effect that they had been talking about his granddaughter and the possibility of marriage. Next Brian said that it’s all right if choir directors are late, but he added, “That’s only for choir directors!” Someone asked, “Urie’s granddaughter?”
It was brought to my attention soon after we left that little town that I had drank over a liter of water, 500 ml of juice, and about 400 ml of yogurt drink while in town. The bouncy dirt road served to dramatically accentuate this fact. It was strange: I discovered on the way back out the next day over that same road that the trip in was far longer than the trip back out. Funny how that works.
We bounced and jounced back to a retreat center—actually a sort of camp for scientists to come in and study the rain forest. There we unloaded our stuff, went to our rooms/dorms and changed into our uniforms. That evening we headed over to Urie’s nephew’s place. He is a third generation Latin American missionary. They are in the process of building a retreat center/Bible institute (for native pastor training)/vocational teaching center. We ate supper in an unfinished part of it.
The scientist camp
That night we had a rousing program—the charismatic evangelical audience had a marvelous time clapping and amening and the bugs had a marvelous time chewing on the people that stood beneath the lightbulbs. During the first song, a little girl started crying she was so touched. The pastor’s wife was quite sure it was the anointing of the Holy Spirit, but I wasn’t sure what to believe. It would have been sweet if it would have been.
Abi holding one of the precious young children after the program
The program at Curtis Sharp’s church
That night there was a large ruckus in the halls as the guys let loose six hours of pent up bus energy.
Some pictures I took at the Sharp’s place and the science camp:
Some kind of grasshopper-like bug
White flower (I know… lame… but I don’t know the names for all of them, so I will label them for Google Images’ sake)
Purple flower
Red flower
Peach flower
Yellow, white, and red flower
White flower
Pink flower
Orange flower
One Response
April 11th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Beautiful beach, great pictures, and a great job of keeping us all up-dated! Looks like you guys are having tons of fun…keep enjoying it…you only have a few more days!
I am so ready to have you guys home again!!!
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