day 8

As I really like the beach and as the one in Samara was particularly beautiful, I did decide to get up early to take another walk. This time I joined two other group members, but when one of them said ‘Meid, het zweet gutst van je af’, I decided to call it a day and go back to the fan in the hotel.
During our transfer days we have passed many different landscapes. Pineapple, sugarcane, or banana plantations, different types of jungle, rivers, even rice fields (also something that surprised me, although given that the typical diet consists of rice and beans, I guess this really shouldn’t have), but what I liked this day were the hills with deciduous forest and grass fields. These hills could almost be located in Europe, if it were not for the occasional palm tree scattered around the fields and the cows that were once imported from India (the ones with the tell-tale hump on their neck). There was really something about this unexpected combination that caught my attention, but I guess you should have been there.
We had a quick stop in a village for groceries and cash. Like any town we encountered, there was a church and central square, from which a grid of roads extends. All roads in one direction are called Avenida and are numbered 1, 2, 3… and perpendicular to that are the Calle’s which are numbered similarly. I guess no time is wasted on coming up with original street names. Interesting is that in Europe there is usually a pub in front of a (Catholic) church, here this location is said to be saved for prostitutes – this is hear-say, I did not witness this myself or if I did I just did not realize it. Apparently in Guatamala this has even led to the quite graphic expression ‘Sweating like a prostitute in a church’. Anyway, in this particular village one of the oldest churches of Costa Rica could be found, so once the doors of our bus opened we all swarmed towards the entrance. Being one of the last ones out, I saw a quite nervous guy run in from the right of the square to get the first ones of our group out of the church again. Unfortunately, the part of my brain that was reserved for my Spanish proficiency has been mostly repurposed for Swedish proficiency, so every time I tried to speak Spanish, my brain would switch to Swedish within about 3 words. My understanding of the language did however survive a bit better, causing me to understand the huge warning sign the others had passed stating things like ‘Danger!’ and ‘Keep out’. The church was apparently under major reconstruction and once I was on the threshold of the door, I could not even understand how others could have walked in – even without understanding the sign with the big red letters they had just passed.
For lunch we stopped at a local place along the Pan-American highway, that was feeding macaws, so we could see those up-close and personal. Afterwards we moved on to our ‘hacienda’ in the Palo Verde area where we were going to stay. This place has once been owned by the designer of the Costa Rican flag and was now harboring our group. Our cottages were spread over the grounds and when I arrived at mine, a group of howler monkeys just passed over it. To keep their seed fresh, the male versions of this otherwise black monkey, has a very distinctive white scrotum and they don’t feel embarrassed show-casing this while hanging upside-down gathering food in the trees. Later a group of deer followed at well. I decided to go to the pool again for some refreshment, but here also, refreshment was not quite what the pool was offering.
That evening there was a soccer game Belgium – Costa Rica, which was of course of high interest for Dirk and Chavo. We would find out later that trip that the soccer-rivalry between these two guys was pretty important. This time, Belgium won.