Día 4 - jueves, el 12 de enero

Today was another great day.  There was a lot less animal noise last night, which made it a lot easier to sleep.  We woke up and had another good breakfast - sort of re-fried beans that we spread on bread, with an egg and meat mixture that you put on top of it.  It was pretty good!  And of course, fresh fruit, coffee, and fresh-squeezed juice.

Then it was off to the Tirimbina Reserve area for a cacao tour and another hike through the rainforest, this time with hanging bridges.  The cacao tour was interesting.  We saw the traditional way of getting chocolate from the cacao bean and learned some of the history of the cacao bean along the way.  We even made our own chocolate - ground the cacao beans, mixed it with sugar and cinnamon and tempered it.  It was delicous!  At the end, we got to eat cacao as the indigenous Costa Ricans would have eaten it, and then some chocolate that they make at the reserve.  It was delicious!

Then we headed off to their hiking paths for about a 2-mile hike through the rainforest.  There were amazing hanging bridges, that tested my slight fear of heights!  We saw lots of different types of birds, including two toucans.  We saw several others that were very exotic-looking, as well.

After that, we headed back to El Roble (our family-stay community).  We had the idea of all of us going down to the river (the Sarapiquí) with the members of our families that were able to go and just enjoying the river.  It was very fun!  A lot of the kids were able to go along, so we got to meet some other young people that we hadn’t met yet.  It was fun for me to visit a little with Melissa (Sarah & Mikayla’s “mom”) and with her two little boys, Esteven (4 years old) and Dílan (7 years old).  They are so cute, and they make me miss Lucas & Leah so much!  We had fun down by the river.  Most people just put their feet in the water to relieve the heat, but Douglas and Darwin (two of our hermanos) were swimming quite a bit.  The rest of us were a little afraid of the current.  Everyone had lots of fun splashing, skipping rocks, and just hanging out.

We walked back to my family’s house, and along the way enjoyed showing everyone their pepper plants (and tricking them into biting in the pepper corns) as well as talking to the cows.  Scott pretended to be a bull-fighter, which was pretty funny.  When we got back to our house, it was time for the community soccer game.  Some went back to their houses first to change clothes.  Lots of us stayed at our house and played catch with the Spirit Lake football I had given our family, and we introduced them to the game “500”, which was lots of fun.  Once all of the kids were there we divided into teams (USA, or the “Gringos”, vs. Costa Rica, the “Ticos”) and played a very fun and lively soccer game.  All of the moms were preparing supper, a pot luck of all sorts of delicious Costa Rican food, and everyone had a FABULOUS time!  It was so cool to see all of the students having fun with our new Tico friends.

After supper the students and young Ticos went inside to play cards, which was also really fun.  I stayed outside on the porch for a while and visited with a few of the moms.  It’s amazing how they welcome all of us into their families and truly love sharing their culture with us.

Once everyone left, I took another (cold) shower, and then we made some more bracelets with Marzarella.  We’re getting better!  We were also able to show Norberto our photo albums (he was gone the first day when we did it the first time) which was really fun.  He’s a really nice guy.  He was especially interested in Amanda & Scott’s photos, since he’s a farmer and is very interested in agriculture, and lots of Amanda & Scott’s pictures were of their farms in Iowa.

They showed us their pictures of their land when they bought it.  It was completely empty except for a little shack of a house, which they tore down and built the house they live in now with their own hands (and many family members’ hands, as well).  They have completely made their home and the land on their own.  Pretty amazing.

Time to go to bed.  Tonight is our last night with our host families.  As awesome as it has been, I’m really looking forward to a warm shower and sleeping without any farm animal noises. :)

Buenas noches y ¡Hasta mañana!