A Birthday Celebration with Old Friends & New!

This little guy is standing in front of the stream while he takes a quick scratch break.

Much to our amazement we arrived safely at our destination of Turrucares and the home of Flor's sister.  It was like going to summer camp with the family!  The house was large and open with a very large outdoor kitchen that was full of busy ladies!  The property has a wonderful stream that has been dammed creating a perfect swimming hole for young and old alike.  Ropes go across to hand over hand to the other side or to simply fall into the water.

This is the little Bambino that rode with us on our little adventure. She is always happy and loved being lugged around by all the other children who are at least a bit older.  All of the children were wonderful and eager to pitch in and help when needed.

We met more family and two of the sons, and Flor's nephews, Julis and Oscar are going to build us a trailer to haul our coffee.  After much "talking" and drawing and measuring the plans were finalized and despite the language difference, all felt successful and hopeful.

Here we are looking at our future trailer with "Flat Mistaya, Carlos, Julius, Oscar and his son. The "lady" in the picture is me after a long night on a blow up bed on the kitchen floor!   More about that later.

Once all the decisions were made on the trailer, we watched the cows being brought in to be fed.  Here Carlos is giving Flat Mistaya a ride!

 And what do cows get fed on this farm??  Why sugar cane, of course, which is grown there along with many other fruits and vegetables.  In this photo the farm hand is putting the stalks of sugar cane into a grinder which fills the trough with the cattle's breakfast 


. Now remember we were here because of a Birthday Celebration and once the lights came on and after eating lots of wonderful food, birthday preparations began.




The cake was dressed with the #57 candles, lit and blown out with much aplomb and we all laughed and cheered and, of course, ate cake!  

 Food was a constant and Roberto continued to cook on the bar-b-q that was made from a car wheel and worked perfectly.  Costa Ricans are very resourceful and you would be amazed at what you can live without and have a wonderful time!    

  The last event of the Birthday celebration was a hand made Pinata that Flor attacked like a pro batter and in no time we were all showered with candy and sore from laughing!

Now that the festivities are over it's time to head home!  WRONG!  Our Costa Rican friends had other plans, as alluded to above, which included spending the night!  As we had no idea how to get home and they had brought a blow up bed especially for us, we curled up on our blow up bed on the kitchen floor and awaited morning!

Everything was finalized on the trailer very early in the morning.  Most were up before the sun as some had to catch a bus to San Jose @ 6:00 a.m.  We said our good byes to this part of the family as Don drove them through the river to the nearest bus stop.

When he returned the brothers, Julius and Oscar, gave us a tour of their amazing garden.  Their garden goes on and on.  They plant corn every 3 months and have corn all year round.  We saw squash, beans, yucca, potatoes, and many fruits and vegetables that we did not recognize.  It is a huge garden and they grow it for their family and friends and to sell some at market.  One of the vegetables we learned a lot about was the yucca.

The guys all pitched in to dig up some yucca roots from these funny looking stocks.  There were many and they were large.  We came home with bags full for Flor and the Soda which she cooked up and created these meat stuffed yucca rolls.  Yucca is somewhat like potatoes only a bit more sticky and sweeter---in my opinion!  The little stuffed Yucca were wonderful and we are grateful Flor is such a great cook and so generous with her creations

Not only did we dig, eat and learn about Yucca, we came home with over a dozen Yucca sticks which we planted at the Finca and hope to harvest in 3 months.

Last but not least we are ending the vegetable part of this post with a photo of a squash growing that looks like a zucchini and was huge!  Yumm, stuffed zucchini!

Now it is time to head back through the river and climb back up the almost roads to Berlin.  "Thank you's" and "good-byes" said many times, we were finally on our way! Wait don't we know that guy on the side of the road?  Low and behold but who should we meet but Flor's son on the side of the road.  The son that Don had taken to the bus stop with his family.  Of course, we stopped---putting our numbers at 10 (including Flat Mistaya)--and continued on our way getting no answers when we asked "What happened"!  After much speculation we decided it was all planned and the Gringos were put to good use along with giving them a fun time!  Oh, and by the way, it only took us an hour to get home!  I guess we took the "scenic" root on the way down!