Another Bus Adventure

Yesterday we took a much needed break from the sun. Jordan got sunburn on her back and I did a little too. Hannah keeps her rash guard on at all times. Good girl. We woke up and it was cloudy. Here when it's cloudy it's a good thing. It's a couple of degrees cooler. We got to hang out all morning doing nothing but computer stuff. We decided to catch the 1:30 bus to Santa Cruz for a bike wheel and some culture. We walked to the bus, which is around 10-15 minutes. A motorcycle came by and stopped and he took off his helmet and shook hands with Jack. Early yesterday morning Jack had ridden out to our lot to see if he could hire someone to clear it off. A lot has grown on it over the past 2 years. Anyway, the guy on the motorcycle did that for Jack and now he was looking for his money. He knew we were staying in Avellanas and came out to see if he could find us. He did. Walking down the road. Jack paid him $45 for clearing it off and we hopped on the bus to Santa Cruz. The bus ride seemed shorter for some reason this time. Maybe it was the time of day and no where near the amount of people were getting on. Plus, a lot of the school kids were already at school and they weren't getting on either. We got to Santa Cruz and started walking to find a bike shop. Jack had the wheel with him so we could show the shop owners what we needed. Unfortunately, we left without a new or fixed wheel so we'll have to try again another day. We did get 2 chains though so the chain that popped off Jordan's bike the other day and we had to push them home, will be fixed. We went to the Pali, a grocery store here owned by Walmart, and it was so crowded I could barely manage my cart in the store. I picked up some essentials and paid and we ate casados, the typical Costa Rican dish of rice, beans, lettuce, and choice of fish, chicken, beef or pork, at a little restaurant. We had 10 minutes to get to the bus that we weren't sure of. I asked the bus driver, in Spanish, if the last bus out took us to Playa Avellanas. He said, "no, Panilla" so we were a little worried considering Panilla is around an hour walk to our casita. Plus, since it get's dark here at 6:30 we would be walking in the dark and, of course, we forgot our headlamps. So were hoofing it to the terminal de bus station and the bus is pulling away. Jack flags it down and we hop on. The sign on the bus says, Panilla, Playa Abeannas. That's how he spelled it. We sit down on this super crowded bus and Jordan is on my lap and I'm sweating like a pig. The guy next to us gets up to give us our own seats while he was about to stand. I was going to have none of that. I can't imaging him giving up his seat for us only so he would have to stand. We move in close to the window in this blue schoolbus with Jordan on my lap and he sits back down. I think he was thankful he didn't have to stand because at the next stop around 20 more people got on and I thought to myself that the driver would start strapping people on the top of the bus if he had to. They don't turn people away. We're driving down the bumpy roads and people are slowly getting off the bus at their stops. We still have no idea where we will get off but he is heading in the direction we need to go so it's still going well for us. It's now pitch black outside and we pass the sign that says Hacienda Panilla. I make Jordan go back and ask Jack if he knows where he is. He's blind as a bat in one eye and won't wear his glasses so, of course, he can't see. He has know idea where we are. I'm getting super nervous which Jordan senses. We come to the town of Panilla. That's the town with the store where we stopped for me to beg for agua when Jack and I were on our bikes and I bonked. It's a ways away. Jack keeps thinking we are going to need to get off here because he thinks the bus is going to turn around in this town. He says we'll just 'hitchhike' back. Yeah right. The bus turns down a road we have never been on and were going the oppisite direction now. We stay on the bus to see if he'll turn it around and head back out to the main road. He does. We sigh a bit and now we are on the main road and he makes a right towards Avellanas. Another huge sigh of relief. Now, we are heading in the direction we need to be going but we still have never been on this particular road so we don't quite know where we are. We come around the corner and there is our familiar double wooden gate and sign pointing to "Lola's" and Playa Avellanas. It was high fives all around and we paid our wonderful bus driver, who actually gave us colones back, and got off the bus in the pitch black of night. We still had to walk the road back to the casita. We made Jack go first and I hung on to the strap of his backpack, while the girls hung on to the strap of mine. It was awfully heavy with the groceries I had in it. We made it without veering off the road and made a promise to ourselves never, ever leave without our headlamps. That was the darkest, eeriest walk I have ever had. It had rained so hard the day before that there were puddles in the road that we couldn't see. Huge frogs sit in those puddles and we'd come upon a puddle and accidentally step in it. I kept thinking of the frogs, or toads or whatever would be in the puddles. We never did encounter anything. The casita never looked so good when we arrived. It was good to be home. I mixed myself a Bacardi/jugo de naranjas and called it good. I went into the girls' bathroom to see if the creature was out and he was. I got a picture which I'll post. I don't have my camera over here with me at the moment. Hannah finally got to see it too. She was wanting to. The monkeys moved to a different tree so they weren't as loud this morning. I slept in until 7am. It's looking like a beach day.