Our Last Costa Rican Adventure

Our last day in Costa Rica was an adventure. I couldn't have been happier to be back in adventure mode, the unknown of the day. Most of our days in Costa Rica were just that, at the beginning but our last month was very mellow and we had settled into a wonderful life. With the exception of a few days.
We had breakfast in the cool air under the bodega. It was cloudy and nice. Not raining but threatening. We decided to catch the bus, always a crap shoot, to see the Poas Volcano. It's not like Arenal. Arenal is an active, smoking, bubbling volcano. Poas is a volcano that has blown its top and is now a crater on the top with a lake. I guess it's pretty neat. Margarita told us where to catch the bus so after we finished our breakfast we walked down to the bus stop and waited. It came and we got on. I asked the bus driver if he went to the bus that brings you to Poas and he rambled something that I couldn't understand but I felt good about the answer so I waved my family on the bus and we went off. We had a bunch of stops and picked up a whole bunch of people. Once again, there was standing room only and how they would get one more person on that bus was beyond me. But they did. We got to the bus terminal and it was busy. It was sheer chaos. Buses, people, chickens, motorcycles, vendors, homeless dogs (and people). The chaos that we experienced at that bus terminal was just something. We got off and before we did the bus driver was telling me where to go to get on the Poas Volcano bus. I followed his hand signals and we started walking up to another area where there were more buses. I love the people of Costa Rica. We were clearly lost and didn't know what we were doing or where we were going and a guy runs up to me an says, "Volcan?" "Si,si" I say and he looks at his watch and starts running pretty fast to a bus, asks the driver something, the driver points and he's off running. I figure, hey, this guy is helping us.  We need to run with him. So all 4 of us are running behind this guy and he is trying his hardest to show us the bus to Poas. The Bus drivers he talks to are all now involved and after 15 min we are told we missed the bus. Everyone is clearly bummed for us. We aren't terribly upset. It happens. We're in a different city now and it's time to go explore. We find a panaderia (bakery) and get goodies. It's next to a pet store and there are puppies and kittens galore so we are cooing over the babies while munching on our pastries. We decide to try to catch a different bus to this Zoo which I had read about that takes injured or abused birds and monkeys and sloths and all sorts of things. But this is tricky because there is the main zoo in San Jose which is NOT the one we want to go to. The zoo we want is in La Garita where our B&B is. After asking 2 different bus drivers where we go to catch the bus we couldn't understand them and they couldn't understand us. I am now getting frustrated because I forgot my Spanish book in the room and I have no idea what to say. Every time I say or ask they respond with some huge long response and I don't know how to reply. Some guy walks up to me and says he speaks English and can he help us. I hug him and he translates for me. He explains that the driver, who I am trying to talk to, just dropped us off and we want to go to the Poas Volcano. I say back to my new translator buddy that yes, we tried to do that but missed the bus and now we have changed our plans and we now are trying to get to the zoo in La Garita. AHHH. The bus driver now understands and says HIS bus goes there.  We all laugh because it is pretty funny.  So, we get back on the bus that we had walked off of about an hour and a half earlier. He drives us his route and we get off right in front of the zoo. We go in and have a wonderful few hours seeing monkeys, hundreds of birds, crocs, and so many other things. We saw an ocelot and a cougar and a margay. We are now wondering if O.C., the ocelot from the casita, is really a margay. We read on the info post of his cage that it is the only cat that can climb down a tree head first while hunting. O.C. always climbed head first down everything. It was amazing. So, we now think it was a margay and not an ocelot. Who knows. The only thing we didn't see was a sloth. We were really wanting to see a sloth. We had seen a sloth on our last trip in 2008 trying to cross the road. It was quite a sight. Of course, I was fixated mostly on the spiders in their spider webs all over that zoo. There were spiders, fist size, and tons of them.  I was busy trying to find bugs to throw into the webs and get pictures. 
The zoo was close to a restaurant called Rancho Muriel. Rancho Muriel was a cozy, clean place and the food was fantastic. Muriel brought out her special mixture of carrots, onions, cucumbers all mixed in a pepper mixture and when I dove in to get a spoonful for my salad the kitchen staff started hooting and hollering because of the spoonful I had heaped on my salad. I shrugged if off thinking, "must be a Tico thing" when I took a bite and it almost blew my head clear off my body. It was a tad spicy. Good thing I had enjoyed my lunch already because my taste buds were ruined. I didn't want to be rude because Muriel obviously kept this concoction for her friends and family so I ate the rest of it. I was crying and sweating after finishing it and they were amazed. So was I.  They were definitely laughing at me and not with me.   Gringa Estupida.  Taste before I go and grab a double heaping helping. I learned my lesson.
We walked back to the B&B which was about a 30 min walk. It was nice to get back. I was in the mood to chill. The girls grabbed a movie from Margaritas huge movie selection and I took a nap in my ginormous king size bed. It was so nice. When I woke up we had couple of hours before it got dark and I didn't want to walk that busy road again in the dark so I asked if there was a pizza delivery and there was. We ordered pizza and grabbed a glass of wine from the fridge behind the bar and enjoyed the evening. The pizza was fine, the wine was better and my family went to bed at around 7.  I was on the computer at our table on the patio and our neighbor was out drinking wine as well. He walked over and poured me a glass of wine from his bottle. He said he noticed I was drinking wine and we got to talking about wine. He and his family were from Holland. He has 3 teenage kids and they were all very polite and quiet. I told him how nice the wine was and he told me he is a wine maker. We ended up talking about his winery in Italy and he only grows Sangiovese grapes and he makes high end, expensive wine. He showed me pictures of his farm and the vats and it was so interesting. I kept thinking of how I couldn't wait to tell Megan, our Sommelier at S.T. and how she should be talking with this guy, not me. I'm glad I knew a little about wine. He was a very interesting person.
I went to bed thinking my last day/night in Costa Rica was perfect.
3:30 a.m. came entirely too early. The taxi was at our door at 4 and we loaded up and drove to the airport. I need to remember to get to the airport at least 2 hours in advance when we fly out of Costa Rica because once we got our departure tax paid and papers filled out we were in line and checked in. I turned around and it was a zoo. We were already done with it all. Time to get a cup of coffee and chill and wait for our plane to load. We were not all sitting together and they asked us if we wanted to upgrade for $15/person to the front of the plane and there would be much more leg room and we would all be sitting together. We normally would never do that but this time we did and I am so glad we did. We had nice large seats with a lot of leg space and we were all sitting together. It was well worth it. The flight was uneventful and we landed in Denver at noon. We were on U.S. soil again and it was nice to talk without having to think about what I was saying. I COULD SPEAK ENGLISH AGAIN!!! We missed our shuttle to Aravada and once again, we stood there looking lost and a shuttle driver asked where we needed to go, we told her and she took us for the same price. Lucky us. My cousin picked us up and we were now heading to her house to get our truck and drive home to see our beloved pets.
We got to Patty's house and our truck wouldn't start. After a couple of hours and Jack is now starting to get belligerent I got on the phone shopping for rental cars. Patty offered her van for us to take but the last thing I wanted to do was drive back to Denver the next day. She called one of her friends, who has a diesel, and he came over, made a suggestion to Jack that he do something and it worked. The truck started and we were all high fiving and we drove home. We got home and it was freezing. We couldn't find the keys to our house so we were locked out for about an hour. I'm freezing my butt off and Jack is trying all of the windows now. Good thing we know our house isn't easy to break into. We contemplated breaking a window and I took one last look for the keys and found them. FINALLY!!! We're inside where it's warm. The pets were so happy to see us. I think. They both gained some weight. They are now on a diet. But, they look great and Greg, our house/pet sitter did a fantastic job taking care of everything for us. We are very grateful.