Tico Tuesday, August 4th

It’s Tuesday!
There is a lot I would like to share with you today, so I really encourage you to read my blog for the more detailed version. This picture is of Danielle and me at the beach this past weekend. Danielle is a fellow gringa I met 2 and a half weeks ago. The way we met was truly a divine appointment and God has really used us to bless one another in her brief time here. She really wanted to go to Manuel Antonio National Park (and beach) and see a sloth, so I offered to go with her. I tell you, life is so rough!! So we went this weekend and had a brief, but amazing adventure full of surprises, adventure and important lessons. Check out the blog for more! http://smithcj1.blogspot.com

:-) Thanks for coming to read about God’s amazing faithfulness and provision! Before Danielle and I left for Manuel Antonio, we had Samuel (one of my Honduran “brothers”) get us tickets. It is always better to buy tickets ahead of time. Samuel got the tickets for our Saturday departure on Friday, and it was a good thing he went. He got the only 2 tickets they had and those tickets were only available because they had been returned. So, it was obvious from the start that God’s hand was over this whole trip, and that He would provide for us every step of the way.
The bus dropped us off by our hotel. It was dark outside. There was almost no lighting and no signage saying “Office this way.” So, we continued to follow this steep, wet, windy little “road” that was taking us downhill towards the beach. There were a couple signs mentioning the restaurant for our hotel, so we just kept following them. Finally we got the restaurant for our hotel, which was all dark and clearly not open. I saw a staircase leading up to where it looked like the owner might live. We started up and a dog started barking. A lady came out in her pj’s and told us that she’d figured we weren’t going to come. We arrived almost an hour later than we’d expected, so I can’t blame her. Anyway, she gave us a room with air conditioning, even though we only paid the price for a room with a fan. May God bless her! It was a little nerve wracking when she took us to the room and made sure the sheets were clean. I always assume the sheets are clean and that they get washed after every check-out. But, I think we were the only people there that night, and it isn’t peak season, so who knows.
She told us that the portón (gate) leading out to the beach would we open at 7:30 in the morning and that all we had to do was walk down the beach to come to the entrance to the national park. Well, at 7:50 the portón was locked shut. The barbed wire than ran all along the property kept us from trying to break out. While we tried to figure out what to do we enjoyed seeing some amazing blue, red and yellowy-orangey crabs, an iguana, and a beautiful spider web. Finally, I ventured into the restaurant to head towards her living space again and WEEOOO WEEOOO WEEOO-I set the alarm off!! That was one way to get her attention.
She came and opened for us and we continued our adventure. One of the first things on the list was to find bus tickets to return back to San José that afternoon (Sunday). We stopped and asked a guy (named Jorge) in front of a mostly empty mini-grocery store. He directed us to someone who might be able to get us tickets, and also mentioned that he had to go to the next town over (where we had to buy the tickets) so he could get us tickets if we wanted. We had limited time, so we didn’t really want to have to take a 14km round trip and possibly have to wait in line. We ended up trusting this guy with our money to get tickets and moved on to the national park (after turning down an obnoxious tour guide and buying a tiny, snacky breakfast at a little grocery store).
We were just walking past the poorly marked entrance to the national park when a lady on a motorcycle pointed out the mistake we were making. She was a tour guide and we made sure to find her and use her as our guide once we paid our entrance fees to the park. Neither Danielle nor I had many colones on us, and we hadn’t known how much we were going to have to pay. So after paying to get in, we didn’t have the $40 we needed for both of us to go with the guide. We offered her the 21,000 colones we had left (she was charging 23,000) and she took them without blinking. That made me happy. Oh, and even before we bought our tickets to enter the park she was there and had set up her spotting scope right on a sloth!! I teased Danielle that she saw what she came for and that we didn’t really need the tickets or the tour guide, but we still went ahead with it anyway. On our tour we saw 3 more sloths, bats, a poisonous snake, some grasshoppers, a cute crawly thing that looked “slimy, yet satisfying” right out of the Lion King, a dead frog, spiders (our guide was into bugs), a “Jesus Christ” lizard (because it can walk on water it runs so fast), a crocodile in the ocean, and leaf cutter ants. Our guide stomped on the ground above the ants nest to make the soldiers, which were 2-3 times the size of the normal ants, come out. Then she picked one up, stuck it on a stick that was 12-18 inches long and then held out the ant. The ant sustained the stick in the air!!! That is a strong critter! Oh and I learned that there are 1200 species of palm trees in Costa Rica and that they all have some kind of fruit (not just coconuts). Pejibaye is a fibrous, dry potatoey palm tree fruit with a big seed that indigenous people here used to subsist off of. It is still common and a lot of people eat it with mayo. Oh, and I learned that bamboo is a grass and that it can grow 3 inches a day!
We abandoned our tour group a little early because we had to get back to our hotel to check out. We stopped by to check on don Jorge, our bus ticket man, and he was nowhere to be found!! The little store he had been in front of was totally closed up and there was not a trace of him anywhere!! We were distraught, poor and running late. (Thankfully our tour guide had given us 5000 colones back because we ended up with a big tour group and she cut everyone a deal -and my smugness from getting a deal from her earlier was washed away by the kindness and grace she extended to us). But we were scared and didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t completely given up hope on the man. I knew it was risky to trust him, but we didn’t feel like we really had other options. Danielle and I beat it back to our hotel, sweating profusely, empty with hunger and energyless with dehydration. We made our way back down the beach once more, this time with all our stuff, searching for food and trying to figure out how to get back home. We picked a restaurant and were about to sit down when out of nowhere appeared our angelito, don Jorge with bus tickets for us!!! Praise the Lord!! He really was watching out for us!!
We had a delicious, relaxed meal (with lots of iced water with lime), and then enjoyed a couple hours of relaxation and reading on the beach before we had to catch the bus. I enjoyed jumping the waves for a little while. There was a bit on an undertow that kept me on my toes and the waves were powerful, but I was careful to stay between a palm tree and an empty lifeguarding chair and there were 2 guys near me, so I felt safe.
Before heading out Danielle and I shared the last few minutes on the beach with a delicious pint of wicked expensive Haagen Daaz Chocolate Chocolate Chip ice cream. It was a good way to end our little adventure. We got the bus back home without a problem (though it wasn’t a direct bus so it took longer to get home than it could have). I really enjoyed our conversations on the bus, both to and from Manuel Antonio. Danielle has been a great blessing to me and I’m sad that she has to leave next week!
Thanks for reading my novel! I wanted to share such a detailed report because God’s faithfulness, provision and care for us were blatantly shown to us over and over again. The bus didn’t break down, we didn’t get robbed, and so many things that almost went wrong went better than right. Earthly moral: always buy round trip bus tickets ahead of time!! Spiritual moral: Trust God!