SARAPIQUI

Hola ya'll! Today, we moved the traveling road show to Sarapiqui (sarah-pee-kee). We began with a rafting adventure. Class V rapids, people falling out everywhere.... ok, class II+, maybe one III for those of you keeping score.

Each rapid has a name. The best one was "confusion" but others included Superman, Air Force, Roller coaster, hay carumba and last chance. You've got to believe that confusion is the best for a young teen crowd.

We saw a howler monkey en route. Too many birds to count and (really) bounced a couple of people out of the boats. For those not so fortunate, we had a voluntary swim, bounding off a towering cliff (ok, ~10 ft). While we were goofing off, our guides whipped up a delicious snack of fresh pineapple & watermelon. We eat a LOT of fresh fruit down here.





After the raft trip we had a great lunch at the outfitter's with our guides; awesome "build your own" burritos and pico de gallo. Oh, and guacamole; rhymes with "whack-a-mole, eh?" if you say it en Espanol.




With the afternoon came some REAL adventures. We planned to "chill" at the hotel & swim in the pool, but an anonymous member of our troop (rhymes with Mr. Gay's younger son) found the only, nearly microscopic sliver of glass in or around the pool.

Mrs. Hartle, despite our med-kit worthy of a medical corpsman, was unable to extricate the offending matter & so a cab was hailed (turned out the ride was shorter than ARS to La Dolce Vita). Small cut, two stitches & NO BILL later (tip, take Mrs. Hartle with you to buy your next car), we were back to normal.

Right now, it's just after dinner & Abbey & Mrs. Hartle (with Juan Carlos' help) scored a CHOCOLATE birthday cake for Colby. Abbey has a bright future running a catering business if the pro-soccer thing falls through.

Currently, we are well into cerveza time, so that's all for today. Hasta luego. Pura Vida!!!