Tapanti National Park

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Today we arranged for our class to start at 2 pm until 5 so that we could rent bicycles and ride 14 km to the Tapanti. Yesterday we spoke with the couple in town from Switzerland who rent bicycles and motorcycles and they had bikes we could use the next day. We invited our friend Marcos and went at 7 in the morning. It was a long uphill ride to the park and when we arrived we realized that we didn't have time to walk the trails and return back for class. So we just visited with the rangers for a while and visited some exhibits on animals in the park that they had on display. Afterwards we rode back on the bikes. It was so much easier returning than arriving. We stopped quickly to see if we could find the hot springs that dump into the nearby river (Rio Macho) but couldn't locate them. We plan to go back another time to find them.

When we arrived back at Freddie and Franziska's house she served us some iced tea and some of her homemade breads and marmalades. Because Tim had to toss out his cereal he purchased some bread and cas marmalade for his breakfast. Of all of her marmalades, cas was the fruit i liked the least. It is very sour and reminds me of grapefruit. All of the marmalades are made with a very low sugar content and have to be refrigerated after you open the jar. Also they had a citrusy effervescence to them that I could not figure out. This Francesca can speak very little Spanish and some English and she seemed to enjoy speaking German with Tim and Marcos. I could understand some of her German words but it was too much for me to piece together German to say to her while I am attempting to learn Spanish. Tim thinks they got special treatment because she wanted them to buy her products but I think she wanted to speak some German with them. She also offered to take them (and maybe me!) to a hot springs that not many people know about one evening.

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Photos

Tim in Rio Mache
After our ride down from the National Park Tim takes a dip in the very cold river.

Tim and Marcos
Tim and Marcos enjoy a quick swim. Marcos is a carpenter from Switzerland and he has been in CR for 3 months.