May 29

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Well, we made tearful goodbyes to Dona Rita and Wendy and Samuel the toddler. Heard that Wendy’s dad only died 7 months ago, blood clot complication of hip surgery. What a shock to the family. After extolling the benefits of attending a Marriage Encounter Weekend and reading Dr. Chapmans Five Love Languages book, we packed up and left our wonderful simple life. It was amusing – the little dog Dorie had faithfully been sitting outside the front door, but of course it is often left open for the breeze. Jean was out on the deck waiting for the breakfast, and who should appear but Dorie – having walked through the house. Very naughty dog. She got in troube with Mama.

We considered stopping at some places for birding on the way, but the traffic was so bad we passed them up. Fortunately the Googlemaps adjusts for road expectations, and we were only 15 mins “off the pace” in the end.

The hills and roads as we neared San Gerardo de Dota became more severe, narrower, and bit more potholey, but not really bad. The room is gorgeous – a “junior suite” complete with sunken bath tub. The only problem is – we are freezing!!! It’s now 52 degrees! It started drizzling when we arrived and then got worse and we had to give up looking around the grounds – which are so amazing, with all sorts of flowers and bushes and trees and feeders. In fact, in that 45 mins or so we found SEVEN new life-birds, to add to the TWO we found during our early morning walk back at Wendy’s. So not a bad day, and we already surpassed Jean’s estimate of 50 new birds – at 52. Not bad.

We ate a hearty dinner of trout burger for Jean and grilled trout gratinee for David and now we are hurrying to get the blog done because – of course – we are up at 4:30 tomorrow to leave at 5 am to meet a birding guide we engaged through the McClung’s guide Oscar. We are to meet him at the National Park of the Quetzals at 5:45. Now to hope that it doesn’t rain hard all day – not bad for the birds but very tricky for the photographer. My arms got pretty tired holding the umbrella over him.

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