Sadly, today marks the end of our time in Fila Guinea as we move to Casa Botania for this evening, and then down to Bahia Drake for New Year’s Eve and Day. We did a short walk, less than three miles, through the upper part of her village, turning around at the upper school. We got to see the temporary structure built for graduation, and for bingo. It is still there, despite school being out until February.
It was quiet, almost deserted, and the few people we saw we either preparing for church, or moving around with Sunday ease. We walked by the now defunct Soda and Internet Cafe, both of which went out of business in the past few months.
Once done with our nearly three miles, we packed up, Darien did an exercise tape, and we loaded up the car. We fed the grand-kitty one last round of soft cat food (which she glommed up quickly), left some crunchy food, and headed back to the recycling building to drop off our most current load. We then did a repeat trip to the Mexican restaurant across from the San Vito bus stop, where we waited for Aaron to return from San Jose. Sigh. No more grand-kitty for a while. =[
From here we went back to the Wilson Botanical Gardens in the outskirts of San Vito. If you read the blog last year, you know the botanical garden is part of the Las Cruces Field Station, and it has beautifully diverse tropical and subtropical plants, and offers views of unusual plant families and rare and endangered plants from Costa Rica and other parts of the La Amistad International Park. Today, rather than go the typically marked trail of flowers, we headed instead to the bird watching tower, and then down to the stream (where you should only go if you have permission due to being overnight guests). The tower seems to max out at over 34 feet, in fact, closer to 45. We didn’t see many birds, but there was quite a view of the valley and mountains.
From here, it was back to Casa Botania, a bed and breakfast where we had a beautiful meal last year. Tonight we stay in the two bungalows down from the main building, and enjoyed a three course meal prepared by its owners. The view from our bungalows is spectacular.
If you read the blog last year, you may remember that Casa Botania is a Bed & Breakfast located about half between the Wilson Botanical Garden/Las Cruces Biological Station and the town of San Vito de Coto Brus. The B&B is run by Kathleen and Pepe, a young Tico-Belgian couple who have an adorable son named Elias and a furry dog named Loba, and is situated on a mountainside in the Linda Vista neighborhood and enjoys a splendid and spacious view of the valley, as well as the primary forest reserve of Las Cruces.
The B&B stresses renewable resources (we have solar powered lights outside the cabins, and the interiors are very natural), and really has a family feel to it.
Sunset was particularly spectacular.
For dinner, we were treated to a fabulous three course meal - soup or fish appetizer, lamb or chicken tikka masala for the main course, and dessert was a banana flambé or chocolate mousse. Quite to die for. Kathleen’s parents are here in San Vito right now as well, her father makes an excellent “digestive” reminiscent of lemoncello for post-meal consumption, and her mother makes jams for the breakfast meal. I believe that I will be looking forward to that meal, and think I should probably try to burn off another thousand calories or so in the morning.Following the end of our meal, we retreated to the cabins, where the boys will be watching the Redskins play the Cowboys, and I will be writing in the blog, and Darien will be reading on her Kindle.
Tomorrow it is off to the beach and the land of working hair dryers - although I will miss San Vito. To think that if Darien had not been posted here, we would never have made it to Costa Rica. For shame!
Sleep tight all, and here’s hoping that the Redskins win!
