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Day 8 Friday 11th
Start of the day was hummingbird spotting from our balcony - after the first 20 or so we got a bit blasé, and we still couldn't see the volcano, so we trogged down to breakfast of eggs, pancakes, bacon, toast, juice, coffee...! today was visit the local Tico farm day, so we weren't too sure what to expect -especially when steve told us Erik the farmer didn't speak much English, and his wife, who usually does all the catering, was away looking after her father.
So we drove up more gravel tracks, steeper than yesterdays (I think) until we arrived at the farm. Erik is a larger than life character, loud and cheery, and speaks a version of Spanish which was tough to understand at first. Luckily for us, for the first 45 minutes, his uncle (7 years younger!) Enrique (not his name but easier to say than his real one) was there to help us - he's a guide so his English is great and he smoothed us into the day. Also lucky for us they had hammocks, 2 dogs and 2 ATVs so we were sure Finn and Derry would be fine.
First stop was milking the cows. Erik's farm is organic, a brave move and rare amongst the Costa Ricans, and it was clear from the start he was passionate about how he farms and the quality of produce. Everyone tried their hand at milking by hand (well, Siena nearly had a go!) then administering the automatic pumps. Seems odd that we should be doing this when we have a farm just up the road at home, but somehow it felt like an adventure. Especially when Enrique left and we had to fend for ourselves for language!
The milking wasn't just for show - oh, no, everything we did today was for a purpose - we were all amazed by how much milk the cow produced - and that they are milked twice per day every day, at 2 am and 2 pm ! (now that's what I call hard work). The milk we pulled was quickly put to use, adding some bacteria and then stirring to get the cheese under way.
Next stop was a quick blast down the hill to the tilapia lake on the atv's - driven by Finn and Derry ! - where we were put to a sterner test. No rods, just lines, big hooks, big tilapia fish and squeeze your own fish food into lumps for bait ....then hope for the best!
We were all spectacularly rubbish, and with the prospect of eating what we caught, it soon seemed like we were destined to eat Queso (cheese!) rather the pescados for lunch. However Erik came to the rescue and helped Finn and Derry land 2 big fish, and Siena who really did get a big one which got away! We quickly lost an hour or more of the day to this, which was surprisingly addictive, cathartic and we even managed a joke or two with Erik who was clearly enjoying his day with the gringos. Derry had a ball, quickly boring of fishing, but happy to catch hers again and again with a big net in the holding tank.
Eventually Erik couldn't wait for the hopeless 2 (me'n'suzanne) to catch more, so he dug into the reserve supply (caught earlier by his neighbours) and we trotted up alongside the ATVs again back up to the house. Siena got straight back into her role as cheesemeister, mixing it and sieving it ready for eating later.
Luckily it wasn't Erik cooking but a friend/relative/worker/neighbour - sometimes hard to tell - and soon we were sitting down to enjoy a Tico meal of rice, potato-like root vegetable, tomato salsa, fried fish. Probably the freshest fish we ever had, it was swimming just half an hour earlier - but it was very heavily fried so for us it lost a little of its glamour. Still, the experience was well worth it. By now we had totally relaxed into our day - the language had become far less of a barrier - we understood a deal of Erik, and he clearly understood us well, we just couldn't speak much in each others language! Siena also sat and chatted whilst tucking into her lunch in a big way! We had a really nice chat with erik - everything we ate was from his own garden, including the lemons which we saw being picked 30 seconds before being mixed to make lemon squash - and 100% organic. It was really valuable to learn about his approach to farming, life and to understand his values. By the end of the meal we had a much broader appreciation of his life, and felt that we had made a friend. It was clear, also that he liked us, and was impressed by the children - polite, not brats, chatty, keen and interested. He's not the first to talk in those terms and it makes us feel better, that we're not total failures as parents - even if every day there are some niggles or other - I guess without that life wouldn't be real anyway - I'm hoping to see it develop as a positive competitiveness when they grow up!
By now Enrique had returned - surprisingly, his booking he thought he had was for next month, not today !!! so he kindly had a busmans holiday and took us on a tour round Erik'sfarm - we saw the usual sloth, a few birds, also the 2000 trees which Erik has planted as reforestation from seeds he brought back from Nicaragua; can't remember which tree tho'. We enjoyed an hour and a half of wandering around his 80 acres, including a stop at his secret pure water source, before returning to the house for coffee, cheese, tortillas and milk (or chocolate milk from the chocolate cows for the kids!)
So we ate the cheese - served traditionally in a tortilla (pancake) - savoury and bland but the real deal. Derry returned time and time again to take a slice of 'our' cheese and we think she ate some of it but a good deal went into one of the dogs!
We said our goodbyes with a final trip down to the lake with Finn and Derry driving the ATVs; we'd had a fantastic time, and have thoroughly enjoyed this daytime - and it delivered way more than our expectations of a 'day on a farm' - we felt quite Tico by the end of the day!
We decided to take the alleged 'shortcut' to La Fortuna in search of a hot springs bath - there are several around here. Through the pouring rain we found the way according to the directions we'd been given.We drove for maybe 20 minutes on our lovely gravel pathways, passing bizarre sights like a man in a black poncho and shorts gathering grass by the roadside in thunderous downpour, next to his moped and dog - bearing in mind this is in the pitch black, the only illumination was our headlights! We nearly got as far as the tarmac road (it's just called the 'asphalt' here, to distinguish it from 'normal' roads) only to find a digger blocking the way. We had no choice but to turn back, making our shortcut an hour and a half of gravel driving then 20k of tarmac before finally arriving in La Fortuna, too late for the kids to stay awake for hot springs, but just OK for a pizza! Eventually we returned a bit late considering we have an early start tomorrow, but we've had a great day, and consider ourselves quite Costa Rican!.
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