Saturday

Customers! We finally got more customers! After a solid week with no cars pulling in the drive, today, a lovely couple from Spain showed up for coffee and smoothies.  Growing starved for new people to talk to, we promptly pulled up our chairs and began chatting. At first they seemed a bit surprised. Why is my barista asking so many questions? But when it became obvious we weren’t going to let the language barrier or the disinterested looks on their faces stop us, they got into it too.

They stayed for an hour or so and through a combination of their impressive, though not-perfect English and our first grade level Spanish, we had a really lovely visit. We learned they were on their first trip to Costa Rica, but like many people who visit, they were already trying to figure out how to stay. In fact, their trip was only supposed to be for 6 days and they extended it to 10 once they got here and fell in love with this incredible country. She is a lawyer, practicing civil law in Spain, and he is a business owner.

We spent a huge chunk of time discussing his business – www.GreenEfficientSolutions.com A large focus of his business is bringing affordable green energy technologies into countries where the cost of electricity makes it difficult for many people to afford it. He described for us a solar panel solution that was, as he said, “plug and play” and made solar energy a much more viable option for people. It sounded fascinating and with electricity costs here soaring, we hope he decides to come back to CR and get business going here.

After our guests left, it was time to head out to the “meating”. Every two weeks, our friends Tad and Cook make a meat/cheese/yogurt delivery to our local watering hole, Los Corrales and those of us who placed an order go pick up our goods and enjoy a beer with our friends. Americans Tad and Cook have lived in CR for close to 15 years, and several years ago they decided to get into the pork and dairy business. They work very hard! And as a result, we rarely get to see them. So the “meating” is a good chance to see them and visit with friends – and of course pick up any goodies we ordered.

Tim was still here visiting Wendy, so the two of them came over after Los Corrales and we sat on the patio listening to music, talking, enjoying a few cold beverages and a little dinner. It was so nice and I’m really enjoying these impromptu social get-togethers. It turns out people don’t expect fancy fare. In fact, if you whip together some guacamole, salsa and a few quesadillas, everyone is happy as a clam.

Sunday

Today we have a big birthday party to go to – three of the Hill People have birthdays within a week of each other. Wendy – 8/14, Dave, 8/18 and Surfer Bill 8/19. It is a potluck, so I got busy in the morning surfing Pinterest and AllRecipes.com for some inspiration. I knew Hank and Marie were cooking up some roasted chicken in their wood-burning oven, so I decided on a tangy slaw my mom used to make that is topped with Ramen Noodles (classy touch, I know!) It’s really, really good and I happened to have the noodles on hand, because when I saw the package on the grocery store shelf last week, I immediately got a craving for that salad.

Now that our friends Richard and Marilyn have gone back to California until January, I am the go-to dessert maker. Pinterest did not let me down and I found a recipe for something new to me – brookies. Anyone tried these yummy little nuggets of awesomeness? When a brownie and a cookie get together, the result is a brookie! Fun, right!?! Well, they were a total hit, if I do say so myself, so go ahead and make a batch next time you need to impress your friends. Seriously…good stuff! Here is the recipe I made, but there are many variations.

As if all of my domestic pursuits this morning weren’t enough, next I busted out some paints to make Bill a birthday gift. (Later in the week when I essentially do nothing but read for an entire day straight, please refer back to this day and recall how impressively busy I was.) You’ve probably figured out by now that everyone, for every occasion, gets a homemade gift. Gone are the days of heading to the mall to shop for the perfect gift, or buying someone a really nice bottle of wine, or taking someone out for dinner. I really love giving someone a gift though, so it looks like homemade is the only choice.

Bill is a surfer, so I painted him a wave and decided to write a little something on the painting. As I drifted off to sleep the night before, “Where there’s a will, there’s a wave.” popped in my head and I decided it was perfect.

The party was fun – no surprise there! All of the food was scrumptious and the conversation was wonderful, as it always is. We talked history, travel, religion and politics. Our group was fairly diverse – in terms of age and background. We certainly don’t all believe the same things or see things the same way, but I tell you what – feeling free to discuss big subjects with people, to share ideas and broach topics many find controversial, is refreshing. We don’t all agree – but we do all maintain respect for the opinions others hold dear. And I think we all have an openness and a willingness to admit when we aren’t sure. We ask questions and we discuss. No one feels a need to defend their position or to convince the rest of their rightness. It’s a beautiful thing!

Monday

Dave’s birthday! He’s never really been a big birthday celebration guy. Give him a few hours of uninterrupted time to read or play a video game, and he’s a happy guy. So I headed out that morning with Patty and Marie to walk the beach and collect coconuts for our big coconut oil making extravaganza later in the week. The beach walk was nice – we each found a few good pieces of wood for crafting and we loaded up with coconuts! I think we gathered 25 or so.

Back home, Dave’s birthday dinner request was simple – Gallo Pinto (beans and rice). Simple, but this dish which is the national dish of Costa Rica is one of Dave’s favorites.  And lucky me, it is pretty easy to make (especially when you have pre-cooked beans and rice in the freezer).

Tuesday

Spanish lesson day. Much like last week, the two hours just flew by. We try very hard to maintain the rule of “No English!” and by the end of class, my head is spinning. In a good way, of course. It helps that there is almost as much laughter in the air as Spanish. The key to learning a new language (or learning anything new, perhaps) is to let go of the fear of looking foolish and abandon any cares for what other people might think. When I do that, the Spanish just flows out of me. And I’m not trying to boast or anything, but I’d guess at least 10% of it is correct.

Something very exciting happened today! When I was in class, yammering away in improper espanol, Dave got customers! At first I was bummed out that I’d missed them. But as Dave told me all about the two girls he made lattes and smoothies for, I realized this was a huge day! Not only had he made his first solo drinks, he chatted the girls up. When we first got here, Dave reluctantly engaged with the customers as I made the drinks. Then I’d get out there and launch into my questions and soon we were all visiting. But talking to strangers isn’t something many people are excited about – Dave certainly among them.

Dave got the girls (Hannah and Ellie) to sign our guest book, he took their picture (because he knew I’d want that) and he took them on a tour of our property – explaining the various plants, trees and animals. They loved it! (They said so in the guest book!) And Dave did too. He told me all about where they were from England and Austria, what they were doing here (volunteering with Pertoma – the turtle rescue) and recounted stories of their journeys to get here. One of the girls had a rough time with her travel when the person who was supposed to meet her when she got off the place in CR wasn’t there. He didn’t show up the next day either, so she figured out how to get to her hotel and then how to take the bus and get where she needed to be (on the other side of the country). This is a huge feat and she told him she was terrified. In fact, she’d never been so scared in her whole life. Then Dave says, “I told her that I am more than twice her age and I would have been scared too. And I told her she should be very proud of herself. ”

Wow! Not only talking to strangers – but really connecting with them and sharing words of encouragement. Who is this guy? I like him! 😉

We’d missed sunset the night before because of rain, so that evening we enjoyed a day late birthday toast as we watched the sun go down.  Cheers!

Wednesday

9 AM sharp, Wendy, Dave and I headed to Butterfly Mike’s for our first coconut oil making lesson. We arrived to find 30 coconuts ready to be cup open, the meat removed and ground up, and then squeezed through cheese cloth to begin the multiple day process. Mike loves efficiency. So he did a lot of research to figure out the best (and easiest) way to get the meat out of coconuts. What he came up with was getting a local guy to make him a custom drill bit that he attached to a motor and mounted on his wall. The motor spins the bit and when Mike holds a halved coconut up to it, six seconds later it is clean as a whistle.

Once all the meat was removed, Mike added hot water which aids in extraction of the oils. Next came the hand workout. We each took turns squeezing the pulp through cheesecloth to get all the milk/oil out of the coconuts. After two failed attempts at making coconut oil on my own, I learned something interesting about what remains after the extraction. It’s coconut flour – perfect for baking. (Expect to see some coconut flour recipes soon as my freezer now contains the flour of 30 coconuts. EEK!)

Four people. Two hours – start to finish, and Day 1 was finished. Next up, head over to Marie’s house for more of the same – well, for Wendy and I anyhow.

We already had plans with the Hill Ladies to make oil – the old school way. What we lacked in efficiency (our process took at least twice as long) we made up for in frivolity. We laughed, we got coconut everywhere, we put Marie’s Omega juicer to the test! It was fun! But by 4 PM I was exhausted! And ready to bid adieu to the coconuts (for the day anyhow).

Thursday

Remember how busy I was on Sunday? I warned you a lazy day was coming, and it’s today! Wendy dropped off two books the other day and I decided to take a break from what I had been reading and picked up one of them – Chelsea Handler’s My Horizontal Life. If you’ve seen her TV show, heard her comedy routine, or, quite frankly, read the title of the book, you can surmise this is not a book containing the secrets to world peace. It was a terribly inappropriate, “chick lit”, “beach read” and I devoured it in one sitting. And at one point, I got into such a raucous laughing fit that I began to choke and cough and had tears streaming down my cheeks and Dave was actually worried about me. He remained worried about me and stared on with furrowed brow for the next 45 seconds (Sorry Dave!) while I got my laughing under control enough to communicate – “I’m okay…funny!” Then I found that whole scene pretty darn absurd and the laughing recommenced. My brother Luke tells me a belly laugh once a day is the key to a good life – I think he’s on to something.

I did leave the house once – when we walked to Mike’s for part 2 of coconut oil making – decantation. This process is not for the super-sniffers among us (I fall into that category). The pure, clear oil is sandwiched between layers of water (that we used for the extraction) and layers of protein. It’s left on the counter for at least 24 hours, so a bit of fermentation goes on in that protein layer causing it to get funky (and not in a James Brown sort of way).

I also got a little domestic and FINALLY did something with the yucca that’s been intimidating me from the corner of my kitchen for weeks. A consultation with Google produced dismal results, but I did find a little yucca fritter that sounded interesting, so I gave it a whirl. Two things to know about yucca. 1 – It has a wax coating that must be peeled off prior to using (which I knew). What I didn’t know was that it’s much thicker than I thought. Thankfully I was able to peel it off after cooking it. 2 – If you ever need an adhesive, yucca will work in a pinch. I swear, after I mashed it up in the mixer, this stuff was so sticky it could keep tile shingles on a roof – through an earthquake.

My recipe suggested cubing fresh cheese and wrapping the mashed yucca around it, then frying the little puppies up. Brilliant! Fried+starch+cheese=YUM!

Friday

It was day 2 of coconut oil production with the Hill Ladies today and after watching Mike’s process (very carefully using a ladle to get out the oil and then straining through cheesecloth), we decided to try a turkey baster for the extraction. It worked just fine. I wouldn’t say either way is better – just different.

Afterwards, Marie made the best cup of coffee I’ve had since arriving in Costa Rica – or maybe ever in my life, come to think of it. I haven’t seen half-and-half since I got here (didn’t know what to look for, apparently) and I’ve been making our daily coffee the traditional Costa Rican way – in a coffee sock – a fabric filter which hangs from a wood or metal stand and you carefully pour your hot water over the ground coffee in the filer. It’s cool, and tasty enough. But Marie made our coffee in a french press and then said, “Who wants crema dulce?” Hmm…I hadn’t heard of this product, but since my Spanish was coming along, I knew it was sweet cream. Yes, I believe I do want some of that! The coffee was strong, the addition of the sweet cream turned it to the most beautiful caramel brown, and then because a quick look at the ingredients revealed the sweet cream had no actual sweetener, I added a spoonful of sugar. Bam! That magic potion hit my lips and the heavens opened up and the angels sang! {I am only slightly exaggerating here.} So. Good!

When I was getting ready to leave, Hank said he thought my car might need some power steering fluid. Really? Interesting! I have always been fascinated by people who can diagnose a problem just by the sound the car is making. Full disclosure here – there was a time in my life when not even the little lights on the dash were enough to convince me something was awry. After finding myself stranded on the side of the road with a blown up engine one time, I learned the importance of those lights when Dad asked, “Didn’t the check engine light come on?” Still not realizing my role in the car’s demise – my response was, “Well yeah, but that’s been on for weeks.” (Sorry dad!)

Hank not only remedied the power steering issue (it needed fluid, just as he’d suspected), but he was kind enough to go through the entire contents of the engine. Here’s what I learned. Cars (old ones at least) really aren’t all that complicated. I was always scared to look under the hood because I found it incredibly intimidating. My friend Lisa’s dad made her learn to change the oil in their Fiat Spider if she wanted to drive it (and thankfully for me, she did), but I never learned. I think I was busy learning to sew a teddy bear instead. I believe we can all agree which is the more important life skill.

After my under-the-hood tour, it was no longer just a big heap of dirty metal parts, it was a heap of dirty metal parts that all had an important role and, in most cases, each part had ways to identify how healthy it was. I knew where the dipstick was and how to check the oil, but I had no clue you could pop off the covers on a battery and check the water levels (actually, I had no idea there was water in a battery).  I knew spark plugs were a thing – but I didn’t know where they were or what they looked like.

This week was one of celebration and education.  Lots of birthdays and getting together with friends. But also a ton of learning. From coconuts to lug nuts – I got quite the education this week. The biggest take-away wasn’t simply the new skills themselves, but rather the idea that it’s never too late to learn new things.

As kids, so much is new and we’re learning all the time. People say kids are like sponges – always soaking up new ideas. I suppose it could be argued that it’s a brain age thing, but I’d suggest it’s a state of mind thing. Knowing how to do stuff is cool. Feeling like a total novice and asking for help is uncomfortable. But if you never open the hood, you’ll go on being intimidated by something that’s actually not all that scary. The only way to mastery is to begin. I don’t see engine repair in my future, but if your car ever needs power steering fluid – I’m your girl!

———XO

In case you missed Week 1, Week 2, Week 3,  Week 4, Week 5, Week 6, Week 7  or Week 8 of the big Costa Rica Adventure – you might want to go back and get caught up. If you’re curious how this adventure began, we created a FAQ to cover most of your burning questions. If we missed one, leave it in the comments below and I’ll do my best to get you an answer.

Thanks for your support and for reading the blog. We hope you are enjoying the journey as much as we are. Feel free to share with your peeps – we love new readers and new friends!

If you think you might like to buy the Bed and Breakfast we are care taking this year, here is the link with all the info. And then make plans to come see this paradise for yourself!