Costa Rica Adventure: coming home.

On our final morning at Finca Exotica, we savored the last of the freshest fruit we will ever eat in our lives, and then hopped in the lodge owner's car with Erick and his family for a ride to our stranded car. Since it hadn't rained for several days, the rivers were much lower and we had no problems getting back to our car. Once in the car, we had a little trouble getting on the road: our Jimny wouldn't go into reverse and the brake seemed to be stuck. Erick hopped out of the car and pushed it from the front with four passengers inside, and moved it out into the road. He coached Scott to start forward, then hit the brakes fast. Scott did as he was told, and after that the car worked just fine (Erick said some rocks were stuck somewhere under the car and stopping quickly shook them out).

We drove along the bumpy road and had another Erick moment. "I heard something," he said. "Stop the car." We stopped. He got out and pointed upward to a dozen squirrel monkeys crossing the road in the trees above.

Yes, those are fish hanging on his handlebars. In Puerto Jiminez.

We pressed on to Puerto Jiminez, where we stopped at a grocery store and grabbed some slabs of meat. We took them to a lagoon where Erick said there would be crocodiles.

As promised, there were crocodiles - and caimans. Erick took the meat slabs, tied them up with fishing line, and tossed them out into the lagoon, dragging them back toward us so we could get a good look at them. While he did this, he giggled the same mischievous giggle that my brothers get when they set stuff on fire.

Still images don't do these guys justice, so check these movies out:






We checked croc hunting off our bucket list and climbed back in our car to drive back to San Jose. The drive was fairly uneventful, and we were grateful for that. We arrived in San Jose late, stayed in a hotel that had hot showers (for a few seconds before someone flushed a toilet somewhere...), and flew out early the next morning.

When we finally got home, we discovered that Bruce and Phoebe really didn't miss us at all and that Grandma Raymond had so much fun that she is begging to do it all over again. We just might grant her that wish. :)