We head to Rivas

Outside the window of our room, we watched an iguana climbing around on a bush, munching hibiscus flowers. Then we spotted a bigger one, heading up a tree. And then an even bigger one came into view at the top of the chain link fence. We joked that the next one was going to be the size of a dinosaur, climbing down off the roof. We had our own nature show out the window.

Five people's bags plus groceries

After breakfast, we packed up our car, turned in the room key, met Ramon in Rio Claro, and headed back to San Isidro. Got stuck at one more bridge closing just for good measure, in Palmar. We got lucky, though. They said they were closing the bridge for 2 hours, and we were about 5 minutes away from the end of the two-hours. While we waited, we bought a homemade ice cream from a little girl. "Good to support the local economy," said Bella.

We went back a different route, through Buenos Aires, pineapple country. There were plenty of pineapple fields as far as the eye could see, but not a single fruit vendor on the side of the road selling pineapples. We had planned to buy some, and were shocked that there were none. I threatened to pull over and pluck one out of a field.

We got to San Isidro and thought we were stuck in another protest, but it turned out to be a motorcycle accident. They were picking the dude up off the pavement just as we passed, and they weren't using a spinal board or anything. Just picking him up and putting him on the stretcher. Hope he's okay. It was a sign that all the crazy things motorcycles do in this country (driving in between lanes of cars, zigzagging thru traffic) sometimes catches up to you.

We wanted to stop at La Feria for some produce and a quick dinner at the soda "food court," but it was closed. Then we decided to eat at Antojitos de Maiz, the corn place from Cristina's birthday. It was closed. So we found a little soda and ate a decent meal.

Andrey's Dad carved this mermaid

We got to the Airbnb, dubbed the House of Crafts, and met our new host, Andrey. This house was amazing, and hard to explain in words. Rustic, all wood, with eclectic decorations made by Andrey and his dad. It had two hot showers (praise be), one of which was downstairs, cut into the side of the hill so that one wall of the shower was stone. I immediately knew that was where I would take my showers.

For the first time this summer, we were at a house that requested us to separate our trash for recycling. So someone in CR recycles.

Andrey was young (23) and very nice. Even as rustic as the house was, it had a TV with cable and decent wifi. Not enough outlets, but most of the houses have had that issue. Because the cabin was very open, there were lots of bugs, so we used the plug-in bug things at night.

The house slept 6, but Andrey has another house that he rents out, and Wito booked that one when he thought he and Mariela were coming. Since Wito didn't cancel it, we were able to spread out and use two houses. Good thing too, because our refrigerator completely died and we had to move all our stuff to the other fridge in Ramon's house. He was asleep already too, so we had to call his name from his window and wake him up so he could let us in. While putting stuff in his fridge, we noticed his kitchen was flooded. Leaky pipe under the sink. We let Andrey know.

Weird flying praying mantis thing