October 9th: Puerto Jimenez

Today was a slow day. The rain continued all night, and all day. We had gallo pinto with Federico and the Portuguese couple in the morning (gallo pinto is a very common breakfast dish consisting of beans, rice, spices, all wrapped up in a tortilla with eggs. its really good). We also had pineapple, and yogurt. We sat around, Grant studied, I updated the blog, and we got started with picture uploading (took a while). We walked through town in the rain to the pier to see if we could buy some fish, but the rain was so heavy that no fishermen were out. We walked to the supermercado 96 on the corner and got an interesting cheese, plus a bottle of Costa Rican rum for Federico to thank him for his kindness (plus, he had used the last of his to make us drinks on our first day here). Then I tried to study four verbs (estar, ser, hablar y tomar) while Grant hung around the kitchen, helping Federico make dinner and writing down the recipes. Federico made white rice with salsa (carrots, choyote, etc in small pieces), a white fish in coconut milk and spices. Federico made the coconut milk by hand: he cracked open a coconut that was growing on the tree outside, and he sat on the handle of a machete and ground the fleshy inside of the coconut to make the pulp into shreds. then, he put a handful of shreds in a cheese cloth, and squeezed it over a bowl to get out the juice. We also had plantains for dinner, which are really good. Everyone (Grant, Federico, the Portuguese couple and myself) all tested the rum in a fruity drink (the name of the fruit escapes me, but it grows on a tree right outside our cabin. it's the same tree where the skinny green lizard was sitting in an earlier post). Everything was very rich and very filling. After dinner we sat at the table, drank tea and talked (I mostly listen. I can understand generally what everyone is saying in Spanish, but my vocabulary is not strong enough to actively participate in conversation). We also met Oscar, the Tico who took the Portuguese couple into the National forest. We will probably go with him tomorrow. At the end of the night, Federico got out his camera so we could all take a group picture, which got us started on silly pictures. Those will be posted later, since they're all on Grant's camera and we left that cord in San Jose.