october 31

Last day before break! We got up early and went for a 1 hour walk before breakfast. We went in the opposite direction to La Fortuna. When we got to Majestic Lodge our 2 dog friends met up with us. We walked with them as far as Pizza Johns, then we went down to the lake via a side road. The water was not as cold as we expected, considering the amount of rain it must get. When we walked back home, the two dogs didn’t stop at Majestic, they followed us the whole way home! We scolded them and went inside to make breakast (oatmeal and an egg each) but they were still there when we went back outside to put on our boots for work. We had to be mean just to get them to stay at Cabinitas El Castillo and not follow us all the way up the hill to the Conservatory. It broke our hearts. We spent the morning working on the concrete ramps leading down to the gardens. Grant scrubbed them after I swept all the leaves away. I finished first and started raking the paths. At some point Grant apparently lost his temper for a moment, either before or after the scrubber pole broke. He says he doesn’t want to work for 8 days straight anymore, and I agree. What we do feels like glorified gardening. We’ll be happy to go home in february, that’s for sure. Depending on whether our vacation time, internet and food situation stays the same, improves or deteriorates, we may get fed up with it here. Part of me knows the hard parts are nothing, especially since we can go home in February and never have to do things like shovel again if we don’t want to. We have to keep reminding ourselves that we’re volunteers, and we’re doing this for a reason as part of a rainforest regeneration project. I led one and a half tours in the morning also. The first was to a Swiss couple who tried to tip me at the end of the tour, but I told them the tip jar was up at the reception. Erika told me later that that couple tipped $20. I’m not sure what the policy is here on tipping, but that would have been nice. The 2^nd couple was from England and they were so low energy. The walk alone from the reception to the first garden exhausted them, and they immediately sat down on the bench. I passed that tour off to Bismarc when it was time for lunch, and I was not unhappy about that. We didn’t see the two dogs on the way down to lunch, but on the way back up they were right where we’d left them in the morning, happy as ever to see us. About 45 minutes after I had relieved Erica at the reception, a man who worked for Majestic came looking for the dogs. He said they hadn’t come home. I told them they followed us home, but we had stopped them at Cabinitas, so he went off to find them. They weren’t there on our way home, so I guess they left. We made a killer soup for dinner, and read while it cooker. Early night, since were going to La Fortuna in the morning.