So since I’m actually getting to know my host family now because I’m not flat in bed anymore, I think their getting to like me and vice versa. Last night I was talking to my host mother, who also got sick with the same thing that I did, and we were talking about how our throats were still hurting. And she said she’d make a salt-water plus something-else-that-I can’t-remember gargle. We each took our mug of potent gargle and went outside and stood under the brilliant map of stars and gargled together. It was quite the bonding experience, gagging on the bitter saltiness of our gargle, and spitting alternately or in unison. Hopefully it helped!
So last night before dinner I got a phone call. It was Andrea, one of the girls from ACM from St. Olaf that I went to the beach with the first weekend. I smelled an adventure brewing. “Hey what are you doing tomorrow?” she said. We then planned a trip to a nearby town called Zarcero which is known for its funky sculpted gardens. It was spontaneous and it would be the first time I’d seen anyone from the ACM in two weeks. I was really excited when I got off the phone and proceeded to tell my host sister my plans. She asks, ‘how are you going?’. By bus, I replied confidently, there is a bus in Grecia to Zarcero right? ‘Ummm, you actually have to take a bus from here to Grecia, then to Naranjo and then to San Ramon, and then to Zarcero. Oh, I replied, a little disheveled by her reply, well I think I can probably deal with it, I’ll just have to make sure I ask a lot of directions. So I talked to my host mom, learning that I only had to take 3 buses instead of 4 and that the first bus left from San Luis at 9am. 
With the goal of arriving in Zarcero for a noon lunch, I set off in the morning for Grecia. Once I arrived I asked a lady where the bus for Naranjo was because it wasn’t really evident, and she pointed to a spot on the street saying ‘oh, there’s the bus right now’. So off I scampered, having no idea really where I was going, not having a map or any concept of how long it would take to get there. But I went. Once on the bus to Naranjo, I kept my eyes peeled for some sort of sign that I should get off. No such luck. When a bunch of passengers got off the b
us in a small town, I went to the front and asked the bus driver, and yet another miracle of God occurred. “This is where you get off, and there’s a bus for Zarcero, behind us.” “Wow”, I thought. How absolutely, amazingly, lucky! Onto the next bus I hopped, and this time I noticed a sign that said 20km to Zarcero. Then I spent the next 15 minutes trying to remember if a kilometer was longer or shorter than a mile, and how long 20km would take on a bus going close to 40kph. I was also keeping an eye out for any familiar landmarks because we passed through this area when we went to Volcano Arenal. I did recognize a roadside restaurant, and then when we arrived in Zarcero, I recognized the funky sculpted shrubs and jumped off the bus, exuberant that I had reached my final destination for the day. AND I made it by like 11:30. 
When Andrea and I met up, we were so excited to talk about everything we had gone through in our first two weeks at our project sites, and so we ate lunch at a little restaurant, and explored every shop that Zarcero had to offer. Then we hit up the park, deciding that it was the optimal environment for a photo shoot, and each glad that the other was enthusiastic for goofy pictures. We passed a good 5 hours in this tiny town, and then decided that it was time to make the journey back to our homes, Andrea starting hers, with an unfortunate and embarrassing chasing of a bus because the bus driver didn’t see her, but luckily there was another bus she could take. I had about 30 more minutes to pass before my bus arrived, so I talked with a shopkeeper for a little bit, found a Sudafed equivalent in the ‘farmacia’, until the Naranjo bus pulled up.I figured since I had already made this trip once, it would be easy, but then I remembered that buses don’t take the same regression route sometimes, so I began to worry a little. Luckily, again, I asked a man if he knew where to get off the bus to go to Grecia. He nodded saying he was going to Grecia a bit later as well and gave me some instructions for how to get
to the bus stop. After noting my blank stare he said, ‘bueno, just come this way, I’ll walk with you over there’ and this kind-hearted man helped me to the bus stop, where I was able to get on and leave in less than 10 minutes. If you think that is lucky, just wait, I wasn’t done traveling home yet! So safe and sound on the bus, a familiar bus now, I relaxed. I was looking out the window, admiring the clouds, and I thought I recognized the song that was playing very softly on the radio, an English song I thought. I dismissed the thought because a little earlier I heard a popular Spanish song a few minutes ago, and they couldn’t be on the same station, right? Only a little later down the road, I was able to hear the radio a little better, and wouldn’t you know it, it was exactly the song I thought it was! Midnight Train to Georgia by Gladys Knight and the Pipps. When I get a treat like that on the Costa Rican radio, I can just sit in a nostalgia cloud for a while, content with everything I’ve ever had or ever will have, in love with life and the culture and the people, and grateful for all the wonderful things I’m able to experience here in Costa Rica. 
I arrived in Grecia, and went straight to the San Luis stop, with which I am very familiar by now, and looking up on the schedule which said that the last bus on Saturdays departs at 6:15 and then looking at the identical time on my watch, my head just reeled at the probability of all this occurring (I think God was really watching out for me today). And so I hopped on the bus. Just as good as home by now. The only bad occurrence that happened the entire day was after I got off the bus and was walking down the driveway, which for 7:15 was pretty darn dark, and I heard the family truck starting up the road. I didn’t want them to come around the corner and not see me and so I stepped off to the side, and as the truck slowed down because he did see me, I fell into the ditch. Quite funny really. I only say it was a bad experience because I was a little embarrassed to biff it while someone was watching. I went and said hi to my host brother Juan Pablo, the driver of the truck, explaining that I didn’t want to get run over while he chuckled, and then nipped off to the house, adventure complete at 7:15 p.m. I’ve decided that the bus system here in CR is pretty cool as far as I’m concerned.
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