Well, our dreams of making to Manzanillo in 8 hours were dashed within the first 20 minutes of leaving with our shredded tire. Then about 4 hours later, as we were driving through the crazy streets around San Jose, the van stopped shifting. We called Mario, the owner of the car, and he said he'd send a guy to meet us somewhere and fix it. We took a wrong turn and ended up spending 20 minutes trying to get to a place to stop. We figured the guy would be there in about 30 minutes....no big deal, right? We got out school stuff, stretched, ate lunch....still no one. The kids had to use the bathroom, so we walked across the street to some sort of clinic. They were very kind to let us use their perfectly clean bathroom, but I think the 3rd time they had to unlock their door to let us in they were a little annoyed. We were there long enough to use the bathrooms three times! It took a few hours for the guy to come check out what was wrong, but he got it fixed and we were on our way again. By this time we were exhausted and cranky. Transfers have always been the hardest part of this trip. It's hard to be in the van for so long eating crackers. But the kids are amazing and somehow we were making it in pretty good spirits.
We kept trying to get in touch with the caretakers of the next house, but had to use the internet to communicate over AirB&B, which wouldn't work without WiFi. We decided to stop at a Pali store to buy me a Costa Rica sim card so we could just text them. Getting that set up took another hour and half. Then we hit road work and sat in traffic for 45 minutes.
By the time we arrived at our new house on the other side of the country, it was 10 pm. We left at 7 am. It was pitch black as we drove off the main road onto a dirt path lined with massive rain forest trees and couldn't wait till morning to see what this place looked like!
Adam followed the path to the beach in the dark and saw something so crazy! He took a picture and then made us all guess what giant thing was on the beach, but he wouldn't tell us till we saw it with our own eyes the next day.
And here it is! A real, live shipwreck! We learned that it was a ship from Panama (which was a few minutes away - Manzanillo is right on the border) that had a hole and was beginning to sink, so the captain landed at the closest beach. It had only been there a few weeks, so the kids just HAD to go exploring!
How fun! It seems that whatever house we are in, there is always some sort of adventure waiting! We were sad to leave our lovely Palo Seco, but this place seems pretty awesome!!!
The best thing about the ship was being able to cliff jump INTO it! There was some sort of crane and a deep container in the middle of the ship. We wondered if perhaps it was a fishing boat and the crane held the big net and then the middle of the ship held all the fish? In any case, it proved a fun place for us to play! Adam started it, of course, and then Lincoln was the first kid to show us how it was done! We'd jump off the crane and into the ship's hull, then climb out on the mossy metal bars spreading across the width of the boat. It was about 10 feet deep and filled with soft sand at the bottom. Some local kids saw us and came to join us and all jumped off too! It's always a party with the Stevens'!
We had fun imagining that we were seamen on an adventure!
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