First Day in Manzanillo - Shipwreck!

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! 

Abandoned Hotels, Church, Shredded Tires

We found lots of abandoned hotels.  Brigham and Adam just HAD to go exploring!  They found bats, overgrown plants, showers full of brown water, big lizards, and moss everywhere.  There were stairs everywhere and they had a hard time finding the right ones to get out!  Seems like a great location for a horror movie...

Beautiful sunset. We see people fishing morning and night and they seem so calm and happy.  I love how slow life is here!

 

 Jade loved these giant carrots!  We ate carrots about every single day!

 

 These crabs were so crazy!  Their one claw was bigger than their whole body!

 This is the church in Quepos.  The ward seemed really great and functional, but no one spoke English.  We didn't feel quite as connected and actually felt trapped that we couldn't speak.  As much as we tried, the Spanish just wasn't clicking for us!  We did meet a few families at church from the U.S. who said they wished they had done what we're doing with our kids, which was a much needed confirmation that this is a good thing!  Some days are a little hard, so we needed the reminder that this is AWESOME!!!!

This is the baptismal font behind the church.  Pretty cool!

Goodbye Palo Seco!!!  We will miss our favorite house, the cute dogs, the toads at night, the shower in the back when we were done at the beach, the crowing roosters every morning, the amazing coconut trees that gave us fresh coconut water every day, the clothesline between the pillars, the dirt road to the most tranquil beach full of sand dollars, the shower where the kids would put a bowl to cover the drain and fill up like a bathtub, and the brand-new everything. We made good memories here!

Funny experience:  It was our last day in Palo Seco, so we packed up everything the night before so we'd be ready for the long, 8 hour drive to Manzanillo.  The van was jam packed but we felt so prepared.  We were heading to the Caribbean side, which I had been told wasn't as safe, since that is where the port is (which means drugs coming on the ships...).  I wanted to make sure that we arrived before the sun went down.  HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

We had only gone about a mile when the van started making the same noise it had in Playa Junquilla when we broke down.  We wanted to make it to Jaco before getting it fixed, but it suddenly made a loud noise while we were on a bridge.  We chugged along to get off the bridge and knew we'd have to get it fixed straight away.  Guess what was RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET?  A mechanic.  We thought it was a huge blessing, but it seems they are on every block.  Lots of car troubles in this humidity and the poor road conditions!  We got out and Adam explained to the guy that we'd had this trouble before.  He walked around the van and said, "You're tire is totally shredded!"  Ha ha, guess it wasn't the same problem!  That's the tire we'd already fixed like nine times!  Sheesh.  We had a lovely time reading scriptures while we waited yet again for the van to be fixed.

Paddle Boarding and Still in Love

We met in a computer lab after school when we were 13.  It was pretty much love at first sight.  Though we dated lots and lots of people, we were soul mates from the beginning and couldn't wait until we could get married and finally be together all the time!  But reality hit that we were both in school and working and saw each other less than ever.  After 13.5 years of marriage and five kids later, we're finally together 24/7 and love it!  We never get sick of each other and feel so happy!

We locked the kids up and went on a little date down the river.  The huge storm that washed out the roads a couple months ago changed the river course, so we only went a little ways before we had to get out and drive to another river.  I was a little nervous about crocodiles...

We went into a little mangrove forest and it was so tranquil and beautiful.  We had gone running earlier and Adam didn't shower, so the giant flies were loving Adam's sweat and it just about drove him crazy!  We were too scared of crocodiles to get in the river to wash off, so he just paddled as fast as he could to get out of the forest!

But the scenery was spectacular! 

Food

What have we been eating, you ask?  Gourmet vegetarian food, that's what!  Because Adam has not been working, he has taken over the shopping and cooking.  Plus, he is the only one on the insurance, so I can't drive to get to the store anyway.  He has LOVED communicating with the store owners and trying to figure out what food to buy.  He is a creator and he is artistic, so this has been a perfect job for him!  We have been spoiled.  How will I ever take back the cooking when we get home?!

On our very first night in Costa Rica, our driver took us to a grocery store before driving us to our hotel.  Adam ran in and bought a few things and then whipped up this delicious dinner of carrots, potatoes, onions, and some Instant Noodles.  Yum!  The ketchup was super gross, but luckily we were able to find a better brand as the trip went on.

Breakfast the first morning?  Leftover dinner mixed with eggs and wrapped in a tortilla.

At our lodge in Tilaran, we could pick the fruit from the many trees surrounding the house.  We had the most delicious grapefruit juice I've ever had!  We mixed it with sweet lemon juice and mmm!  So good!

Adam got really good at soaking and cooking beans.  We ate lots of chayote because they were super cheap.  They tasted mild, like a zucchini, and the kids liked them. We had rice nearly every day and LOVED the delicious sauce the Costa Ricans eat.  I don't even know what it is, it's just so good!  Adam would make his great-grandmother's rice pudding for dessert every couple of weeks.  We ground our own cinnamon and nutmeg, so it tasted fresh and delicious!  Everything is so fresh here!

Adam just whipped up a vegetable soup from a recipe in his head.  

Stuffed peppers and squash.  We loved their squash.  Who knew they grew squash here?

Breakfast of rice, eggs, and zucchini.  We often had pancakes, French toast, and oatmeal too.

Our typical lunch.

This became our favorite meal and one we would serve when we had guests.  Adam would soak the beans, fry some garlic, onions and red peppers, then add tomatoes and the beans, and top with cilantro.  That would go on a bed of rice and lettuce.  Sooo yum.

We ate about 3 pineapples per week!

Breakfast.

Passion fruit.  Jade's favorite! We ate a bunch of these per week. We ate probably 50 bananas per week!  We'd freeze them and then eat them as popsicles.  Banana smoothies also became a favorite dessert.

Lunch!

Breakfast of eggs, chayote, and mangoes.

These were so yummy!  They were like a mix between a grape and a cherry tomato.

Snack! The cheese here tastes like fish, but we've gotten used to it.

This was at one of the few restaurants we went to.  Yucca, chayote, plantains, carrots, and some other roots that I can't remember.  And some coconut shrimp.  Divine!

Did you know that hibiscus flowers are edible and super healthy?  We went on a tour of the forests surrounding us and our guide said that eating the hibiscus petals was like eating 30 oranges.  So much vitamin C and way good for us!  Fun!

Well, this was just a sample of our amazing food.  We loved it.  We had so many fruits and vegetables every day and felt so good!  We finally kicked our sugar addiction, except when our families visited and brought us chocolate:).  We also ate a lot of chips and salsa and Chiky cookies.