25 July

Today Alex, Louise and Matt were going to San Isidro. Louise had to go to the dentist because her retainer broke a few days ago and Alex had to pick up his new computer screen as his laptop screen had broken during our travels between the UK and Costa Rica. We wanted to get the bus from San Gerardo at 10, but apparently it was a national day so the bus times weren’t as regular. After asking several people we finally got a number for the taxi, who first wouldn’t accept our English phone number as a contact number, but eventually they came. We met two Canadian girls who also could not wait for the bus so all cramped up with 5 people in a 4 seater taxi we drove up to San Isidro. Our next problem was finding the dentist. I put the map from the website of the dentist on my phone, but the taxi driver still could not find it and just dropped us off somewhere close. It turns out that in this part of the city there are about 20 dentists! We went into several shops to ask where it was but also they could just point us in a general direction. Eventually, after calling them, we found the place. The lady was very kind and soon fixed Louise’s braces. The first thing we did then was go to MacDonalds for lunch. It is so funny how you can feel like a foreigner when you walk through the city, but suddenly everything neutralised when you walk into the MacDonalds as all of their shops look the same.
We then walked through San Isidro to find a supermarket and do some shopping. From here we tried to get a 4x4 taxi who would be able to bring us all the way back up to Cloudbridge. We didn’t find any but the taxi driver we spoke to said he was happy to drive us all the way up. We thought, that’s not going to be possible, but let’s see what happens. Before going back we first had to pick up Alex’s computer screen. At least he can now start editing all his photos and videos. Somehow the driver did really manage to drive us all the way up to Cloudbridge!
During our time away Valerie and Kristina had identified all caught frogs from yesterday and then hiked up El Jilguero and down Gavilan to release the frogs again. As it is Monday again, it was our weekly potluck night. We made some honey glazed carrots with onion and pancakes for desert. Last week all food was yellow or brown because no-one had made a vegetable dish, this week it was completely the other way around. Everything was delicious again!