Natalia and I went up past the bus stop last night and went to the Internet shop. It is a nice one and the machines were fairly fast. Natalia is a good computer operator and she was showing me a few moves on my little laptop that made it faster and easier to use. I just love these kids trying to teach us old dogs new tricks. We got two computers last night and we both got down to work on our emails. She gave me her email address and when I wrote back to her the screen had a pop up as she has the MS messenger service going. I tried that instant message thing once but my typing is slow and I was always about two or three messages behind and it got me really crossed up while answering a question and another one would come in. These kids can handle that multi tasking but not me. I tried to and was able to finally get the road log sent and ended up posting it twice.
Family photo X--- Natalia, Fabiola, David
After Fabiola went to work this morning David and I went sightseeing. We took a cab up to a major bus stop and hopped on a bus that took us to Cartago, which is a big religious spot that thousands of people visit. It is a big tourist location as people from all over Costa Rica as well as I guess around the world come to take the waters here. David said that a lot of the people come here by walking on their knees.
Paradise flower and Church X
There is something about this being the black Madonna but we didn’t see any black figures when we went into the church.(it could be the little statue on the rock) The church was just starting to hold some sort of service and there were people walking on their knees down the isle but there was no blood on them so I guess they didn’t walk far that way. David has made two trips in these huge groups from where he lives to the church. He says that they stop traffic and thousands of people take to the road. Some of these people walk a hundred miles or more. David only has to walk maybe twenty miles.
I am not sure of all what was going on there but the night before Fabiola showed me a bottle of water that she had gotten there some time ago. Evidently it is some sort of magic to the water. We went down a long ramp behind the church to a spot where there was water pouring out of several pipes. There is a small shop that sells fancy bottles to catch some of the water so you can take it home and use it for special occasions or if some part of your body hurts and needs healing. I bought a bottle and Daniel filled it with the water and we brought it home for Fabiola.
Water X
When we were leaving we went up the ramp to a place where evidently a girl saw an angel or Virgin Mary or something like that on a rock. They have the rock in a special place behind bars with a little figurine on top. I think I have a photo, if so, here is the rock with painting of the girl seeing it while gathering wood.
Rock X
After the church thing we took another bus to a botanical garden (Jardin Botanico Lankester) near Paraiso. Wow, what a cool place. Evidently the natural forests have been mostly cut down for the wood. This place has been replanted and it has many different things planted and there are different zones. Some of the places were just a dense jungle while other places they had a nice cactus garden.
Cactus X
The cactus is very different from any I have seen up north while a few that were in a small glass house, I think to keep them from getting too wet, looked more like normal cactus. There was a special shade house that has more than 7000 orchid plants. There were vary few orchids in bloom but the ones that were, were very nice.
Spotted orchid X
Yellow orchid X
The brochure that they gave me said that a lot of them were in danger of extinction. The brochure says they have bromeliads, succulents and cactus, palms, heliconias, medicinal plants, butterfly garden and the tropical forest. Internationally recognized for its outstanding collection of epiphytes (air plants). One thing that really blew me away was the bamboo forest that was there. They were huge things maybe eight inches in diameter and sixty feet high.
We headed back to the house via the busses and cab. It started raining pretty good on the way back and I sure hope it quits by tomorrow morning as I have some high country to go through right after I leave San Jose.
I got the message that the package with my new debit card came in to Fabiola so I should have it tonight. I will be heading out tomorrow morning for Panama.