We had no intention of cooking dinner after our Isla Chorta adventure, so we decided to walk into town to find a place to eat. We stopped at the first place we came to, which it turns out was just down the street from the hotel, across from Palí. There was a sign outside showing pictures of their food, which included a little something for everyone. The man who took our order was clearly not tíco (the word used to refer to Costa Ricans), he was pale like me, but his english was broken. Karen and I speculated on his origin, which I guessed was Scandinavian of some sort. After we ate, Karen asked the man where he was originally from, and we were surprised (but then not really) to learn he was from Italy. We then had a short, but interesting conversation with the man about how long he had been in Costa Rica, and why he moved there. He had lived in Costa Rica for 2 years, and the reason was life was “more simple”. He mentioned that living in Italy was “ugly” because of the politics, the economy, etc. I have to tell you that after spending time in Costa Rica away from the daily news, I could relate to his sentiment.
We returned to our hotel and worked on our journal’s on the patio… as we ended our day, rain had started to fall. We retired for the evening.
In the middle of the night Karen and I were awoken by what was (at least in my memory) the LOUDEST thunder I had ever heard. There was no “precursor” sound… it was just BAM! Although I enjoy a good thunderstorm, I had no intention of leaving the comfort of the bed to go witness this one. A couple more loud explosions of thunder later, and I had drifted back to sleep.