Our next door neighbors in San Francisco, the Perezes, own a small piece of land with a cabin on it in the village of Barrios Mercedes just outside of Atenas. Normally, this is about a 45 minute drive from our house. Rigoberto, "Rigo," travels to his property at least once a week to tend to his garden and fruit trees. He and his wife Hortencia invited us to spend the day with them on Thursday, April 8. We gladly agreed, and departed San Francisco about 5:45 am and took the old road through the mountains to Atenas. The trip lasted a little over an hour. Rigo says that Atenas has the best weather in the world. And indeed, It did turn out to be a beautiful day. The morning was sunny and warm with a light breeze. By the afternoon it had become cloudy with the refreshing breeze continuing throughout the day. In fact, later in the day as I lay stretched out on Rigo's hammock I was a little cool.
On arrival, we picked oranges from one of his orange trees and made fresh orange juice to drink along with the café that we brewed, and the banana bread Tricia made the night before; what a wonderful breakfast out on the patio. There are numerous flowers from bougainvillea, to hibiscus everywhere you turn. In addition, there are colorful birds including a host of different colibrís (hummingbirds) flitting around all these flowering shrubs and trees. There's only one problem, I couldn't seem to get a photo of any of them. After breakfast, we took a ride into Atenas, a lovely town of about 10,000 inhabitants. The pace in Atenas is much different (slower) from that of San Jose with considerably less traffic even though it seemed to be a bustling little town.
After a ride through the countryside it was time for lunch. We ate at this fantastic little restaurant called Guanacaste in Barrios Mercedes. Tricia had Arroz con Pollo, a marvelous blend of seasoned rice and chicken. I on the other hand had pan-fried Bass. Fanstastico!
Later, we took a hike down to Rigo's brother's farm. My guess is that it was about 10 acres in size. His brother raises livestock and grows tomatoes and other vegetable on terraces carved into the hillside. The farm, being on a hillside, made our hike to the river mostly downhill the entire way. We saw several varieties of flowering trees with all kinds of interesting fruits; some edible, some not. My favorite tree here in Costa Rica is the Guanacaste tree. It is the national tree of Costa Rica, and is also called the umbrella tree. It has a massive horizontal limbs that create a remarkable shade tree when fully grown. At this time of the year, the guanacaste has just developed new leaves which make the green so vibrant in comparison to the other trees. The fruit of the guanacaste, which look like ears or orejas, can be used to make soap, and the seeds can be used to make jewelry. Along the way to the river we also came across some very old avacado trees (aguacate). Many of the trees have orchids growing on them. A few of the older ones have very large orchids on them. These orchids are highly prized and very expensive. None of the orchids we saw were blooming.
On our way back from the farm we stopped and bought some popsicles. Very refreshing! Later in the afternoon we had a cafécito. This would be akin to a British Tea where the participants share coffee and stories. We also had more of Tricia's incredible banana bread. Just before leaving we picked several bags of oranges. It is dark here by 6:30 pm so we had to do the picking with flashlights.
All in all we had a terrific day with our friends, and look forward to returning to Atenas again in the future.
