Somewhere over the Rainbow...

On Sunday afternoon on the bus ride to get to the lake from La Fortuna we had a little bit of a road block due to cowboys running their cattle down the middle of the road and into a new fence.  I have no idea where they were coming from since all that was behind us was the town but who knows maybe it was a cattle drive through town.

This is another view of Arenal Volcano, on the boat back across the lake it finally cleared up enough to see the top.

Once we got off the boat we got back onto another bus to take us up the long bumpy ride into Monteverde.  Along our path we saw this sloth going across the power line over the road.  I was very surprised at how fast he was moving but he seemed to have a very direct route.  When I got home I was telling my family about the sloth and they informed me that a lot of sloths as well as other wildlife die every year on the power lines because they touch or run into "hot" wires so I am hoping this sloth made it to his destination safely. 

On Monday was the day for all the kids to go to the dentist so I decided to walk into town with them.  They were not very excited about the dentist and a couple had not been for a couple of years so they were very nervous.  Needless to say they all survived! :-)  Since I was in town I decided to explore a little bit more and below you can see a picture of Morphos restaurant which has very beautiful artwork on both the inside and outside.  On Monday afternoon I went back to the Friends Library (at the Quaker school) and worked all afternoon checking in books as well as going through the new donations.  It is great to have such a great library so close by (20 min walk) and it was nice because many of the ladies (most of which moved here from the US) always have baked good!

Today I went back to the Cloud Forest School to work on the gardens around the school which involved a lot of pruning of different plants.  It is amazing how fast plants grow here in during the rainy season so when you prune you prune them back a lot because they grow so fast.  This morning I experienced weather here that I have never experienced, but evidently is very common here.  It was VERY windy and the wind was carrying mist (a lot of it) so I was walking to the school and couldn't believe how wet I was getting my the wind.  What I also couldn't believe was that the skies were perfectly clear and I was able to see a beautiful rainbow.  After talking to the locals I learned this weather phenomenon was caused by the trade winds carrying water off the other side of the mountain and this normally occurs just about every day from Dec-Feb.  So although I got soaked (even with my raincoat on) the rainbow was worth it!

I hope that everyone has a great and safe 4th of July, just don't forget all of the men and women that have served our country so we can have all of the freedoms that we have today. 

God Bless America!