| My bus from Guapiles arrived in San Jose and I was able to quickly catch a cab to the Holiday Inn Aurola. I only had about a fifteen-minute wait for my ride back to Guacima with one of the chauffeurs from The Butterfly Farm.
When I arrived, the family was gone except for Joris. He came out all excited and having plans for me—not only for the coming week but that I should hurry and get settled in and cleaned up as we were headed to a party in just two hours.
Joris had been vague about the party, just saying that a former Costa Rican resident who had been stateside for the past year was in town. I later learned he was vague so that I wouldn't bring a camera to document the event. It turned out to be a "Red Dress Run" of the San Jose Hash House Harriers. Though I lacked the proper attire, I joined them on the run for a while but ended up losing the group in a drizzle. I took a cab back to where we started and waited for them to return. Joris returned about an hour later—the rest of the group settling into a restaurant for dinner. We grabbed a pizza on the way home and caught up on my past week and what my last week would hold.
It sounded exciting! I was to go to an indigenous village near Bribri on the Panama Border. A friend of Joris—a true native who had entered mainstream successfully—had invited me down to work with his people on rearing non-butterfly species. A week in the Amistad Biosphere Reserve sounded great to me and I looked forward to meeting my connection on Monday when I gave a presentation to the breeders of what I had accomplished in the ten weeks since we had first met.
My presentation was well received, my Spanish greatly improved. It was good to see Grace, William, Fernando, Oscar and about a half of dozen others with whom I had become friends. We said a tentative goodbye as I had expected to see some of them one last time when they delivered pupae on the 11th.
Fortunately, I learned long ago to not have expectations for things to go as planned. Joris' friend didn't show but did call The Butterfly Farm on Tuesday saying that rain and a landslide had prevented him from making it to the meeting. He said he would call in the evening when we were all at home to discuss my joining him on Wednesday. Well, he never called and on Wednesday Joris struck out in finding me a host on such short notice.
I certainly did not want to be house-bound for my last week in Costa Rica. By Thursday morning I had decided my best option would be to rent a vehicle and go on a road trip. Since I still had to write up my previous jaunt, I planned to leave on Friday morning.
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