January 11

Carol, José and Marlon went to visit with a land owner to get permission to work on their land. Bill, Dan and I hung around the house. I got all my stuff packed. Victor got sad, but made me a special echasketch. Virginia made a lunch about 2pm of pork, gallo pinto (rice and beans), salad, Papua and watermelon. Mayor from Paso Pacifico arrived about 3:30 for me, but had to go south to Ostinal to drop off some project stuff for the turtle project. I decided to go with, and had teary goodbyes from the Lopez family and wonderful big hugs from Carol and Bill.
On the way to Ostinal, I saw a crested caracara (twice: out and back), smooth-billed ani, black hawk, road-side hawk, and bat falcon along the road. Along with lots of howler monkeys. At Ostinal, I got to stand on the beach and see Costa Rica. They showed me the community boat that they use to protect the turtles... La Torita (sea turtle). I think ot was the leader of the project, tried out my limited Spanish, then switched to English and told me about the project. On the beach I saw brown pelicans and frigate birds. As we were leaving Ostinal, Mayor drove by a Paso Paifico mural on the side of a school. I think he went that way just to show me. Very nice. It had turtles, monkeys, sloth, birds and an anteater. It was behind a red chain-link fence, so no picture.
After several stops, we got back to Escamaquito about 5:45 pm and headed for Managua. When we got to the edge of San Juan del Sur, Mayor got a text message... There was some rapid-fire comment to our other passenger, something to do with having to got back to Rancho Terre (almost back to the house) to pick up a document for Paso Pacifico. At 7:00pm we're back on the road to Managua. Arrived at Managua Hills Hotel at 9:25. The person who runs the hotel speaks English, so easier to get food, beer and WIFI password!