Carlos is like our private tour guide, he loves nature and loves to take walks. So he plans these little excusions at times and takes a couple of us with him. I guess it was my turn today, Alice & I got in the taxi and we had no idea where we were going. Taxi drops the 3 of us off on a winding road and Carlos shows us the most unusual flowers at a friends home. We walked the road and found views and more birds, butterflies, trees. We all practiced our Spanish and Carlos practiced his English. We ended up at the"University for Peace". It was created as a Treaty Organization within the framework of the United Nations, it's mission is to "provide hunamity 
with an international institution of higher education for peace with the aim of promoting among all human beings a spirit of understanding, tolerance and peaceful coexistence, to stimulate cooperation among peoples and to help lessen obstacles and threats to world peace and progress". I just took that from the brochure I recieved from there. Sorry I know its long, but complicated. Then we found the horse farm/stables where they offer riding tours with a guide. We booked one for next week. Very inexpensive $24.00 for 4 of us with a guide for about a 1.5 hours. The taxi came right on time back to pick us up and we stopped at a small woodworkers shop on the way back to colony, he made wooden bowls and spoons and other misc pieces.
My day was not as productive as others have been, but I experimented with some new backgrounds to paint on. Interesting results. Wednesday nights is dinner with the group at the main house with Francisco, the property owner. He was a professional soccer player for Costa Rica years ago for 12 years. So he says he is a celebrity. His english is funny. Now I know what I sound like in Spanish. We had a nice meal with fish, mashed potatoes (my favorite), carrots, broccoli and sat at long dinner table open to the outside overlooking the mountains. Air very was sweet tonight. Rained some of the day and cooled it off, it was very hot early afternoon.
"Bamboo Seranade", mixed media, 4 x 9 
