My Third #pintotour

Today was one of those few Sundays when I wake up early. It wasn't because I had insomnia, but because I had plans: I had an appointment with other Twitters from Costa Rica. As in the other Twitter appointments I've attended, this was a traditional breakfast, marked with the hashtag #pintotour. For anyone who has gone to one, this symbol and nine letters mean an appointment to make friends and spend a great time always at a great location.

Today's location was a restaurant called Chubascos at Fraijanes. This is located in the province of Alajuela, close to the Poás vulcan. I had no idea how to get there, and so I arranged with my best friend Mario to meet in Alajuela at 8 am to grab the bus to Fraijanes. Now, in order to get to Alajuela at 8 am I had to wake up at 6:30, which I did, get showered, dressed and up to go. It was one of those few days where I actually woke up on time, and got out of the bed right away. Could just hope it was the same for work ~ However, as it happens often for me, I forgot that on the weekends, particularly on Sundays, buses tend to hold to a much more "lax" schedule, so the freaking bus wasn't showing up in the Heredia-Alajuela direction even though two had gone in the opposite direction.

The day, however, started sweet, calm and smiling, like any day that promises to be simply great.

Bar La Palma, on my way to the bus to Alajuela 

A bus stop on my wa to Alajuela

...and this is Alajuela

...and this is the bus stop... half of it.

Like some sort of goofy tourist, I went on taking pictures of just about anything in the attempt to catch the feeling of the day at the other end of my objective. The daily landscapes and motives flashed beautiful before my eyes as I happily rode to my appointment with my 140-character friends. I was a bit sad because @sancarlena77 wasn't going to be there, and hoped to meet @Amaretto, who at the end never showed up. :-( However I was happy because I was going to see Mario again, who was supposed to bring me the information from the Tecnológico de Monterrey about the Economics Postgrad Programm. - Mario forgot it, so we'll have to meet again this next week. -

We've got to the bus stop of Fraijanes Lake, before which a line of local tourists in flat shoes, jeans, shorts and cotton clothes waited with their backpacks filled with hard boiled eggs, sandwiches wrapped in paper napkins and stashed in ziploc bags, bottles of beverages and maybe here and there a homemade beverage poured in a reused bottle of soda. In Costa Rican tradition these low budget local tourist are known as "comehuevos" or "egg-eaters" due to the fact that back in the day when there weren't so many choices of carrying food without it getting spoiled, many of them brought loads of hard boiled eggs for lunch. The bus left the station on time, but kept loading more and more people on the way, and all of them packed up with the distinctive egg-eater clothing and backpack.

 On the way

23 Km to Poás Vulcan

...and still on the way... 

the trip alone proves to be so amazing!

in moments like this you say: Costa Rica Rocks!!

Mario and I talked on the way about a hundred and one things from politics to what's great in Korea and so. We pushed our cameras out in the window and took more pictures of just about everything out there. It basically didn't matter where we pointed at, everything was an amazing objective and HAD to be captured. I asked him over and over, taking the chance presented by the #pintotour and the picture taking, to revive his blog, Dankenzon for All, which I really love, and I'm not just saying that. In my heart a little candle of hope lit up, as he might, perhaps, write again there and I'd be reading him again.

Finally, with a 15 minute tardiness, we arrived to Chubascos, where only the Sosa Siblings were sitting at a tiny table. The whole entourage was beyond magical. Tall trees and fresh mountain air, with a small, gentle meadow stretching for the view. The ragged, spotty shadow the branches and leaves made gave such a delicious sunny-fresh feeling to everything, it was like wrapping yourself in sun scented clean blankets. The Sosa siblings sat at the terrace twitting their fingers away, silent and acompanied by two white mugs of black coffee - no sugar. Francisco's smile picked up the race with the sky, so bright and shiny and delightful it was, and Evelyn, well, Evelyn was plain beautiful, gracing the place like a delicate princess with her sweet face, beautiful hands and graceful gestures. The waitress approached us (at our bidding, I shall add) and asked us how many people would be coming, to decide how many tables to put together. I found it a bit rude that she said it would be senseless to put together four tables just for four people. The words had barely left her lips when twitters started pouring in. They came in couples and trios as they met in the entrace, some taking a moment to take a few pictures for the Twitpic, or their own blogs and sites. There was @AceCostaRica and his calm, nice manner, and his wife, whose youthful charm always hit the note of every gathering.

Felipe was also there, phone-camera in hand taking all the official pictures of the breakfast. Julian came with his wife, and set the stronger note of the gathering, with pointier remarks and faces to match them. He's amazingly expressive.

 

The table is set!

 

And set both sides!

Four tables soon proved to be little and we squeazed closer together. Three menues for thirteen people were hardly enough, so many took pictures of it and consulted it from their iPhones. As I looked around the table, and so many iPhones were flashing in the hands of the twitters, it made me think about the company I work for and their position about this handheld. A matter of decitions made up there can't really dictate what happens on the daily life. It made me also wonder about the rest of the Public Sector and how far from reality our Government falls. 

This is the kitchen, or part of it

Laughter came along the menu as Mario did the honors of reading it for the benefit of all. Most of the presents ordered "pinto", while I, true to my custom, ordered a HUGE tortilla, fried eggs, sour cream and a coke - no ice. I sipped my black coffee happily while the Sosa siblings picked on me asking me how come I come to a #pintotour and have no pinto. The coke raised a few eyebrows again, but I hope it will stop being strange after a few more #pintotours, which I hope to share with them in the future.

HUGE Tortilla (handmade) and platanos 

Yay! Food! Delicious, yummy food!

The food was to-die-for, even though we had to wait for it until we were famished, starved and ready to dive head first and wolf up the whole thing. It was somewhat unpleasant to have to wait so much for the food, but then it proved to be so much it kind of made sense that they sarved us before hand. It was just DELICIOUS!!

The waiting and the eating was peppered up all over with talk, comments and an enriching exchanges of opinion. Mario shared his theory about why the Middle East was so important to some, tying it to the Summerians and lore on allien intelligence manipulating mankind. It did raise a few eyebrows, others joked around, - me among them sorry to say, but I'm not much of an OVNI fan - and others simply cheered when Mario's food finally arrived. It was actually the only meal received with a round of applause. Pictures were made as we had fun, and we all just felt awesome.

The crowd grew close, homely and those of us who didn't knew each other before were soon following and sharing like life long friends. Each of these meetings offer always such a nice, friendly, civilized environment, open and polite and always leaves you with the distinctive desire of sharing more. This was not the exception, and how would it be, when you meet so many nice people!