Sunday December 11: San Ramon
Slow Day
During the night, Amy sounded terrible, but for whatever reason,
she seemed to have slept well, despite getting up 5 times. Amy got Sam up, and
we proceeded up for breakfast.
I don't think it was intended as such, but today turned into
a sort of a down/rest/low day.
Sam seemed rather down and not that interested in food. I
think she missed the previous place, and she wasn't looking forward to walking
around foggy woods looking for birds.
After breakfast, I went down to get my camera stuff, while
Amy stayed up with the guide. On my way down, I saw an
agouti
on the side of
the path.
When Sam and I returned to the top, Amy said that there was
a change of plans. Originally, we were going to go birding for the morning,
have lunch, and then go to an old wood shop/store, but instead we were
reversing the two things, to try to keep Sam interested.
We drove for a bit, to the closest big town, and visited the
factory/store.
I was particularly interested in the old machinery, which seems
to still be used. Some of them had electric motors attached, but a lot of them
still attached to an
overhead shaft that was turned by a water wheel.
I was
particularly interested in a pair of
metal lathes.
They had all of the major
features of modern lathes, but in a more primitive package.
Then we wandered through the shop and bought a few things.
On our way to lunch, we were stopped in a small town where
they were
setting up a an ox-cart parade.
Apparently this area at least is
known for its
colorfully decorated ox-carts.
There were a lot of people
tending oxen,
and a few
carts that went by.
Ox-carts was apparently the main product of
the wood mill we had visited, but when tourism boomed in the 80's, they
expanded into other kinds of wood working.
We drove to our lunch stop, and had a lunch of traditional
fare, except for some fried chicken, which was really not that authentic. I
think that was the first fried chicken that I've had in 20-25 years.
After lunch, we got a tour of their sugar cane processing
area. We saw where they crushed it to extract the juice, then
boiled it down
to
a thick syrup, and then poured it into
wooden molds
for cooling.
I think we were also supposed to tour a local coffee plant,
but apparently they were not giving tours that day.
We drove back to the Villa Blanca, getting there around
2:00. It had been nice weather down in town, but up here, it was still in the
clouds. The plan is to get together and do some local birding at 3:00. I went
up and tried taking more hummingbird pictures. Unfortunately, it was only
slightly brighter than the previous evening. I think few if any of them came
out good.
I went back to our cabin and found Amy talking on the phone
to her brother (it was his birthday). We met up with the guide at 3, and the
plan was to just wander around the villa and bird. I left Amy to it and went
back to the cabin. I tried playing some Wordscape, but I found I couldn't keep
my eyes open. I ended up crawling into bed. I lay on my back, so didn't fall
deeply asleep (I can only sleep on my side), but I did go through periods of
light dozing.
Around 4:30, Amy came back, and that roused me from my
dozing. She went to bed, and I did a little more Wordscape and then took a
shower.
Around 5:30, I went up to the main lodge. I was surprised to
find that the clouds had lifted, and it was the clearest that it has been yet.
Unfortunately, it seemed to be just after sunset, so it was getting rather
dark. I tried taking some
pictures of the view
(I could see some twinkling
lights of buildings in the distance), but I think those were throw-away shots.
I wandered over to the chapel and took some more pictures of
it, this time lit up by lights, and some pictures of an
ox-cart display
they
had. I then just hung around the main lodge in front of the fire (that was
actually burning that day), played Wordscape, and waited for dinner time.
