Day 11 – A Refuge
Written Day 11 – Posted today as we have not had wifi
Today we left the busy city of Manizales and came to Finca Monserrat. The drive here was absolutely beautiful. We saw coffee farms, banana farms, the life of the rural people here and the breath taking views of the lush green mountains. There really are no words to adequately describe God’s hand in creation here. We’ve seen mountains, but nothing like this.
The farmers here harvest everything by hand. No harvesting equipment can be used on the steep inclines of the mountains with their varying slopes and topography. The fruit here is UNBELIEVABLE! We stopped to get fresh fruit off of the side of the street. I wish we could bring it back to the US! Pineapple and oranges have never tasted so juicy and delicious! We’ve tried a few new fruits as well. They also have a fruit drink that is full of chunk of fresh fruit. We have already devoured the 2 quarts of that. It is Scott’s favorite!
As we pulled into the villa we are staying at, we saw the pool and the incredible expanse of lush mountains that we overlook. We all started breathing much slower and the craziness and stress of the city and adoption evaporated. We are here with another adopting mom and her two sons.
We had a wonderful day swimming, talking, eating and hanging out. The house we are staying at is made of cinder blocks with large open air windows and doors. Our living areas and dining areas are all outdoors under a covering. The temperatures are about 70-80, but it is marvelous. There is no AC anywhere around this area or Manizales.
Lanie had a good day. We let her skip nap since that would be almost impossible with all of the kids playing right outside her door in the pool. Therefore, that chick was tired at night and went to sleep in 10 min. I came out of the bedroom doing the happy dance! I got to read to Alli and then enjoy some quiet conversation with Scott and the other mom on the cabana. God is good!
Here is a little tale of Cooking in Colombia:
The other adopting mom here cooks as much as me. She went to make scrambled eggs on the stove top. There is a glass cover over the burners to protect it as the kitchen is mostly outdoors as well. She didn’t realize it needed to be removed before cooking and thus she made her eggs by placing the skillet on top of the glass. She made them, ate them and then we were all cleaning up the kitchen when all of a sudden there was a LOUD crash and glass flew in thousands of pieces all over the kitchen. It sounded like a gun shot! The glass cover had expanded from the heat and contracted when cooling down and thus exploded. It took a while to clean up, but we got many laughs out of it! I wasn’t even the one to do it! There is another mom just as clueless as me in the kitchen!
Sunday we are probably headed for horse back riding and a lot more swimming.