We stayed with the Bomberos last night, and woke up early this morning. It got light. My air mattress slowly deflated itself during the night. And, we were anxious to get going knowing it only gets hotter with each passing hour. I grabbed a banana and water, and off we went only to find out we we’re locked in. But one of the sleepy guys answered our ring and unlocked the door for us.

The bomberos are really good guys

The start of the day was very pleasant, cool, and quit flat. We passed a lot of these palm farms growing palms for oil.

There are so many of these palm tree farms for Palm oil

Elza is always on the lookout for something yummy along the road. She spotted this coconut tree with coconuts within easy reach. The home owner said he has lots and they don’t usually do anything with them so he was happy to let us have as many as we wanted. We each drank a couple and filled our water bottles with coconut water. Not only is it really good, it is really good for you and especially good for hydration.

Elza cracks open the coconuts

Then the pro brought out his machete and opened as many as we wanted

After refreshing ourselves with coconut water and filling our water bottles with it, we continued on enjoying some gorgeous scenery.

Beautiful scenery

Just after I snapped this photo, Elza noticed her back tire was flat. She had the tire off in a jiffy, the hole patched, and everything out back together so we could continue on our way.

Stopping for a tire repair

The upside was the wonderful scenery!

Beautiful views

We crossed a lot of rivers and they looked so inviting. Most were too far down to be accessible but relaxing nearby is good too.

Water break by a river

Really pretty scenery

By now I was starting to feel really tired and I was walking up the bigger hills. It was a good thing here or I might not have noticed the cacao trees.

The fruit hanging on the tree trunk is the cacao fruit filled with fruit and those seeds that eventually become chocolate.

By now we were pretty warm so when we saw this river with a road leading down beside it, we had to go check it out!

Elza cools off in the river.

The dogs cool off in the river

There were some women and children on the other side of the river enjoying the day

We could have stayed at the river all afternoon but it was time to move on. We got back on the bikes and peddled on. Elza was ahead of me on a hill when I heard her holler excitedly. There was a plantain tree (at least we think so, or it could have been an unfamiliar type of banana). It had fallen over and the big stalk of ripe fruit was lay by the side of the road! Elza had bee dreaming of finding bananas ever since she started her Central American trip.

Look at all that fruit!

Elza is thrilled with her find! Some of it was past its day but a lot of it was perfect and ready to eat.

Many had perfect white, sweet, delicious fruit

This fruit was really good for me. I had been really dragging and the hills were doing me in. I had three plantains and more water and started to feel better almost imediately! I hadn’t had much to eat and didn’t even think about the body’s need for fuel when asking it to do so much activity.

We pedaled on with more enthusiasm and speed helped by the food and the decrease in hills to climb. Of course when we saw more coconuts we were not about to pass them up.

These coconuts were amazing, full of lots of juice and it was sweet and wonderful!

Right next to the coconuts was a tree loaded with star fruit. It was just a little tart and really good.

I should also mention the mamonchinos that are ripening everywhere. Elza had picked some which we enjoyed eating. It wasn’t long after this rest break that she spotted some nice red ones. The home owner not only gave us permission, he came out with a rake to grab more fruit than she and I could fit on the bikes. My front basket was overflowing with them!

A pretty spot where we took a rest break

We continued to find some hills but not as many as earlier in the day and of course the scenery continued to be beautiful. We were getting tired though and there was very little on the road except the homes of the local people. When we saw a sign for “Cabanas, Waterfall Lodge” we went for it. Down a dirt road we found this charming little place, $10/night.

Waterfall Lodge, our home for tonight

We crossed one river getting here and we’re told that there is access to the river farther down the road, so we went out for a walk.

Another very pretty river

The guy apparently rides through the river to get home.

The beautiful butterfly was by the river

This huge grasshopper was also by the river

We walked through here on our way back from the river

Some of the neighborhood homes

Across the street is another palm farm

It looks so free, pretty, cool and peaceful in there

These are some of the seed pods that are harvested and processed in to oil.

So, that is the news of the day, and we have a great spot to spend the night. We even have air conditioning! We don’t have Internet though, and access with my iPad chip is minimal. I have written this post with an app that saves it for uploading later which is why it looks different. It feels strange being out of touch but I did get a few messages home to let Joel know that all is well. Apologies to everyone else who have had their emails, messages, blog comments, and everything else ignored. I’ll catch up one of these days. Meanwhile, time to get some sleep before we hit the road again.

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