Royal Treatment

Favorite student

View from the top of the office

Smoke from fires burning fields

Swimming!

view from the hammocks

Carlos and I and the chocolate cake

Yummy food!

Yum!

Bonita

Another beauty

Dessert

Ostrich

Tea Time

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Flauta loved the trip

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Tutuma

One of my favorite students is Juan Carlos. He is the sweetest, most polite, hardest worker, and overall a great 4th grader. His parents have been wonderful to work with this year, and you can tell that they are doing a fantastic job as parents.

They own a hotel/resort, which is all inclusive, called Rio Selva about an hour out of Santa Cruz. They had invited me to come, and gave me a voucher for a free stay (which I didn’t realize until today when they told me about it). I told Juan Carlos and his parents we were planning on coming yesterday, and tried to get others at the school to go with us, but they were busy. I jokingly said I love chocolate cake, and to have some there. More on that later. Melissa and I decided to spend the day there because of the vacation today. So, off we went on another adventure.

We met at Hipermaxi and caught a taxi for the ride out there for 120 B’s. Andree, my class helper had called and found out it was 180 B’s (about 25$) for the day, which included a buffet. We were happy to pay it. But when we got there, they were ready for us and said we didn’t have to pay.

Juan’s dad met us and had another guy give us the tour around the grounds. It is truly a beautiful place. They had some cages with deer, monkeys, turtles and birds, and there were ostrich’s walking around free. There were beautiful trees and plants everywhere, including lemon trees and a tree called tutuma, which has these huge “fruits” that they cut open and use for bowls. There was also a fruit, I don’t remember what it’s called, that is like a lemon, and only a teaspoon will make a liter of juice. They had a couple of beautiful swimming pools, a small lake with boats, sauna, pool tables and ping pong tables. A couple of restaurants.

We hung out at the pool until lunchtime where we were treated to a fantastic buffet. Yummy salads, barbecue chicken and beef, the best pasta ever, and beautiful desserts. We were sitting together until Juan Carlos and his parents came and then we moved over with them. And the joking about the chocolate cake? Here comes this huge chocolate cake delivered to our table. I was kind of embarrassed. What a royal treatment we had today!

We went swimming some more, and played tag with Juan Carlos and his friend, who had come out with his mom. Then Melissa and I played some table tennis. We took some rests in the hammocks and while we were there one of the workers came and asked if I was the teacher of Juan Carlos, and that they wanted us to come to their house for tea before we left.

So after a little more swimming we went over to their house for tea, empanadas and more chocolate cake. It was super fun to visit with the parents, her dad, and their friend Vickie. Their house is gorgeous.

Vickie (their friend) was heading back to Santa Cruz, so she drove us back and dropped us off and we caught a taxi home.

What a totally wonderful day, with some wonderful people!