A Holy Adventure: Puntarenas

We are pretty sure we earned our way into heaven today....this is why.

We haven't been to church since we arrived here over two weeks ago because the nearest church is two hours away by bus. After a long discussion Saturday night, Ashlee, Brian, Taylor and I decided that we would have an adventure tomorrow and go to church---despite the fact that we know nothing about the area, nor how to get there. Here is a play by play of today's events.

5:00 am - We all wake up and get dressed to go to the town bus stop in hopes of catching an early morning bus to Puntarenas, the closest town with a church.

5:40 am- After a short walk we all arrive at the local bus stop, just in time to watch the prostitutes walk home after a good nights work.

6:00 am- Our bus arrives and we're happy to see that we could all find seats together. The kids eat cookies and bread for breakfast.

6:02 am- Abby turns and says "mom, why are we going so fast?" I said "ummmm.... I a not sure." Abby replied....."Are we going to crash?" I said...."no, no, we will be fine." Abby came back with...."mom, I think we are going to crash, we are going way too fast!" I agreed. We were going way too fast!

6:35 am- Someone gets off the bus---the doors never shut. Are they broken? Did the driver forget to shut them? Taylor and I have second thoughts about sitting close to the exits with kids.

6:37 am- Abby announces Parker smells like mildew, leaving Ashlee and I in a fit of laughter.

7:30 am- We enter the outskirts of Puntarenas. We all start realizing that we have no clue where the church is. I decided I was going to ask someone before we got too far into the city. I turned and asked the man behind me where the Mormon church was. He replied in spanish... "right there!" Pointing as we passed it. Taylor jumps up, yells "Parada!" to the driver, and we all exit just in front of the church.

7:32 am- All of us realize that we have no idea what time church starts. The gates to the building is locked. No one is there.

7:40am- Waiting around is pointless. We are all in consensus to walk the highway in hopes of finding a restaurant or somewhere to chill until we find out when church starts.

7:50am- There are no restaurants in sight. Walking seems more pointless than waiting. We don't know what to do. Brian walks back to the church to hopefully find someone. Sheri sees two white shirted guys over the horizon in the opposite direction. They are missionaries.

7:55am- We meet the missionaries and learn that church starts at 9am. One missionary is a white guy. He is from Benson, Arizona and lived in the same area Taylor and I did when we were in Tucson eight years ago. The other is from one of the areas taylor served his mission at in Peru.

9:00am- Church starts, everyone is very welcoming. The branch ( a church congregation that is not large enough to carry the status of a ward) had only about 30-40 attendees.

10:20am- The first church meeting (called sacrament) is over. We are all ready to leave, but Abby wants to go to primary ( the children's sunday school class) and we didn't want to set a bad example so we stayed for the entire 3 hours of church.


12:00am- Church is over, it was a good experience but long since Ashlee and I only understood about half (or less) of what was said. We go back to the bus stop and decide that we might as well continue on with our adventure since we came all the way out there. Taylor wants to take the ferry across the gulf to a peninsula an hour and a half away.

12:05pm- A lady from church sees us on the road, picks us up, and takes us to the ferry depot. We think she felt bad for us. She seems to act as if she is not sure why we would ever ride the ferry.
12:25 pm- We arrive at the dock. The dock man says the boat leaves in 5 minutes but we need tickets. Taylor and Brian run to the ticket booth, point to the boat and buy tickets without asking about where it was going or what was over on the other side. Ashlee and I wonder why we are taking the ferry, but we trust the boys, and get on the boat. The kids are starved, they eat cookies, soda, and bread for lunch.


2:00pm- We begin to approach the port, and notice that there is absolutely nothing there. Our dreams of eating were crushed. We dined on more cookies, and the bread we had packed that morning.
2:10pm- We get off the ferry, and our fears were confirmed. There was no where to eat without a long drive. We notice that tons of people are getting on the ferry we just exited. Afraid it would fill up and that we would be stranded, the boys pay for us to get back on the ferry. We get back on to the ferry and eat more bread and cookies. The boat fills with a mass of people.

3:30 pm- The ferry leaves again for Puntarenas. Ashlee falls asleep, the kids are whining, we are all starved.
5:00 pm- We catch a taxi back to the town bus station.

5:05 pm- Ashlee and Sheri decide to go find a restaurant while Taylor and Brian go get tickets for the bus home. (We hadn't eaten anything but cookies and bread all day.) When Taylor and Brian return, they are smiling. The 7:00pm bus has been canceled. No buses will be running for the rest of the day to Jaco. We are stranded.

5:10pm- We decide we are going to eat, and then figure out what we are going to do. We ate some great (and cheap) food and feel much better.

5:30pm- With full tummies, we ask the owner of the restaurant what we should do or if he knew of any taxis that would take us all the way back to Jaco. He calls his friend. His friend agrees to take us and quotes us 50 bucks for a ride. We agree.

6:30pm- We all arrive home and decide we now all smell like mildew. We sit back and laugh about our crazy day. We promised each other that tomorrow we would take it easy.