Hurray! Internet Connected! But, no phone. March 4

Today started off optimistically. Mark thought he had lost his glasses and was a bit frantic; he called the B n B from Atenas. No luck. So we had decided last night to retrace our steps from Monday and hope to find them. He got up early to watch the birds and went out to the car to look for them, yet again. And, he found them. In their case, they blended with the car floor. So  - a good start to the day
He also saw more parrots - the red-lored or white-fronted. We are also still working on identifying a little yellow bird which we think is a flycatcher, but.... And, we also saw what is most likely a Plain Chachalaca. We hope to get a photo of it for further verification, but it really has a little head, so I think we have properly identified it.

We left the house to get to the internet cafe again for an early start. But, we were stopped twice on the road. (And, we are only about 4 kilometers from town!)  The second one was actually interesting and we were the first in line. There was a big shovel truck up on a plateau that the road workers have built. The plateau is being built to absorb the gigantic boulders that are above it so that they don't fall on the road. Anyhow, we were stopped because he was pushing gigantic (car sized) boulders from his perch and across the road into a giant ravine. It was pretty amazing, but also scary to see such a big thing crash down and then make a tremendous crashing sound as it tumble into the ravine and broke brush as it went. (And probably trees, too.)  Anyhow, one of the boulders did not cooperate.

It fell "thud" into the road, completely blocking it. So, the shovel had to laboriously come down off the plateau and then use the shovel to try to push it over. No dice. So, he had to push it to the side. Eventually, that worked and we drove cautiously by it. Whew. The thought of those boulders up there waiting to be dislodged in the rainy season is very scary. The evidence of recent landslides is everywhere.

Anyhow, we eventually got to town and checked our email.  We checked at the tourist bureau about the road to the Santa Elena Preserve and inquired about coffee tours as well as getting a coffee bag. I also got some souvenirs and some post cards to send. Then we went back to the hummingbird area of the Monteverde Reserve to get some more photos of hummingbirds for Otis to identify and to remember their trip here.  Then, we stopped into a Coffee Company where a guy was giving samples of coffee and a lecture. While Mark was doing that, I checked our internet again and, lo and behold! there was an email from Veronica saying that we now had internet back at Casa Cielo. Yay! Now, we can check our next reservation place, catch up on our blog and communicate with friends and family again.
So, we drove back, again getting stopped by construction. We saw "the boulder" still by the side of the road. We came home to find another MotMot flying by. Shortly after we got home, a distraught Gisele came by to see about our phone service as hers is out. And, so is ours. But, we don't care as we are online. We actually called Cal and Alice, but they could barely hear us, but at least they know we are fine.

We have spent the rest of the afternoon writing the blog and uploading photos for the blog, as well as contacting people.  The wind is a bit quieter. Dare we hope for a quieter night. According to Didier and Gisele, this is unusually windy.