Day 32 - Gardens and Colonial

Botanical Gardens and Cotoca

I have been wanting to go to the Botanical Garden and Cotoca since I arrived.  It was always cancelled by either bad weather or other plans.  Today was gorgeous, sunny, and not too hot, and I had no other plans.  So off I went exploring.

Cotoca is about 20 minutes away if there is no traffic.  That is fairly close, but with traffic, and there is always traffic in Santa Cruz, it takes a bit longer.  I don’t think people take taxis there very often.  They either take the bus or a trufi, a taxi that fills up with as many people as possible. I took a taxi and luckily had an honest guy.  He seemed excited to give me a tour of little nothings, but it is those nothings that begin to make you feel at home.  He also told me to not pay more than 10 Bs. if I decided to go on to Cotoca from the Botanical Garden.  Good advice.

When I went here in July last year it was so wet.  Today it was dry.  Many trees lacked leaves, but that gives me a desire to return in a few months as spring begins.  There was a wedding party taking pictures and teenagers snapping selfies with friends.  Those two things seem to be everywhere in the world nowadays.  But most of the time I could walk through the gardens and listen to birds singing.  There were two beautiful blackbirds with yellow tails.  Not much was blooming other than bougainvillea and some yellow trees.  I’ll be back.

I am back to school in less than two weeks, so I figured today would be the day to go a little further to Cotoca.  And I was too hungry to take the busy drive back to Santa Cruz before getting some food.  So I went to the highway.  Except for trucks, nothing seemed to be on the road, so I was quickly discouraged that I would not find a taxi.  I tell myself not to worry so much and the reason is God always seems to work it out.  Not two minutes on the road and a car sees me in the distance and flashes its lights, a sign it is a taxi asking if I want a ride.  I waved him down and was quickly off to Cotoca – literally less than a two-minute wait.  There were three other passengers in the car, four if you count a baby, and when I gave the driver a 10, he gave me 5 back.

I was hungry, so the first thing I did was look for food.  There was a little restaurant on the corner of the plaza and the chicken smelled good.  I said I’d like some chicken and a coke.  I guess I did not know what the old guy running the restaurant said to me, because the next thing I knew I had a plate with literally half a chicken, another full of rice, and a third of noodles and French fries.  Wow!  The whole time I am eating, knowing I won’t finish half, I was wondering what I would do.  This isn’t the USA where a lot of food is wasted and I didn’t want to carry a doggie bag with me either.  So I decided I would pack it up anyway.  There are always beggars on the street, some in Santa Cruz I have seen sleeping on the sidewalk in the evening.  So I found a lady who held her hand out for a coin; I gave her chicken instead.  She beamed at me.  It felt good especially when her little girl came running over to eat.

The first thing I noticed today in Cotoca is that all the sloths seemed to be running away.  Twice I saw one trying to escape and twice a man picked them up and brought them back to the park in the Plaza.  They let out a little squeal that sounds almost like a laugh when they are picked up.  I was thinking they might be looking for food since the trees were so bare.  One of the men who picked one up told me there are six in the Plaza.  I only counted three.

Cotoca is a town that can be traced back to the late 1700s.  It still retains its colonial charm with the Sanctuary of the Virgen of Cotoca (the Virgin Mary).  There is not much else to see there, except the Plaza.  I decided to go off the main road and look around some side streets.  It felt a lot like the Santa Cruz I knew in the 80s, at least in part.  Even in the 80s Santa Cruz was a large city.  Cotoca now is small.  Step a block away from the Plaza and it is quiet.  Life is simpler and less complicated.  If you see people, they smile at you.  An old man waved at me as I passed.  It is life the way it should be.

Without any problem I found another “group” taxi going back to Santa Cruz.  There was only one other occupant and she got out halfway.  Except for a truck that had turned over on its side, there was nothing noteworthy on my ride home.  I took my first taxi driver's advice and gave him a 10 and got 5 back in change.