The Concrete Floor and Other Stuff

I have been accused of lolly-gagging around instead of keeping this blog updated on our progress with the casa. Guilty as charged! There are SOOOO many distractions here to lolly-gaggle with! Feeding the iguanas, watching birds, monkeys, and sloths.

Yes, I said sloths! There is a mama sloth with a baby wandering around in the trees behind the house. The other day they were RIGHT BEHIND the house and we had great views! (I am trying to use fewer exclamation points, but this is SO exciting! LOL!) Here's a photo Heather took -

We haven't spotted them again (yet), but the nearby monkeys are also entertaining. Photos of monkeys will appear in another post - they're still on my camera and I'm a lolly-gagger.

Ok, back to our casa. Yesterday Henry and Sergio finished most of the floor. Oh wait! Henry and Sergio invited us to go fishing on Sunday! We drove quite a while along the southern lake shore (Lake Arenal) to get to where Sergio wanted to fish - he is a spear fisherman. The road crosses a few rivers, only 1 of which has an actual bridge. The others you either drive across if they are shallow enough, or turn around if they are not. Two of the rivers were shallow enough to drive through, but when we got to the river at Caño Negro, we would have needed a ferry boat. Here are Sergio, Henry, and me checking the river depth at Caño Negro -

By then it was too windy to fish according to Sergio, so we turned around and eventually found a place along the side of the road where we could walk to the lake. We took our chairs, beer, crackers & frijoles, and fishing gear.

The wind was howling but Sergio went diving anyway - no fish. I had a handline rigged up and had brought along a can of sardines in tomato sauce for bait. I found some pretty tough leaves and made sardine empanadas out of them, then pushed the hook through to hold them together. For the most part they fell apart when I swung my line out, but it was still fun. Henry and Sergio think I am mucho loco! That's me fishing in Lake Arenal with Arenal volcano barely showing itself behind to the right.

On the way back to Tronadora we stopped at Bar Cavi for beer and bocas (appetizers). Bar Cavi is totally authentic - it is truly out in the middle of nowhere with cows and horses all around, and no one speaks English. Henry ordered us chifrijo (a bowl of rice, beans, pico de gallo, and chicharones), carne de cerdo ahumada (smoked pork), and papas fritas (french fries). The beer was served in a glass with a shot of lemon juice and a salted rim. The smoked pork was out of this world good! Henry told us about a meat store in Tilaran where we can buy it, so that's what we got for dinner last night. YUMMM!

OK OK back to the casa! Most of the floor is done. The first front-to-back section they did somewhat roughly, so they will need to go back to smooth out the rough spots over the leveling ridges. They do this by sprinkling cement powder and spraying it with a water bottle. It makes a watery paste that fills in and covers rough spots very smoothly. Here's Sergio starting the first section - you can see the 'leveling rows' that he is using as a guide -

The second front-to-back section they did all the smoothing as they poured. They won't have to go back over this part, but it took twice as long to complete (mas o menos, more or less).

To get this done (which is most of the casa) we had rented a 'concrete blender' for 3 days. Here's the blender and two guys who operated it - you can also see the bags of  'cemento' as well as the sand and agregate they mixed it with.

Henry and Sergio will mix concrete manually for the small area that is left. But first there are a couple more sections of concrete block wall that they are going to remove. Here's a picture of the crew on break -

This morning (Tuesday) Henry went with us to Colono (the big hardware store in Tilaran) to order materials for putting up walls. This afternoon we will put tape on the floor to mark each wall, door, etc. and use spray paint to mark each window. That means I need to get back to work!

PURA VIDA!