Pilgrim's Reunion

Many months have passed since our wonderful pilgrimage to the Baha'i World Center, and one morning after a local devotional gathering, and over coffee, we all discussed the idea of the five of us, who enjoyed pilgrimage together, joining the sixth, don Gerardo Arce, at his home in San Isidro. We planned to leave on the following Sunday for the three hour drive South, and when we mentioned this to him on the phone he was totally delighted and said that they would expect us to have lunch with him and all the family.
The five of us took off early in the morning and had a great time getting there.

The road we took, the Inter-Americana (leading to Panama) passes over the highest mountain point on the entire stretch of this highway through Costa Rica on the way to our destination. We were delighted to be feeling chilly up there, and everyone brought along their jackets.
(Thanks here, Ken Lerner, for the great leather jacket. I was snug as a bug in a toad's tongue with it on!)
Gerardo's wife, Dorita (in brown dress) and her daughter, Veronica, made us all a fabulous lunch and delicious dessert to top it off perfectly! Here's a picture of us after we polished it all off:
The Arces have a lovely property with fruit-bearing trees all over. (They had ripening Noni's, which is famous for it's healing properties, and the best Lychee nuts!)
Here's a shot of the 6 Hajis in the back yard.

And Doña Lourdes with Gerardo's baby goat. The front yard gang under the Lychee nut tree. There was a tiny humming bird nest just over Jose's head. Gerardo said that he was amazed that the birds had made a nest so low to the ground...but he was able to watch the parents feeding the chicks until they grew up and flew away!
We showed a collection of all our photos from pilgrimage to the family and visitors after lunch and had a great time chatting with everybody and getting to know Gerardo's family.

We are thinking that we'd like to make this trip to San Isidro a yearly event to commemorate our great connection!

Here's a bunch of the Arce family (his sister is in front with brown stapped blouse, and his 2 daughters are on her right). On the right, in black shirt is Lilia Jimenez, a local Baha'i woman, with her three kids.