Alfredo, our bus driver and friend, knows how to brake.
The continual lurching was making me a little nauseous as we climbed up the mountain for our adventure day, headed to waterfalls. I stared out the window and started to actively thank God for different to get my mind off the drive.
Thank you for the *lurch* trees
Thank *lurch* you for *lurch* this view
Thank you *lurch* for a bus driver who enjoys us so much
Its true Alfredo, our 50 something year old bus driver, is glad to drive us 2 hours away on his off day to a waterfall and he knows how to take a break along the way.
After a two hour and a half hour drive to the falls and a dip into blissfully freezing water along with a mini mud bath we climbed our weak yet happy bodies back to the bus for the trip home, all excited to go back and get in dry warm clothes and eat something tasty. As we pulled out of the drive and headed towards a fork in the road I vaguely remember Alfredo excitingly turning onto a different road than we headed in on and saying “moy bonita” as I dozed off. Next thing I know I am being awakened by Alfredo’s voice and we are stopped on the side of the road somewhere unfamiliar and he is outside the bus taking a picture of the scenery. Its been at least an hour and nothing looks like the drive up. I am somewhere between annoyed and in awe of the view of where I am.
Isn’t like the Lord to take us to new places and isn’t like us to miss the beauty of where we are because we thought the Lord was on page with what we wanted instead of realizing that the Lord is more about the “who” than the “where.”
We head further down the mountain as I contemplate this and have to choose my own fork in the road, do I decided to give up my ideas of what I wanted my afternoon to look like or do I embrace where I am and choose in to this moment.
We pull into a small town with a beautiful church and hedge park. Alfredo’s grin greets us as he asks if we want to stop. We could go with our plans or choose something new and different. We answered with a yes. After thoroughly exploring the park we met back together but couldn’t find Alfredo and his wife who came with him. I saw a little food stop that said “Vicki’s” and wanted to stop because that’s my name, kind of, and as I went in I saw Alfredo with his wife sitting on a bar stool ordering food. 
So naturally we went back to the bus got our colones and ordered some empanadas. We enjoyed the random stops and mini adventures that Alfredo took us on, he wasn’t concerned with getting home as he was with where we were currently and what we could do where we were. He was all about the journey than the destination.
There were a few other stops before we made it home, but it was one of my favorite adventure days. A day full of unexpected stops and surprises.
