Monday……

The Purr saga continues….Sunday night Purr still had not returned!

Luca went out 3 times by himself to search. He came home distraught each time, I said I would go with him after supper and help look. It was pitch black by then, so we took torches and off we went, nothing, the sobbing was loud and broke my heart as we walked along 🙁

On the way home, about 100 meters from our house, out of the darkness, running across the road, dodging traffic, making a bee line for Luca came Purr.

Back inside Purr was fed, Pica still not happy was banned to her crate, and we settled in for the night routine… it was time for Luca’s bedtime story

Rich and I take turns reading a novel each to Luca on alternative nights. Currently I am reading Harry Potter with him, and Rich is reading Dragon Rider, it is a nice bedtime ritual, this time with the addition of Purr.

JOY was radiating from Luca, he was ecstatic, and we had all conceded that when you can make a difference you should, so Purr could join our family.

Then off they went to bed and both of them snuggled up and went to sleep. I had told Luca that during the night I would put Purr outside as cats do like to be out at night, and he would need to pee, so around midnight I checked, and he was awake so I put him out, expecting him to be there when I got up at 5am, he was not….

None of us were too alarmed by this, as figured he would turn up in the evening, like he had before. So on with our day…

Luca had camp and it was a whole new bunch of kids, many more locals this time, so we were all interested to see how it would go. Luca was a little apprehensive we could tell, but it did not stop him, off he went.

I went on the bus with Luca and Rich walked to the school with Pica, as we wanted to hike the highest peak around here – Cerro Amigos (Friends Hill). It is where all the cell phone towers etc are located. Here is a drone view of it…

Man, it sure is a climb! Straight up for about 1800m on a very slippery, clay road

Unfortunately the cloud was so thick yesterday we could not even see the top of the towers when we got there, let alone the view 🙂 This was the best view we had and I got this shot on the way down..

We did go the “information center” to check it out. Turns out a guy lives up there all by himself, we heard music blasting and as we peered in, there he was brushing his teeth, he waved cheerily, we waved back and left him to it as clearly it was his home and he was just getting into the day, it was early after all, we had left home just after 7am 🙂

On the way home we stopped in at a bakery for coffee and lunch, was so good, we were so hungry! Pica was exhausted and lay at our feet. An English girl started chatting to us and joined us for lunch. I love that about here, just seems so natural to do that with complete strangers who you are unlikely to ever see again. It feels good to be surrounded by like minded people.

Then it was off to grab some groceries ,(including cat food 🙂 ), and we made it home just in time for Luca getting off the bus.

Rich has been experimenting lately with foods here we want to try. He made yuca fritters the other day, I thought they were great! Luca said they did not have much taste 🙂

A yuca is sort of like a taro ,(for those of you from down under), or yam, and is a staple here.

Anyway Luca jumped off the bus with a big smile saying “I made a new friend, his name is Paulo” and commenced telling us excitedly about his day, clearly hugely successful 🙂

All was great until he realized Purr had not made it home yet. Many, many more trips were made up and down the road until well after dark, with Luca becoming more and more upset. I left the door open for a long time last night, and after Luca had sobbed himself to sleep, I got up and checked numerous times during the night but nothing 🙁

We were all bleary eyed and sad this morning. Luca went off to camp reluctantly, but after I said we would search for Purr today he was reassured. So far nothing, we have been out looking and both feeling anxious now . We of course both realize how ironic this all is, given how it all started….