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| Jose picking cashews, all the little red marks are cashews |
On our way out from the hacienda we passed a bunch of cashew trees. The nut (seed) actually grows on the outside of the fruit. And one tree will only grow about 50 nuts per tree. That explains the price a little more. They have to be roasted before you can eat them, otherwise you can develop stomach ulcers and other terrible things. And the fruit has little to no use. I'm always amazed at these sorts of foods. Who was the one who originally tried to eat it, and then finally realized that cooking it would make it edible. That's determination.
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| Cashew |
Another rodeo story. They have one game where you get in the arena with the bull and encourage it to break pinatas to win your prizes. Which of course have to be collected from the ground while the bull is running around.
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| T-Rex at store |
Our random break spot today was in Monteverde. They have a ton of things to explore here but for whatever reason we didn't get to spend much time here. We did however have a chance to have an ice cream break. But it was so hot out the ice cream almost instantly melted! Such problems. But the random thing is that at the end of the parking lot there was a life sized T-Rex with some eggs there. Further reasearch has told me that they've tried to make a dinosaur hike with some of the animals hidden in the forest in a realistic sort of setting. But they never had T-Rex's in Costa Rica. It was amusing nonetheless.
Today is Tarcoles river day! We've passed over it a few times now on the countries longest bridge, and their trade gift from Taiwan. This is a popular river, especially the bridge crossing, and had I realized that our restaurant was so close I would have wandered down for real pictures. But it's popular because it is infested with crocodiles. Hundreds of crocodiles. And a lot of them seem to enjoy laying on the banks right by the bridge.
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| Look at all the crocodiles on the left side |
After lunch we went for our crocodile and bird watching cruise down the Tarcoles river. It has the dubious distinction of being the most polluted river in Costa Rica. And it's a crocodile river because there are 20 crocodiles for every mile of river. That's a lot of crocodiles. When we crossed over the bridge there were at least 6 or 7 just laying beside the river, and who knows how many were in the river at that point. We saw close to half a dozen floating in the water. And a few Firestone crocodiles, it's a polluted river and crocodiles look a lot like tires when you look quickly.
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| Crocodile in the water, it's the line in the middle of the picture |
We also saw a ton of birds. We were given bird cards with all the pictures and potential birds we might see. Out of the 50 or so possibilities we likely saw 20 different types. We did see some scarlett Macaws. You'd think that being bright red they would be a little easier to spot but they can hide when they want to . They do make a terrible noise but are quite spectacular in real life. Apparently the national bird of Costa Rica, a robin, is this boring brown color but has a lovely song. And I must say that I miss waking up to the birds and cicadas now. The birds were so loud you could hear them through the windows. But it was a nice way to wake up.
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| Scarlett Macaw |
Pink roseates, more annhingas, herons and many other birds rounded out our bird watching cruise. The amusing part of these river cruises is that there are always some birds that have nests somewhere on the boat. This one there were some birds desperate to get in and under the lifejackets on the ceiling. That seems like a dodgy place for a nest seeing as how the lifejackets would often pop out and try to fly away. And if anything hit the water it was abandoned for the crocodiles!
After all the river excitement we headed south to Manuel Antonio national park. We headed back to the lush warmth of Costa Rica. Our hotel is in an amazing location. We are touching the park. It would be a nicer perk if we were staying a little bit longer. We also had our second happy hour, coinciding with the sunset. And while I was up on the roof deck I could hear monkeys but didn't spot any up there.
The living fences of Costa Rica. They plant a very specific type of tree and keep them pruned and string their barbed wire between the trees. It's ecologically friendly and easy to maintain because I think they take the pruned pieces and replant those to grow the fences. Some of them were grown up quite high and looked very nice. These ones look freshly pruned!
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| Sunset in Manuel Antonio Park |
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Me with Manuel Antonio in the background,
I'm red due to sunburn! |
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