Ceiba tree and bananas

Caribbean

Wednesday-April 6

Last night's supper was really elegant, with very well dressed waiters seating us and generally being quite attentive. We had a choice of steak or chicken with veggies and mashed potatoes followed by a coffee flavored mousse-- really good meal and nice atmosphere The walls of the hotel common area were covered with very unique and peculiar art work. The artist is Munquia- you might want to look him/ up to see some really unusual art





This hotel, which we will come back to the last day, has an environmentally friendly theme--as we are discovering-- seems to be the theme for the entire country as well

Bags out at 5:15 and we leave at 6 for the Tortoguero National Park. We'll stop along the way for breakfast

Since i'm writing this on the iPad, one finger at a time, I'll refrain from including all the plant and animal info right now-- that will come later. We are staying in an Eco friendly lodge in or beside the National park. No Air conditioner, no glass in windows. Very outdoorsy.

We did see sloths where we stopped for breakfast and N got some wonderful video of the critter up close and personal.


Breakfast consisted of rice and beans with a poached egg on top it seemed rather huevos ranchero-esque . Breakfast also included cooked plantains, fresh pineapple, watermelon and to top it off Vienna sausages.

Also at the place where we stopped for breakfast was an enormous CEIBA tree. This tree was the model for the huge residence trees in the movie Avatar. This one was a giant.


Even tho we had left early to have plenty of time for our appointments of the day we were late. While we were loading the bus a group of protestors had blocked the road ahead. We waited about 20 min and the protesters, who were unhappy with the banana company's management, were being negotiated with by the police. We passed by them with no incident.

We went to the banana packing house and watched the workers cut the stalks into manageable sizes. I really wouldn't want to spend 10 hrs a day at that work.




We did learn that it takes 9 months for a banana shoot on a tree to produce a stalk of bananas. Blue plastic bags are slipped over each stalk at some point to keep birds and bugs off the fruit. Since there is no Internet or phone service here, this will obviously not be posted today.
Hasta Luego

Additional Wednesday info.

We’re visiting a tropical rain forest with a huge diversity of species of plants and animals. The majority of the animals are nocturnal. There are more butterflies in Costa Rica than all of Africa and more birds here than the U.S and Canada combined.

Precipitation is difficult to measure because it is constant and plants absorb moisture from the air. Orchids and bromeliads are two plants that do this.

As mentioned before we saw both 2 and 3 toes sloths, which are cousins of the armadillo and anteaters.

When we saw cocoanuts growing, we were confused because none of them were the brown nutty looking items we see in the grocery story. We saw green and orangy/yellow cocoanuts, the green is not ripe but is used for the milk. The riper one (orange) is used for the meat. The brown husk is inside the outer colored pods.

All the roofs we have seen are metal (they seem to be tin, but may be other metals also). Not sure with all the moisture how they are maintained, some do have moss growing on them. Some of the metal is formed to look like tiles.

After a r e a l l y long ride on a bumpy gravel road, we got to the Tortuguera lagoon (I think that is what it was called) to take about an hour and 15 min boat ride to the Tortuguera National Park Lodge. This “hotel” is rustic with no air conditioning expected and definitely no Internet connection. We saw the Caribbean Sea several times as we snaked our way thru the canals to get to our Lodge.

We went to the CCC (Caribbean Conservation Corp) which is keeping the large Green turtles from being extinct. They protect the eggs which are laid and hidden in the black sand of the Tortuguera portion of the Caribbean. The Turtles were declared endangered in 1950 and have been protected ever since. They were used for meat, and shells previously.