After breakfast we drove North (almost to the Nicaraguan border). Not the trees below: they are planted along the fence line and can be coppiced every year. Over time, they will be become a living fence.
We passed a restaurant known for the iguanas that live in the trees. The one you see here in the bright red is a male, as bright red means mating season (cue Barry White songs):
We passed a fair amount of agriculture as well.
Fields of Pineapple:
And Bananas (in the blue bags):
The Rio Frio, which is in the Cano Negro Wildlife Preserve, flows into Lake Nicaragua.
Birds:
If you blow this picture up, you will see a group of little fruit bats hanging on the branch:
A caiman (relative of the alligator and crocodile) hoping we think he is a log. He was small (maybe 4'):
If you look carefully in the next three pictures, you will see Capuchin Monkeys (white head, black body - often the monkey that shows up in movies). They were high in the trees and hard to photograph, but we saw a family group of up to 8 or 9.
A larger caiman. This one was possibly up to 6':
Look! It is the border with Nicaragua (yes, we crossed for a moment):
Lunch! Rice and beans again (surprise!), and fresh pineapple. The green items are a form of squash.
Driving back home. Here you can see the trees which have been very much cut back for replanting.
A Jesus Christ Lizard running (a bit)
Swallows chasing the boat:
I love seeing the cuisine and also the countryside and agriculture. I know there's quite a bit of permaculture going on in Costa Rica.
ReplyDeleteLeigh, there was a lot of permaculture. Maybe it was the time of year, but other than sugar cane (which I will have to dig to see if I got a picture of), I saw virtually no other "field" crops. Also, papayas (which grow on trees - who knew?).
DeleteEverything we had was delicious.
Rice and beans - an inexpensive meal staple of people of humble means. Still very tasty - we flavor with various ramen packets we save from eating the packages (too much salt for one meal in each packet so we often divide contents for two or three meals. Meaning foil packet gets saved for later to flavor meal of your choice). Cansado sounds like a great description - pretty easy to cobble up.
ReplyDeleteThanks for travel description, it sounds like you had a fun trip so far.
The rice and beans there - at least the traditional ones - were very different than other rice and bean meals I have eaten or seen, but quite flavorful and very delicious. It did remind of Japan as well when we go to train - rice is available at every meal, and miso soup at almost every meal.
DeleteThank you for taking the time to comment! We did have a good time (my inner angst about no deep self discoveries notwithstanding).
Thinking back, some of our most enjoyed vacations were not of 'destination location', but of calm quiet places where the traveler had time to sit down and absorb the atmosphere. Very calming, especially near sunset and you watched them roll up the sidewalks so the residents could go back home.
DeleteAnonymous, I think that is true of myself as well.
DeleteOne of the most meaningful set of experiences we had in Iceland was going to Costco and IKEA - not for the stores themselves (good heavens, we have them here), but for simply being among Icelanders in a way that we did not stick out more than anyone else. Everyone else was speaking Icelandic around us, which was not the case when were out and about - the assumption was (apparently by default) that we were from "out of town". I do not think it ever happened to The Ravishing Mrs. TB and myself; it did happen to Nighean Bhean and Nighean Dhonn - but they could pass much more for Icelandic than myself.
Every time I go to a new culture, the first things to catch my notice are the cuisine and the agriculture. So I related very well to this post.
ReplyDeleteEd, I do not remember quite when I started paying more attention to these things, but I do now. It does make me wish I could go back on some of my former trips and take a harder look at the agriculture (that said, I do pay a lot of attention out of the train when we are in Japan training - mostly rice fields and small personal gardens.
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