Friday March 16

TORTUGUERO TO FORTUNA

The howler monkeys were much louder this morning because it wasn´t raining as hard. The noise they make is an eerie cross between a howling dog, a porpoise, and a prehistoric dinosaur.

In the morning we had an hour and a half cruise along the river to get back to where our bus (and our main luggage!) was waiting for us. Everyday on the bus they rotate where you are sitting, so you are beside someone new every time. It seems to be taking us an awful long time to rotate to the front of the bus, oh well.

Today was a long driving day, but we did make a few interesting stops. At lunch we stopped at a restaurant that put on a "fashion show of the jungle" for us. People came out dressed as morpho butterflies or tree frogs, etc. There was a flame juggling monkey. Outside the restaurant was a glass blower who studied in Italy, Frankie bought a beautiful glass turtle necklace. There was a humongous ceiba tree that we walked around, the trunk was the size of our double garage back home. Rather like the large redwoods we saw in California.

We stopped at a pineapple plantation and a guy taught us all about pineapples. Costa Rica is the biggest exporter of pineapples around the world. A pineapple comes from a plant that is only a few feet tall, we always thought it was a tree. The pineapple has an undeterminate flowering season, which means they never knew if each individual plant would produce a pineapple in a year or in 10 years. Then they accidentally had a fire in the field and 15 days later every single plant was in flower. They discovered it was the ethylene in the fire, so now ethylene is added to the crop to make all the plants flower together. It's much more proficient for the pickers. Ethylene can even be added to an organic crop. It takes a pineapple plant 14 to 16 months to produce a pineapple. Each plant only produces one pineapple, and then no more, so the plant is discarded. New plants come from the crowns of rejected pineapples (20 to 30% are rejected for export). Workers pick the pineapple by hand, and a single worker can pick up to 9000 pineapples a day, for the minimum wage of $500 a month. Pineapples are picked ripe because once they are picked they stop ripening. The way you can tell if it's a good pineapple in the grocery store? It is even size, the individual eyes are all the same size, and it is green with yellow on the bottom. If the pineapple is yellow, it has already started to ferment. If it is soft, people have probably poked it too much and damaged it.

The guy skinned some pineapples with a machete in 3 seconds flat and cut little pieces for us to sample. It was incredibly fresh and sweet. He asked who wanted the leftover center core, and Anton snatched it up in half a second flat. He ate it like a popsicle, leaning forward with the juices running down his chin. He was in perfect pineapple heaven.

We arrived at the Arenal Springs Resort in Fortuna at 6:00. It is called Fortuna because in 1968 the volcano erupted and the town on the other side of the volcano was decimated, but Fortuna wasn´t touched. The resort is a gorgeous place to stay! The property sprawls out forever, with cabin-like rooms. The 3 Franceses are all in cabins next to each other. We explored before dinner, the resort has many lovely pools and their own volcanic hot springs. We will have time to enjoy them tomorrow after our morning excursion.
Sent from my BlackBerry