Costa Rica

Day 4 we left Mawamba Lodge by boat and went back the same route to pick up our small bus with driver.

Notwithstanding that the rainy season had just ended, the small rivers that we had to take were extremely shallow and the boats would only be able to use this drop off point for a short time as the outboard motors would be hitting the bottom.

We retraced the route of a few days before for an hour and a half and then proceeded a different way to reach our hotel in Sarapiqui. The hotel is the Hacienda LaIsla Boutique Lodge which has quite an extensive garden for wildlife spotting. Here they grow cocoa which they make into chocolate the traditional indigenous way pre-Christopher Columbus.

Our first visit that afternoon was to the organic farm of Mr Rodolpho called Finca Sura which is to show tourists the diverse crops that grow in a tropical climate. He originally grew tropical plants on the farm for international export but after the crash of 2008 changed his business to the current tourist format.

His main crop is now pineapples which were the best we have tasted but he also grows vanilla, pepper, sugar cane, cinnamon, ginger, and palm heart amongst many others.

The farm is part of the eco tourism that Costa Rica is promoting in addition to the wildlife. We were also able to press sugar cane which had cinnamon and some of Mr Rodolpho’s moonshine added which was a very nice drink.

As nothing went to waste at the farm, any left over pineapples were fed to Mr Rodolpho’s Vietnamese pot bellied pig, Matilda.

Day 5 the owner of the Hacienda LaIsla, Jean-Pierre, gave a tour of his cacao plants and explained the growing of harvesting process before giving us the history of chocolate pre the Spanish arriving in the region in 1502. He then went on to make in the traditional way the chocolate drink that the indigenous people would have made pre 1502 (as documented by the Spanish) and the drink that Spanish made as they did not like the indigenous version.

The process involved the seeds of the cocao being sucked in the mouth to take off the outside layer and then dried. Once the bean was dry it was crushed until it became a paste. The paste was then mixed with maize, cinnamon and chilli and cold water to make the chocolate drink. It may sound disgusting but tasted good. The Spanish thought it was disgusting so they changed it and eventually made the drink with sugar cane added and using hot water. Again this tasted good.

In the afternoon we visited a leaf cutter ant farm. This is another eco-tourism project where the owner, Leo, has been studying two colonies of ants in a purpose built environment. He explained how the ants fitted into the eco system and the life process. The queen lived for 25 years and the colony, which contained 5 to 6 million ants, died when she did. The ants collect the leaves from up to 240 different plants to use to make a fungus that they eat. There is a structure with workers who cut the leaves, smaller ants whose job is to do quality control and large soldier ants who protect the colony. The Queen only mates once and does not have to do so again for the rest of her life as she stores the sperm. The poor old males die after mating and all the other ants in the colony are not able to mate but just do their allotted tasks. Who said it was a man’s world?

Another interesting visit. You learn something everyday.