Day 1 and 2 - March 2 and 3

Day 1 - March 2 

Today was a huge travel day. I got up at 5 am in California and my new boy friend, Matt, drove me to the airport. Nobody has provided taxi service for me for eons and I can't believe how sweet he was to do this for me. It sure was nice. The flight was on time and uneventful to Miami. I actually managed to get a bit of work done prior to getting on the plane. Had a couple of hours in Miami, grabbed a salad and met Tim. We boarded the plane for San Jose, Costa Rica on time again! The flight was also smooth and easy. But when we disembarked, the lines for immigrations were LONG. Took us close to an hour to get through. I was embarrassed when the border agent wanted to know what hotel we were staying at and I had no idea and couldn't figure out how to get to this information on the EF Tours apps. The border agent finally helped me. I felt old. Good grief. Wouldn't have happened if Joanne had been with me. We had paid for airport transfers for our hotel with EF Tours. Found our ride but had more waiting for another person. Finally got to the Garden Hilton in San Jose close to 10 pm. Dinner was provided for us in the form of a box lunch. Quite a bit less than desirable but at least it was something. Chips and a tortilla with some kind of tuna in it, I think. I was so exhausted. We got to bed around 11 pm and back up at 5 am for a 6 am breakfast and had to have our luggage outside the door at 6 am as well. Wow. Short night to say the least. 

Day 2 - March 3

Tim was awake at 4:45 am and I heard him moving around. Got about 5 hours of sleep and when I woke up, it was 2:45 am at home. But got up excited to face the day, showered and had a delicious breakfast before piling on to the bus. The goal today is to drive to Puerto Viejo where we will spend then next two nights. 

The bus was very comfortable but driving out of San Jose on the curvy mountain roads proved to be challenging for my stomach. The tour director had a "surprise" for us about an hour and a half out of the city and I was so grateful to stop. The surprise was a spread of Costa Rican snacks. Fruits, breads, coconut desserts, cheeses, unusual chips made from a plant they harvest in the forest. Tim also bought me a diet coke and I felt a lot better when we got back on the road. No more problems with motion sickness. We stopped again at a banana plantation and got the full scoop on how bananas are harvested and planted. I could never actually remember everything we were told but the big message - harvesting bananas is an incredible amount of manual labor. Back on the road, our next stop was Bribri, an area where the Bribri indigenous tribe lives. They have their own government and language and are committed to preserving their ancient culture. The bus took us as close as it could but you cannot drive there except on a motorcycle. We hiked from the road to the village. The first part of our village tour was a native lunch, served by the people who live there. Lunch was rice, beans, chicken and lettuce served in a banana leaf and followed with fresh tropical fruit - watermelon and pineapple. Simple but just amazingly tasty. We ate in a wood shed with a thatched roof and a wood floor. They asked us to take our shoes off because they didn't want us to bring dirt in. I found this kind of interesting. The bathrooms were very primitive, to say the least. After lunch, we had a "chocolate workshop". We went through the whole process of creating chocolate - starting with opening the fruit. To dry the fruit out the native way, once the fruit is opened, you allow insects to eat all the nectar around the seeds. They told us it takes about four days. The next part of the process is roasting the seeds over a fire for about 20-25 minutes. Following this, you take a very heavy stone and grind the seeds to separate the shell from the inner seed. We ate some beans at this point and they were so good. The workshop director was an expert at tossing the product in the air and separating the chaff. Impressive. We then put the product in another grinder that reminded me of the grinder we used for grating vegetables back in EskDale. This turned the cocoa beans into a thick paste. We put this on sweet bananas and wow, what a treat. We then boiled water and made hot chocolate. The whole experience was so unusual and like nothing I've ever done anywhere! But I must admit I was so tired. Two really short nights in a row. My eyes wanted to close every time I sat down! I kept falling asleep on the bus. Simply exhausted. 

Back on the bus, we headed to our final stop, Puerto Viejo, and checked in to our hotel. It is a beautiful spot and we are scheduled to eat dinner tonight at a very nice restaurant. Hopefully we will follow that with SLEEP. I need it. Another very full day tomorrow.