Sarchi, February 25th.

Today, we decided to visit Sarchi, a town known for its furniture, ox carts and souvenirs. It was not too far from San Ramon and we did not have to drive on any dirt roads. We still had to avoid people walking on the road, dogs loose without a lead, potholes and parked cars in all the wrong places.
The town of Sarchi was not very large so it was not too difficult to find the right place despite there being no street signs. There does not appear to be a street sign or road number anywhere in the whole of Costa Rica.
We were greeted by a wonderfully painted ox cart similar to the ones used in the early 1900s to carry sugar cane.

Nowadays, they are used for decoration only. There were a couple of painters on duty whilst we were there. It was interesting to see them paint the wood.

The "factory" making the oxcarts dates back to 1923 and all the equipment is water driven including the lathe, band saw and sander.

Unfortunately for us, we visited on a Sunday and there were no workers present. However, this man spotted us looking at the equipment, came across to us and gave us a tour, explanation of the equipment and a demonstration of the water wheel and the belt driven lathe. He spoke excellent English which made the tour even more interesting.
After a visit to the "factory" it was time to visit the souvenir shop which was richly decorated on the outside.

A close up of the oval in the centre was really beautiful.

The wall to the side of the souvenir shop also had a lovely painting. Whoever had painted them was really talented.

So ended our visit to Sarchi. On the way home we passed a hill using tyres as a retaining wall.

When we looked closer at the hill to the side of our bungalow, we saw that it, too had a retaining wall made of tyres but they had become covered up with vegetation.
This is a short blog as we are preparing to go to Arenal Volcano tomorrow so I have to prepare for the trip. The volcano is still active having steam vents coming out of the side. I have seen several volcanoes - Teide in the Canary Islands, Vesuvius in Italy, Etna in Sicily, Mt St Helens in the States so I am looking forward to seeing Arenal. I have heard that Arenal is symmetrically shaped and that it is difficult to see the cone most days because of clouds. Here's hoping we get a clear day.

Zoo, Sloths

Monday, upon returning to San Ramon we decided to visit a local zoo that had injured animals they had rescued and hoped to release back into the wild. There was a toucan with an artificial bill. Apparently, toucans monitor their temperature through their bill and not to have one means the bird cannot control its body temperature.

I am an owl lover so to see this owl close up was a treat. It was a spectacled owl and looking at its face you can see how it gets its name.

We past several iguanas who appeared to be quite tame and not afraid of humans. One of them had its throat "pouch" in view. I do not know the correct term for this part of the iguana's body.

We spotted a heron enjoying his lunch of fish.

The highlight of the day was to see a sloth in a tree. If it had not been for a zoo worker we would not have known about the sloth as he had to point it out to us.

The zoo was in the process of building a new aviary so to hide the work they built a fence around the site and had it painted with life size birds.  it was quite impressive.

The zoo had a cute display of tamarinds.

In one of the cages all by himself or herself was an albino squirrel.

The final cage contained some cockateals who appeared to be smooching. One of them even had their eyes closed.

So ended our day at the zoo.
We are on the road again. This time to Manuel Antonio which is a National Park on the Pacific Coast. It was about 120 miles from San Ramon and took us over 4 hours to get there because part of the journey was on a dirt road. We also had to squeeze past grazing cattle.

I was quite worried about driving on the dirt road because I was afraid we would get a puncture and be miles from anywhere. Had we got a puncture it would have been very difficult to change the tyre on the very uneven road surface.
On the road to Manuel Antonio we had to go over a bridge. Prior to the bridge Gary pulled the car over to the side of the road and told me to get my camera. I did what he asked and got out the car to walk on the bridge where there was a large group of spectators looking down onto the river. When I got to the crowd I could see what they were looking at - a large group of crocodiles.

Apparently someone feeds the crocodiles chicken so they know where to gather for free food. Gary had known about this prior to our journey.
We had a bed and breakfast in Matapolo booked for 2 nights. When we arrived we were greeted by the owners to took us to a lovely large bedroom and bathroom, with a patio and a view of the swimming pool. Temperatures here, I would guess were in the 90s and more humid than where we are staying in San Ramon.

The owner told us that between 6am and 6:30am monkeys stray across the property on the wires put up specifically for that purpose. We got up early on our last day to see the monkeys which were white faced capuchins. One of them had killed a fair sized lizard and carried it across the wires in one of his hands. There were others that carried babies on their backs.

One of the monkeys was quite clever. To avoid falling he had his tail wrapped around the upper wire and walked on the lower wire. Apparently, they are the brains of the monkey species.

We came to Matapolo for a specific reason and that was to visit a wildlife sanctuary. Like the zoo, they take in injured animals and then release them as near as possible to where they were injured. If the animal has been taken in because it was confiscated and used to humans, the animal cannot be released back into the wild so will stay in the sanctuary for the rest of its life. The sanctuary had many parrots, monkeys, sloths and a raccoon.

The above monkey as you can see was on the outside of a cage. In the cage were three female monkeys and he was trying to mate with them. He got quite aggressive with the females who were being given birth control to prevent them from having babies. The sanctuary tries very hard to not let their animals mate because the offspring will become used to humans and it will be difficult to place them in the wild without them approaching people.

The above monkey was from Panama and confiscated when it was brought into Costa Rica. It was believed it was the only one of its type in the country.

Even though there was not a lot to see, I enjoyed our visit to the Alturas Wild Life Sanctuary. In the afternoon we visited the beach near our B & B. It was practically deserted except for a couple of people lounging on chairs near to the water.

I spotted this piece of driftwood and if you use your imagination I think it looks like a mouse or a long nosed dog.

The next day we were to leave Matapolo for home. Prior to leaving for home we planned on visiting Manuel Antonio National Park.

We had been warned about the park being very commercialized and boy! where they right. There were long lines to go into the park and many men touting that they were the best guide to take you through the park. They all had scopes to help you see the animals better. I had my zoom lens so hoped I did not need a scope.

 The entrance fee to the park was $16 each and the "guides" were wanting anything from $40 to $75. We decided against the guide and risked being able to spot the wildlife by ourselves. The day was extremely hot and humid and at then end of the trail into the park was a lovely beach. Had we taken our swimsuits that would have been a most delightful way to cool off.

We saw two types of monkeys and heard another type called the Howler. Even though we never saw them, they could be heard howling all over the park.
The first monkey we saw was a squirrel monkey. It was much smaller than the capuchins we had seen earlier in the day.

We did see some capuchins who were drawing a large crowd of spectators to witness their antics.

We also saw some large colorful crabs and a raccoon that overtook us on one of the trails. Unlike the raccoons in the USA, this one is diurnal and eats fish. He did not seem to pay any attention to us on the trail.

And that was about all we saw at Manuel Antonio except for a lot of people attempting to see wildlife which was long gone because of the commotion people made.

Coffee tour, candy making

On our second day away from San Ramon we visited a candy making demonstration..

 The candy was made from sugar cane which was pressed and squeezed until the sugary liquid was expelled.

The liquid was then poured into large vats ready for boiling down into a syrupy liquid.

The vats were heated underneath by the leaves and stalks of the sugar cane so nothing went to waste.

As the juice boiled down it was topped up from another vat.

When the liquid reached a certain point, a helper scooped some of the liquid into a plastic cup and then added lemonade to make a very sweet drink. Gary and I were the only non-natives observing the candy making so the helper brought the drink over to Gary for him to try. Because Gary is diabetic he handed the drink to me after taking a small sip. I reluctantly put my lips to the cup and took a drink and was pleasantly surprised. It was sweet but not as sweet as I thought it would be.

The candy making process continued. The vat now boiled down to a specific consistency and the contents poured into 2 separate areas ready for making three types of candy. Whilst the vat was being emptied a helper scooped up the boiling liquid and immediately plunged it into a bucket of water. The result was a very sticky, stretchy goo.

The helpers went around giving out samples of the goo. When I took mine and placed it in my mouth, it nearly locked my teeth together because it was so sticky. This made Gary eager to buy some of the goo!!! The taste was pleasant. They continued to sample the mix until it hardened enough to break when tossed onto a board. It was then ready to be made into candy. Three separate types were made. The goo was spread into a large container and onto the sides of a concrete water tank where it was left to cool.

The goo was then sprinkled with peanuts chopped up very small and then rolled into two big balls and joined together to make one large ball.

This was then taken to a wooden post with a hook about 5 feet from the floor and then pulled into a strip, put back onto the hook and the process started again. This must have gone on for at least 15 minutes before being taken off the hook and placed on a table.

After 15 minutes the stretched "candy" was taken to a table, rolled in chopped peanuts and into a long sausage shape and chopped into 1" pieces.

The finished candy was then handed out to the spectators and offered for sale. I did not mind the sticky stuff but I did not like the finished candy so I did not purchase any.
The other batch of liquid from the vat was poured into a wooden trough and stirred for about 15 minutes whilst it thickened and changed color.

The thickened liquid was then poured into wooden holes and left to cool.

After cooling, the "candy" was tipped out and left to cool some more.

Unfortunately, we never saw what happened to above "candy".
The grounds of the candy making demonstration were very nice. There was a small lake with 3 ducks on it. Two of the ducks looked like they had pompoms on their heads.

As you can see when I tried to take a photo of the two ducks, one of them ducked his head under the water.
There was a second lake minus ducks but with a nice view.

After the candy making we drove to a coffee plantation to see how coffee is made.

 We had seen coffee being made in Hawaii but wanted to see if coffee from Costa Rica was any different as pure Costa Rican coffee is supposed to be very good.
The guide spoke good English which made the tour more enjoyable as there was no English spoken at the candy making. She started off by showing us coffee seedlings and the different stages the plant goes through before it reaches maturity.

 Apparently, coffee bushes can produce coffee from about 5 years to almost 100 years but after about 25 years the quality declines and this estate replants new bushes.The coffee is picked when the berries are red and put into a laundry basket worn around the waist.
It is hard work as the berries have to be hand picked and if the worker has too many green berries in their basket they will not get paid. The plantation usually provides housing for the workers so there is some incentive to be a coffee berry picker.
After picking, the berries are weighed and dumped into a water tank to separate the good berries from the bad. The good berries will sink and make the better coffee.

 
Two percent of the berries will have abnormal beans called peas. These are ones where a larger half receives all the nutrients and becomes round. These peas are considered the very best of the beans. The rejects will become a cheaper grade of coffee. They are sorted by size, ending up with three grades of coffee. The berries then go to a grinder to remove the outer casing of the berry to reveal a very small white bean.

All the machinery is run by water power, which drives a long shaft running above the machinery. The machines are powered by long belts driven off the shaft.  The Doka Estate is the oldest water powered coffee plantation in Costa Rica. The beans are then sent to a fermenting tank where they will remain for 36 hours.

The beans still have a protective husk at this point. The beans are then laid out in the sun to dry on concrete and have to be raked and turned  every 45 minutes during the day.

 At night they are covered with plastic to prevent them from being spoilt by the humidity. The beans stay in the sun for 5 days unless it rains. If it does rain it prolongs their stay in the sun. There is a large mechanical dryer available but this is not the preferred method.  After drying, the pea beans are separated from the best graded beans. The last step is to remove the husks. The beans are stored in burlap sacks for 3 months. After 3 months, the beans are mostly shipped out. Only 3% of the total output stays in country and it is the poorest quality that stays. The beans only have the coffee smell after being roasted which often takes place elsewhere. Coffee varies by the length of time roasted, as well as the mix of quality of beans. It is then called blended coffee. To get French Blend it is roasted for 17 minutes at 250C.
The plantation was surrounded by beautiful hydrangeas with heads bigger than Gary's hand.

I took another photo of a weird looking flower but do not know the name of the plant.

So ends a very educational and enjoyable day. I think I will go home and have a cup of coffee!!!