Tour day 3

Today was the best day yet.  We did a fantastic chocolate tour, and followed that with an awesome river boat tour.

John and Jan joined us today.  There were just the five of us - we have had the tour guide basically all to ourselves.  We drove through rush-hour traffic in San Jose out to the northern part of the country, where we started with a tour of the Tirimbina Chocolate research center.  They grow cacao trees there and make chocolate the traditional way.  We hiked over a suspension bridge (the longest one in the country) and through the jungle to an outpost where our guide, Michael, gave us an excellent presentation on the history of chocolate.  We got to break open a cacao seed, suck on the beans, taste fresh beans, taste roasted fermented beans (nibs), grind them into a powder, add sugar and cinnamon, make a hot cocoa drink, and sample some chocolate made right there.  It was great!  Definitely a highlight.  We will have to try making some home-made chocolate now.

After a delicious lunch at the research center we drove off to the Sarapiqui River for a boat tour, in a drenching downpour.  This turned out to be quite a treat.  We saw a wide variety of birds and other animal life like howler monkies and iguanas.  Our guide Juan Carlos was very knowledgeable and enthusiastic, and John snapped probably hundreds of pictures.  The rain stopped after awhile, and we cruised down and up the river in a leisurely fashion, looking for the next sighting.  The boat driver's son (about 10 years old?) was uncanny at spotting interesting wildlife amongst the trees lining the shores of the river.  The icing on the cake was a pair of Spectacled Owls found just as we neared the dock.

And then the drive back to San Jose for more rush-hour traffic.  All in all, the best tour day so far.

We all went for dinner at a nearby restaurant, which presented a nice buffet (seems to be the preferred way to serve dinner so far).

Tomorrow:  Carara National Park and another boat cruise.