Horses On Parade

Each spring, Atenas has its Topes - horse parade.  This is a big deal as ranchers from the canton drive their horses into town via their blue and white farm trucks, and saddle up to prance up and down the streets, amongst the regular car and motorcycle traffic.  Their destination was eventually to get to the old folks home where there was some sort of blessing.  I was told that this was a fund raiser for the home and since I saw each rider had a number pinned on their back, there might have been a parade fee that they paid.

This area has many fincas (farms and ranches) with cattle and horses. Its not unusual to see someone riding into town. With the condition of many of the roads, the horse seems like a preferable mode of transportation.
The cowboys are dressed much as you'd see in the US. Their cowboy hats are a bit wider, but they mostly wear jeans, boots, and plaid long sleeved shirts. Some had intricate embroidery on their shirts which showed me that this was a special day for them.

This parade was an all afternoon affair with no real organization that I could discern.  Horses and their riders were typically in groups of what appeared to be family or friends.  As the afternoon turned to evening, more and more riders were carrying 'beverages' to sustain them as they headed through town to the old folks home.  I was amazed at the prancing by each and every horse that made them seem so elegant.

Now I'm in the parade!

Maybe it was my enthusiam? But one of the riders stopped and asked me if I wanted to ride in the parade.  Of course this was all in Spanish and I wasnt sure what was going on, but the Tico's standing next to us yelled 'SI' and waved me toward the horse as the rider jumped off.  So, here I am saddling up for my participation in the Tope!

We had been seeing oxcarts with oxen/cows around town the past couple of days, but for some reason, I didnt have my camera.  Sunday morning (after the Saturday Tope), I heard a clop clop on the hilly dirt/gravel road outside of our house.  I jumped up to see - a beautifully painted ox cart carrying a young girl and going up the hill.  When I waived with my camera in hand, they stopped so I could take a picture.  While the cart, and in fact the cows, were beautiful - riding in that cart didnt look very comfortable.  After all, these carts were originally used to carry coffee beans into town..

Monkey Turk

We all know the Turk is wild about picking, catching, growing his own food. I am happy to oblige his interests.  Here in Costa Rica, there are a number of fruit trees on the property and one by one, the turk has come in the door with abundant harvests including lemons, limes, bananas.  There has been one fruit that has eluded him until today - the mango. 

We have a large mango tree with only about 8 mangoes left on it.  They are clearly still on the tree because only a monkey could reach them....until the turk arrived.   Today was the day that monkey-turk was going to harvest mangoes.

the Turk, on a mission

I documented the expedition and had to supply the instrument of harvest - the pool net used to collect the leaves floating on top of the pool.  The turk scampered up the tree and I handed him his 'picker', which  is really just a 'hitter' because he swung it into the mango stems until the stems broke and mangoes rained from the tree.

no, that is not a redpanted bird in the mango tree

I dodged what was certainly a potential concussion by running out of the way, despite the turk yelling for me to catch each mango by hand. As a result, we have 5 mangoes, 3 of which have split.  Undaunted, the turk marched triumphantly back to the house with his bounty having conquered yet another unsuspecting fruit tree.

the long blue arm of the turk

Chocolate!

The travelmobile took us to a small town northeast of San Jose where Sibu Chocolate has their headquarters.  The Turk and I signed up for a tasting hoping to find out more about Sibu and chocolate in Costa Rica.

Cocao pods, chilis, cocao beans

The co-owner of Sibu greeted us when we finally found their location - see previous blog entry of driving around like drunken sailors.  Come to find out, Julio's family was the first Turk family to move to Costa Rica around 1918. At that point, they were actually Ottomans since there was no Turkey, and they were in fact Jewish Ottomans.  He said that now there are a number of Turks living in CR.

Turk finds favorite thing - wood oven

Julio is an historian and worked for National Geographic in central america doing research and lecturing. So he was comfortable being our chocolate lecturer as he described the ancient history of chocolate and how Costa Rica gave up their indigenous foods like cocoa for european foods like coffee because of the influx of europeans and their businesses.

Cocoa bean, Sibu chcolates to taste!

Julio demo'ing ancient chocolate drinking cup

Sibu, named for an ancient god, has a mission to bring back the cocoa origins of Costa Rica through their chocolate. This is mainly through their bonbons where they mix herbs, spices for unique flavors.
The grounds of this artisanal chocolate maker were beautiful and they had a restaurant that made tasty, healthy foods. We shared their soup - smoked pumpkin, green salad and sandwich of handmade sausage and hummus with peppers.  It was delicious, though slightly needing more seasoning as is typical in CR.

Overall, it was an interesting experience, but not worth the $25 each that we paid to hear Julio's history of chocolate and taste five of their chocolates. We were not shown any chocolate being made and it appears that the cocoa beans are processed elsewhere, not on site.  The cocoa plants are grown on the east side of the country where the weather is a bit warmer. We did stumble upon a window overlooking a work area where it appeared that a woman was making chocolates, but the view was somewhat blocked. 

Zippy Day

 Yup, we did the obligatory zip line experience in Costa Rica.  Did you know that the current type of ziplining started right here in Monteverde in the 1990's?! This mode of transportation was originated many years ago to address needed travel between hard to reach areas, including in Costa Rica. 

The Turk and I chose Sky Trek for our experience and we recommend it. Professionally done and the guys were great.
9 ziplines including 2 tandam runs - which the Turk liked because he got to wrap his legs around my waist and tell me to keep still - kept us busy all morning.  A full 1.7 miles of zipping, lines ranging from 328ft to the longest at 2460 ft (over half a mile).  It was very windy and I thought - no way are they going to allow ziplining today.  Alas, they cancel only when winds are over 74 mph.  Remember, 75 mpg = hurricane!

What is Missy getting me into

Suited up

Trip up to the top

Incoming!

Within the canopy, seeing the ecosystem of just 1 tree

This is FUN

Zippy Turk

Zipping over the canopy

One more zip to go and I'll be done

View on our trip back to Atenas

We hopped back into our miniature 4 wheeler and headed back to Atenas. The views along the way were beautiful, despite it being dry season below the rain forest and much of what we saw was brown. We stopped along with way for a picnic, complete with fresh bread from Stella's bakery and cheese - both local from Monteverde.

Cloudy With Animals

 Monteverde is one of the cloud forests located in north central CR, south of Lake Arenal.  It became 'known' in 1983 when National Geographic did a feature article on this unique area and the observation that this was a key location to see the 'resplendent quetzal'. (a bird). And my family has that issue, I know they do. The Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve has over 100 species of mammals, over 400 of birds, 120 of amphibians and reptiles, over 3000 of plants including the largest variety of orchids in the world - over 500 species.!

Quetzal - you cant see the looong blue tail.

The Turk and I jumped in our travelmobile and headed northwest. We had been warned, as is everyone, that the last hour of the drive to Monteverde is over unpaved, rugged, windy road that will jar your brain.  The rental car companies especially love this road because that  is how they rent their 4 wheel drives.

The 3 1/2 hr trip took longer than that of course. The dirt (or as one website says 'dirty' road) was torturous. Mark handled it well but noted that his left arm was sore from holding the steering wheel to maneuver around the holes/rocks/dips.

We are doing pretty well with the major roads, but once we get to the location and need to find the: hotel, office, park, etc. we circle like drunk sailors. And this of course happened when we tried to find our hotel.  Not sure this is a real teachable moment because I seem to be missing the directional cells in my brain. And this must be contagious because the Turk has developed the same deficiency.  Be assured, we did not sleep on the street and finally got to our hotel. One look at us and Jose, the owner had us sit down to relax. He brought out coffee and tea and talked gently until our rattled nerves were calmed. Thank you Jose!

Notice the varieties of wood in ceiling and wall and door of our room. The woods of Costa Rica are beautiful and used extensively

This is why its called 'Cloud Forest'

Hiking along

unusual rain forest creature

The cloud forest area was settled by Quakers, from ALABAMA, during the Korean War.  As religious pacifists, they were initially jailed for refusing the draft. Once they were released, they gathered family and friends and drove...yes drove back in 1949 with those roads, to Costa Rica. Monteverde specifically.  They set up dairy farms and settled the area.  Then they started to realize the importance of their location and they began to preserve the land in the cloud forests.  And that is why we have them today.  The country of Cost Rica has added more preserved areas and today, more than half of Costa Rica land is preserved. 

Our first objective?  Find animals.  Our guide Christian grew up in the cloud forests and learned what plants he could eat, how the animals behaved (when we wasnt shooting them with his slingshot), and how the forest behaved.  He made sure we got photos of the key birds we saw on our hike. I dont remember all the names - but they were quite colorful!  We also saw the Costa Rican version of raccoon called a coati.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-nosed_Coati   And one of our favorite things - hummingbirds - were everywhere.  We even got to have hummingbirds land on our fingers. They tickle because they are flapping their wings so fast.

Some kind of Tanager

Mark gets tickeled

 

2 legged visitor critters

Giants next to giant tree

Old growth tree covered in fig tree

  After hiking for 5 hours, we decided we should get back into town and have some local ice cream.  Remember those Quakers had dairy farms, and with dairy farms comes.....ICE CREAM.  So we tried the Monteverde brand at the local ice cream shop and it was quite delicious.  I didnt even try chocolate because I wanted to taste the cream - and taste I did. YUM!  

Then we had to check out the Don Juan cafe.  Don Juan is a Costa Rican company that processes coffees and ...chocolate!   I found half kilo packages of chocolate but none said the level of cocoa.  I saw numbers like 117, 118, 111 and thought these might be important. Indeed they are.  I found out that the lower the number means darker chocolate.  I asked the clerk for the darkest and found out that was 100.   I want 100!  Alas, no 100.  So, the clerk kindly called the local office (on top of the rain forest mind you) and they sent a deliveryman with my dark chocolate 'bar'.  Yes he thought I was a little crazy, but kindly posed for this pic.  Costa Ricans (ticos) are so nice.

Don Juan delivery man

We rested up to be ready for our Night Walk in another cloud forest.  What can you see at night? Not much unless you have a guide with a really strong flashlight and knowledge of where the animals and insects might be.  There is a whole different thing going on at night and we got a glimpse of it.  We saw a two toed sloth hanging upside down from a tree branch. Found out that he was scratching himself because sloths are home to thousands of bugs, including some that live ONLY on sloths. Dont want a pet sloth.   Also seen: 2 varieties of toucans - hide their heads when they sleep, a giant bright green viper wrapped around and hanging from a branch, red kneed tarantula that our guide teased out of its hole, golden beetle that is worth $200 in the insect market because it looks like gold...really.  My good camera had a dead battery, so I was able to capture only a couple of critters in pictures.

Golden beatle

Leaf bug

Colorful Day in Sarchi

Sarchi is considered the artisan center of Costa Rica and is known especially for its colorfully painted oxcarts.  In the past, the oxcarts carried the coffee beans to market and were painted to represent the design of the region. So you would know which region the coffee was from.  One of the spots we visited has craftsmen still making the oxcarts including forging metal for the wheels and hinges. We also found numerous shops selling handmade furniture from the beautiful hardwoods of the country.

The world's largest oxcart is here, in Sarchi. Who knew! To get an idea of the size, see the children are walking around under it

I loved the detailed paintings of wildlife found on many of the buildings. Not sure I'll get to see the real-life versions, so I captured these guys on the walls!

Frogs

Near Sarchi is the town of Grecia that has an interesting, and beautiful church,  Cathedral de la Mercedes. The gothic-style church is constructed of brick-red metal panes, built in Belgium and shipped to Costa Rica in 1987. The panes were shipped as individual slabs to the port city of Limon where they were carried by oxcart, piece by piece, to Grecia.

Traveling is not complete without the discovery of something odd.  I spotted this tree on the side of the road and wondered what was hanging from it.  The turk turned the car around - quite a challenging task in the narrow, windy, hilly road with a stickshift car with no power.  Upon a closer view, I saw bicycles, car parts, a Christmas reindeer and other assorted items hanging from this tree.   

Art Tree!