Saturday in Costa Rica

Another great day in Costa Rica. Roads very good, 3+ hour drive to Puerto Viejo, south of Limon, on the coast. Really an isolated but tourist place.

The mountains were beautiful, then came to the plains and banana plantations. Bought one more bunch of red peach palm fruit. The big bunches have a few hundred fruits/seeds.

They sell for $1-$4 per 2.2 pounds, depending on quality and the price is less when buying a whole bunch. A 22 pound bunch and the red one at about 15 pounds were about $10 each. It has been interesting to see how the palm does in a lot of climate zones. Seems to do well wherever coconut does, except that it isn't on the beach.

Just before Puerto Viejo we saw a rambutan fruit stand in a yard and bought about 7 pounds for just under $6. Sure is better than Spanish lime, very much like a big sweet lychee. Wish we had more time to feast on all the fruit.

Toured Finca la Isla botanical gardens in the afternoon. Lots of bromeliads, poison dart frogs, fruit trees, ornamentals and jungle. Tried some more new fruits for the first time: Araza (sour, good for juice), langsat (another lychee-like fruit), and champedek (very sweet, soft, and fruity, similar flavor to Juicy Fruit gum/jackfruit). It was good to see what many of the young fruit trees we are growing will look like when mature.

Finca-la-Islas-Botanical-Garden

The hotel is nice, Tom is sharing rambutan, avocado and some other fruits to others with a request to return the seeds. We offered the 10 or 15 pounds of peach palm to the owners but they didn't think they would cook well split and without the seeds.

We checked some of the souvenir merchants and finally splurged a bit on a very tasty, spicy supper.

We haven't spent much at restaurants with all the fruits, avocados, peach palm (like potato) and local cheese.

Tomorrow we head back to San Jose.

Cory

Tom posted some pictures on Facebook which I then shared on my page so you can see too if you're my friend.

The kid's and I spent the morning each studying, the kids did some cleaning this afternoon and then had free time while I studied some more..