Costa Rica Day 5

Day 5 in Costa Rica was our pineapple tour then off to the cloud forest!

The bird for Day 5 is the hummingbird. What a magnificent creature. My guide book tells me this is the only bird that can fly backwards. We saw tons of them at all locations throughout our trip. I circled nine different species in my book, though there could have been more! I won’t try to identify them all here, these are just the best shots. Thank you Bob, for sharing your wonderful pictures.

 

The day’s activities started with our pineapple tour at the Collin Street Bakery in Corsicana. The tour guide for our drive through the pineapple fields was hysterical. His skit about how to select a good pineapple at the grocery store had us rolling. Squeeze it? Smell it? Pluck a few leaves from the top? NO!!! What a riot. 

After the pineapple tour, we got ourselves settled onto the bus for a long of driving to our next stop, San Gerardo de Dota, which was in the cloud forest. That meant more scary driving in the mountains! Lunch on the way was in the city somewhere near San José. The contrast from the city to the country was amazing. I could not believe how congested San José was, and how much garbage was strewn about on the streets. Carlos said that it was actually much cleaner today then years ago. Yikes! When we saw a few “for sale” signs on houses (shacks, really) someone asked how much a place in the city would go for.  I was shocked to learn that what I considered a very run down, cramp, ugly cement home was listed in the upper 100’s. Sounded as though cost of living was comparable to my spacious, beautifully clean, expertly manicured neighborhood in Northern Kentucky. 

I was very happy once we were back in the country, even though that meant gravel roads and no railings to stop the bus from toppling over the side. Once again, I was praising Harrison when we arrived safely at our destination. Hard to tell from the pictures, but we were up at cloud level. It was quite chilly up there, not at all what I expected form Costa Rica!

Here is our cabin at Suria Lodge. The place would have been perfect if not for one little flaw… no hot water!!!