Man time flies when you are having fun!

I can't believe it's been almost a week more stuff since the last post.  As you may remember, Shawn, Rachel and I were suffering from a bit of Costa Rican poison ivy.  I'm happy to report that Shawn and Rachel are pretty much through it but for what ever reason my bout seemed to percolate along with not much until theirs cleared up and then it spread like it did with the kids - and I KNOW I didn't scratch spread it.  This is persistent stuff!  I've got little bits on the inside of my arms, and up both legs.  Big red splotchy patches that resist all medications and the itching can drive you insane! Luckily this little place we are staying at outside Cahuita (Costa Azul Lodge) has a little pool and being in the water provides almost instant relief!  I can say that I've had a few 2:30am swims!  Anyway, judging from the kids, it gets worse before it gets better and I'm fairly sure I'm coming down the back side now.  We're not letting it slow us down much anyway as you'll soon see.

A few days ago we went on a chocolate plantation tour.  It was an old farm bought by a German that decided he'd try to preserve the land much as it was back in the day when Costa |Rica did a lot of coffee.  They had a disease that went through the plants in the 70's that pretty much wiped out the commercial sales... it's still widely prevalent and tends to rot the fruit on the plant so it makes coffee farming here uneconomical.  The plantation itself was only about 1km down the road from us here and it was quite interesting to see it from bean to chocolate (which of course we got to sample!).

Our guide showing us how they get the cocoa fruit out of the tree.  

This is a mini banana tree.  After these fruit ripen, the whole tree dies and it starts again. That's quite the flower on the bottom!

A "Green" Bamboo stand.  This stuff is useless for building as it is too bendy but a great place to find pit vipers!  Some of those poles were 40' long.

The next day we decided to see if we could try to find the elusive Bribri waterfalls by ourselves.  A guided tour there was $49/pp so being of good Scottish blood, and equiped with our trusty 4x4 crap bucket, we set off to find them.  On the way, I noticed a plane flying BELOW us...   never a good thing when you are driving along a twisty mountain road.  

He's dusting the banana's...  none of the Tico's would eat these but they show up in our supermarkets!  Those hills behind the plane are in Panama.

We had to stop for directions (at Jen's insistence... I would have found it eventually), but it turns out it is up the main side road right in the town of Bribri itself...  you have to ford three streams and some car swallowing pot holes but you can get pretty close with the 4x4.  We had been told about theft and breakins so when we saw a house on stilts with a Parquero sign out front, we pulled in and chatted with the young man (Alejandro - like the song) who came down the steps to see the Gringos.  He didn't speak any English at all and our Spanish is pretty awful but we got our point across and he told us where to park and then led the way to the waterfall (across more streams and some slippery trails).  He even pointed out where other unfortunates left their cars only to have the windows smashed.  I wasn't quite sure if he was one of the ones doing the smashing (if you didn't pay to park your car with them) or not but he turned out to be a great guide and we had a lot of fun trying to understand each other.  He took great fun in watching Shawn freak out about the little fish in the pond.  As is often the case with these CR waterfalls, they can be a bit of a hike but they are well worth the effort!

That little pool in front of us was about 3' deep and FULL of tiny Tilapia which frightened Shawn to no end.  Our guide told us he'd caught a 24" one that morning downstream from here.  I can say from much experience here in CR, that the fish is VERY tasty!

The wet, but happy crew.  There is a deep pool behind that rock where we swam under the falls.  40-50' can really knock out any kinks in your neck!  

I'm running out of juice on the laptop as Shawn has been doing his blog all day (be sure to catch his as he's turned into a bit of a writing comedian)... so that's it for now.  Next time I'll talk about the great beaches, snorkeling and ziplining we did over the past three days.  Our love to all.