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| Our guide Manuel |
We
love to book private tours and our day with a local named Manuel in Limon,
Costa Rica is a good example of why.
Anne found this private tour online, and we really hit the jackpot with
our gregarious and affable guide Manuel; he spoke English very well, and was
extremely knowledgeable and accommodating, but best of all, he was so much fun. He made our day, and we
laughed all day long!
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| Colorful local house |
Manuel
met us right outside the ship’s terminal area and led us to his comfortable taxi to begin our tour of the area. As we
drove out of the city of Limon, we passed lots of ramshackle homes and businesses, but also plenty of
pretty homes painted in bright colors like purple and pink.
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| Local grocery store outside Limon |
Roads were good and Costa Rica looked more
prosperous than we expected. The whole country is so friendly and laidback;
everyone seems to know one another, so it feels like one big family. Manuel must be
“Mr. Limon” the way he was constantly waving to people.
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| Paprika Fruit |
Manuel
introduced us to many of the unusual fruits grown on the island, and several times, he
would abruptly pull over, leap out of the car, and pick us some fresh fruit
right from a side-of-the-road tree.
Manuel showed us star
fruit and one he called a paprika fruit, a quill-covered gum-tree relative
filled with tiny red peppers that emitted a red dye that women once
used as lipstick.
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| Manuel collecting ackee fruit right off the trees for us |
But
the strangest fruit of all was the ackee fruit.
Manuel walked right into somebody’s yard and paid a young boy a coin to
climb up into a tree to get us two ackee fruits: one ripened and one not.
Manuel showed us the two fruits as he
explained that if you open an unripe ackee fruit, the gas from inside is so
poisonous it can kill you! (Once the point was made, he immediately threw the
unripe ackee out the car window.)
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Ripe ackee fruits; notice black
"olive-like" beans in each fruit |
The
ripe ackee is okay because it opens on its own, letting the gas escape
gradually. A ripe ackee has several
large pulpy seeds that look like black olives and a starchy “meat” that is
supposed to be delicious cooked with salt fish.
Frank ate some ackee seeds, and they were indeed delicious, even alone
without the fish added.
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| Tasting fresh fruit with Manuel |
We
also stopped at a fruit stand, where once again, Manuel seemed to know
everyone. We tasted pineapple, papaya, and a strange water apple that looked
like a bright red pear. Out back, Manuel showed us a coffee tree, a cacao tree, and an unusual (at least to us) cashew tree.
A
real highlight of our day was a visit to the Del Monte Banana Plantation.
Costa Rica is the second largest banana exporter in the world, shipping over a
million boxes of bananas every year. At the plantation, we walked through a
forest of banana trees marveling at the acres and acres of leafy green banana producing trees.
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Anne points to a "banana runner", which is a shoot from
the mother tree that will be the next generation banana tree |
Amazingly, each tree only produces
one stem loaded with banana fruit and then it dies.
However before dying, the tree sends out several nearby runners that
grow into more banana trees so they keep on propagating.
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| Frank in the banana forest |
Each
stem of fruit is covered with a strange porous blue plastic bag to protect the banana bunch
from insects (we read later that the bags are lined with insecticide) and
identified by a colored ribbon that indicates when the bananas will be ready
for picking.
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| The "banana zip line" |
A cable for conveying
banana bunches, called a “banana zip line”, runs throughout the forest of banana
trees and right down into the banana processing area. Manuel told us that
banana farming is hard, dangerous work and workers often die from being bitten
by poisonous snakes. After hearing that,
we figured it was time to head for the factory!
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| Prepping bananas for packaging |
The
factory operation was fascinating but nothing like an American factory. All the work was conducted in an open-sided
barn isolated from the tourists, but certainly not a sterile environment. We watched as bananas hanging from the cable, zipped in from the forest as they were harvested by the workers.
Manuel even hung on the zip line cable, and
rode the cable along like a bunch of bananas, which totally cracked us up. As
Manuel old us, “You won’t see a ship excursion guide do this!” (Hopefully, you
can access our video of Manuel on the “banana zip line!” See below.)
Video of Manuel riding the banana zip line
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| Boat ride on the Tortuguero Canal |
Another
highlight was a boat ride on the Tortuguero Canal, altho we never seem to have
good luck with animal sightings. We got a look at some of Costa Rica’s famous
rain forest, and we did see lots of birds (mostly cranes and egrets), a family of
howler monkeys swinging in a tree, and a 3-toed sloth sleeping (of course). Unfortunately,
the sloth just looked like a big, grey fur ball burrowed in the
crotch of a tree overhanging the River Moin.
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| 3-toed sloth looking like a fur ball in a tree |
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View over the rooftops of Limon with Coral Princess
docked in the background |
Our
last stop was a restaurant with a pleasant view over the city of Limon, which
consisted mostly of single-story buildings with corrugated roofs. We could see our ship down there in the
harbor, waiting for us to return.
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| Frank downs an Imperial beer |
Frank
got to try a local Costa Rican beer while at a restaurant; it was called “Imperial” beer.
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Anne holds a small bunch of sweet-smelling "elan-elan"
plants that Manuel pulled from the side of the road |
After the beer, Manuel
headed back to the pier, but made one last leap from the taxi to retrieve us a
few sprigs of “elan-elan” growing on the side of the road.
He told us to rub them in our fingers, and
smell. Wow, a bouquet of perfume was all around us!
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Manuel showing us an unripe ackee fruit
(right before he threw it out the window) |
Manuel was much more than a taxi driver; he was a great ambassador for his country and he was happy to share all the things that make Costa Rica special.
We said goodbye to Manuel at the pier, gave him a generous tip, and boarded the ship brimming with warm feelings and lots of fun memories
of this friendly island.
More pics of Limon:
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