Voyage of Discovery 1

"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man."
Heraclitus

So this is my first visit to this part of the world.  Central America  - Costa Rica - is uncharted territory for me and to be honest, not a place high on my list.  No real aversion to it, just not a place that's ever really captured my imagination.

After the flight from Cardiff to Jamaica we had a day at sea - yes, another cruise - which helped get over the 10 hour flight and change in time zone.  Not really knowing anything about the area we booked an afternoon excursion through the ship, just to get our bearings.  It was cancelled at short notice, so we decided to go ashore anyway and find our own way around. 

I suppose the extent of "rainforest" should have been a bit of a giveaway - it's been raining here for about a week.  Undaunted, we walked ashore and were soon accosted by a local offering guided tours - so we agreed a price and piled into the minibus with four others. 

We had an entertaining commentary from our English speaking guide, as we drove out of the port area and past banana plantations - the man from Del Monte comes here for bananas!  The constitution forbids a standing army [since 1949] and the country has  progressive environmental policies, aiming to be carbon neutral by 2021, and in 2016 generated 98% of its' electricity from green sources.  And it's wet.

After a stop to sample the local sweet bananas [not for export] and see how the locals live we headed for the river tour, described rather enthusiastically as "the Amazon of Costa Rica".  Our fellow travellers opted out of the hour long river tour, and after a short while I began to understand their reluctance.  After the last week of rain the river was swollen and fast flowing, in places choked with "green" debris washed down from the mountains, with the odd tree trunk thrown in to keep us on our toes.  We felt rather vulnerable in our little boat, just the two of us and our guide, crashing up and down in the wake from the large boats that occasionally passed us.  That said, it was an excellent way to see the area, with mangroves overhanging either side and vividly coloured kingfishers diving to fish the river.  Plenty of herons, Ibis and other multi-coloured bird life too.  The most popular past-time though is spotting sloths, dripping balls of fur hanging in the branches of the trees; although we saw several they weren't very active today in the rain.

An impressive start to our holiday and a warm and very friendly welcome to Latin America.