Our first entire day in Costa Rica, at the hotel we were aiming for. We opted to spend the day resting. We had breakfast, made massage appointments at the spa, ate lunch by the pool, had massages, went to the pool bar in the hot pool for margaritas, and dinner is somewhere in the future. That’s about all we could handle today. Maybe tomorrow we will venture out and buy hats and make tour plans. Something daring and rascally like that.

Costa Rica, Day 5

Costa Rica does not remind me of Mexico at all. In Mexico, so much of the art, architecture, civic art, derives its themes from their indigenous people. You can see Aztec and Maya elements everywhere (among those from the numerous lesser-known civilizations of Mexico).

Pre-Columbian Costa Rican peoples did not create empires. There were several different tribes, which apparently lived fairly peaceably with each other, and were egalitarian in a way that Mexico’s indigenous tribes were not. And only 2% of Costa Ricans are indigenes today. This may be the reason I so far have not detected any cohesive style here. Our hotel, Royal Corin, could be in the US or Europe for all you can tell from its architecture and decor.

Today we decided to venture into La Fortuna in search of hats and other things. I bought a hat. It is not thing of beauty, but it fit, it’s packable, it has a chin strap, and it was relatively cheap. Most of the hats I looked at were heavy, not packable, had no chin straps, didn’t fit, or were too expensive. So I will wear my ugly hat with pride.

Unfortunately, my shoulder decided to be the problem today. It tends to get pissed off anyway, and it really did not like hauling luggage around for three days. My back feels fine, though, so I used my magic machine on my shoulder, took some acetaminophen and felt better.

We soaked in one of the thermal pools, then had cocktails at the pool bar. To the left were two youngish men from some cold state, to the right was somewhat older fellow from England, but originally from Venezuela. He emigrated to England, spent seven years obtaining his Ph.d., and is now a professor of supply chain management at Cardiff University. Impressive.

However, one of the younger men won me over by saying I didn’t look like I was 73 years old. I asked him to marry me.

We opted for the vegetarian menu for dinner. It is interesting that the food in this 5-star hotel is hit-and-miss. Some selections are delicious. Some are very uninteresting. Breakfast is almost universally boring, and I confine my attentions to fruit, scrambled eggs with sauce picante, and bacon. The vegetarian dishes that we ordered fell into the “meh” category, sadly.

I did see a green basilisk lizard near the pool, but he slithered off before Tom could see him. The lizard is almost the only wildlife I have seen so far except for a butterfly that had wandered into the hotel and was obviously confused by all the cold, hard tile. I scooped it gently off the floor and put it out a window.

Costa Rica, Day 6

We booked a chocolate plantation tour for today and had to be ready to go at 7:45 for transportation. Our group was tiny—just us and a family of four from Ohio. Our tour guide was Chapo (he goes by ChapoGuapo on the Internet. His main point appeared to be that the chocolate grown in Africa is produced via slave labor, and many of the slaves are children. He is right, and I never buy chocolate from companies that use slave labor, and that includes all the biggies—Mars, Nestlé, Cadbury, etc. it should be noted that the chocolate manufactured by these companies tends to be poor quality and crammed with sugar. So, Chapo and I were in complete agreement.

We walked through the chocolate trees as Chapo showed us the fruit and flowers and explained cultivation and processing. He also tried to point out a toucan he spotted ( I didn’t see it), and he tried to track down a red and blue arrow poison frog he heard peeping in the leaves near a huge tree. On his first try, he didn’t find it. We asked him if he ever saw Fer-de-lance snakes (extremely venomous and aggressive snakes). He said no, and he is terrified of snakes because he was bitten by a coral snake as a child.

Later, Chapo went back to the leaf pile and found his frog. The poor man also found a small hog-nosed viper, known locally as the “ox-killer.” He shooed everyone away, and I think the experience shook him deeply. Nevertheless, he rallied and we moved on to the fun part—tasting.

First, he broke open a cacao fruit, exposing the seeds encased in white goo. He gave everyone two gooey seeds with instructions to suck on them, but not chew (or diarrhea would follow). The white goo tasted sweet and citrusy. Then he gave us fermented seeds to smell (earthy), and then roasted seeds (chocolatey). Then we got spoonfuls of melted chocolate that Chapo doctored as we directed with various flavorings—cinnamon, chiles, marshmallows, coffee, salt, etc. I tried Chapo’s recommendations and had three spoonfuls, each a bit different and absolutely yummy!