Pura Vida - The Good Life

Costa Rica

We interrupt the trip up the Hudson for a quick trip to Costa Rica for Thanksgiving.  Pura Vida for sure in a beautiful country.

Our first adventure was to the Rescate ZooAve, an animal sanctuary for birds and animals of Costa Rica needing care before being released or, for whatever reason, needing a home for the rest of their lives.  They have been in operation for more than 25 years and strive to return injured animals back to nature.  Each enclosure has a placard that lists the species and how many have been released to date.  I'm not sure how often they update the placards but the numbers are impressive.  

Some of the flora and fauna we were privileged to see...don't think we are in Kansas any more, ToTo (or Texas and Marti in my case).

The enclosures had tight chain link fencing that was difficult to shoot through (why you won't see the one big cat they have - between his pacing and the fence forget about focusing).  I did luck out with this Cayman who was giving us a once over wondering what this old fat laden lady would do to his cholesterol levels.  While we were photographing him and watching him he didn't move just stared at us - the BAM! he snapped up a little crab in a split second and scared the stuff out of us.  Fortunately, the knee jerk reaction was to push the shutter button.  R.I.P. little crab.

On to prettier things that shouldn't be too scary - you know the Boa Constrictor cage was not visited.

Grecia is the prime example of why this facility exists.  She was the victim of some (insert the dirtiest and most insulting words you can think of) sub-humans who thought cutting off half her beak would be fun in January of 2015.  Rescate ZooAve and a team of experts were able to make a prosthesis for Grecia despite the fact there was no precedence for this type of procedure.  God bless these angels of mercy.  So fuzzy as the photo is here is Grecia - you can see a dim line on her beak that shows where the cut was made.  May those that did this to her roast in Hell for eternity.

So on to fun and pretty and no more sadness...

Edgar the Emu (my name, not theirs) should help us get back to smiles.

Ok, Carmie here is where you close your eyes and scroll down a little ways...help her out, Paul.

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Tons and tons of fascinating and beautiful spiders and spider webs all through out the park.  

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OK, safe to look now.

For some dumb reason I didn't take pictures of the placards as I shot the birds.  In the interest of time, since I am about three trips behind, I am not trying to identify them now.  Just enjoy the beauty.

OK so the last picture is really a crummy photograph but look at that face ... don't you think he needs to be cast as the mad scientist in some really weird sci-fi horror film?

This little guy just broke my heart...don't you know that he is thinking "if that fence wasn't there I could be out flying free and hunting with my pals..."   Unknown to him he wouldn't be doing that or even be sitting on the branch had it not been the folks here.

The above are for my "Turtle" Sandi.  Although I think these are faster than her most of the time.  Love you daughter of mine.

and one bucket list checked....hard as it is to tell, as much as it looks like a giant asp, this is actually a sloth living in the wild!!!!!!  A sloth!!!!!!!!  In the wild!!!!!  In front of me!!!!!!!!

After the tour of the sanctuary we hit the road to the Doka Coffee Plantation.  Some sights along the way with a quick potty stop at a Catholic church (shrugging shoulders - guess it is the Costa Rican rest stop).

The middle picture is a poinsettia - sure doesn't look like one I have had in a pot at Christmas...WOW.

The coffee is grown on plantations and the beans are hand picked over a period of days and weeks.   The workers choose only those berries, called cherries, that are ripe and leave the rest to ripen for another day of picking.  Each worker has a basket secured at their waist and they fill that basket with 28 pounds of cherries.  Each basket is worth $2.00 in the worker's pocket.

Once the cherries are picked, they go through a process of soaking, drying then laid in the sun.  Every 45 minutes they are stirred by someone walking on them pushing with a rake like tool.  This breaks the outer shell so they can extract the bean to be roasted.

It is easy to think that the dark roasted coffees have the most caffeine.  In fact, the opposite is true.  The lighter roasted are the highest in caffeine since they have not lost as much density as the darker roasts.  Doka has a coffee that has virtually no caffeine - 0.06%.  We won't get into the process of removing caffeine...Google it if interested.

I need one of those carts.  I really really do.

Parrot Flower, Bitter Lemon Tree and the beautiful Rainbow Eucalyptus (these made me think of you, Marge with the gorgeous woods behind your house).

Time for a potty stop at a beautiful Catholic church.

The painting was on the ceiling which I thought quite interesting.   The hedges out front form two tunnels.  Aaron, our awesome guide, explained that the small towns in Costa Rica have a Catholic Church with a park in front as the town center.

So time to call it a night....busy day tomorrow floating down the river to the Nicaraguan border.

Buenos Noches