cacao • 6 comments • We took a tour of a "chocolate house" (a place where chocolate is made, not a house made of chocolate - although, if you know where one of those is, let us know). The Bribri tribe (a small indigenous group in Costa Rica) were mostly isolated from the rest of Costa Rica until the mid-70's when some of them began participating in the eco-tourism boom. Upon entering the house, we were offered sugar cane and the sweet/sour seeds of a cacao fruit, which we happily accepted. They also showed us this unusually large lemon and offered no explanation as to it's size or why they were displaying it: We were given a demonstration of how chocolate is made in addition to some of the rituals that are performed by the Bribri people. In addition to the many cacao trees, there are also many other plants surrounding the house which are also used for making food and beauty products. We're fairly certain that we were provided with the name of the tree in the following photos, but we have since forgotten it, so we shall refer to it as the "lipstick plant". The prickly balls cracked open to reveal little red pellets that you could squeeze a small amount of red paste from. All the ladies in the tour group put some on their lips and it lasted the entire day, even after a swim. Beat that, CoverGirl Outlast Lip Stain. At the end of the tour, we were taken to the gift shop in the back of the house where we could purchase their all-natural, organic products. They had curry pastes and an assortment of chocolate flavors: cinnamon, nutmeg, black pepper, vanilla, mint, coffee etc... The curry smelled amazing and we would have loved to take some with us, but it would have likely just exploded in our bag, and we rarely cook on this trip anyway. We did pick up a jar of cocoa butter for much less than it would have cost back home.
b & b • 19 comments • A breakfast that starts off with a huge plate of fresh fruit is so invigorating. While in San Juan Del Sur, we woke up to one every morning. The pineapples are white (we're used to them being yellow): ...and the oranges are green. We've seen all of these fruits growing during our long bus rides. Neither of us enjoy papaya. We'd like to. It looks fresh and juicy, but the flavour is just not our thing - maybe because it's not very popular back home. All these fruits are known to us and we're looking forward to trying some foreign and weird looking fruits during our travels.
