Costa Rica

I took an eco-cruise in Costa Rica. We went to a river outside of Limon City. This is a tiger heron. We were on boats with room for 20 passengers. We had to walk down a long hill to get to the docks.

Just minutes before I took a picture of this alligator it moved several feet up the bank. You can see where he is still wet. Male gators protect their territory. Female gators are free to travel.

The guide said this was a neotropical cormorant but it looks like an anhinga to me.

A bevy of buzzards circling above. I would guess there were at least 50 vultures here.

A wood stork - the second one I have ever seen.

Magnificent frigate birds have forked tails.

Our boat was identical to this one but ours didn't get stuck on a sand bar. Some brave person is standing in the water to the right of the boat trying to push it away from shore.

Then we went to a chocolate factor. Our tour lasted a couple hours. There are more than 100 varieties of cocoa trees. The Mayans were the first people to drink chocolate. Their name for chocolate, in the Mayan language, was kaka. When the Spanish people arrived they were not about to drink a brown liquid with their name for bowel movements. So they changed it from kaka to cocoa.

I have a chocolate seed pod in my lap. I tasted a raw seed (not so good), a dried seed (better but not good), a dried roasted seed (good) and hot cocoa (delicious).

Besides making us hot cocoa she drizzled chocolate on pieces of strawberry and banana.

This is a planted teak forest.