The Blue Zone

All steel church in Grecia, CR. I thought it was the only one but then we saw another the next day

ox cart wheel in Sarchi CR. We were scheduled to go to the Poas volcano that day but they closed the park down due to its activity. A bit disappointed as visiting a ox cart factory didn't sound all that interesting but it was a good place to buy souvenirs

painting these carts is a skill

typical CR house: always surrounded by a fence which is sometimes topped with barbed wire, flat tin roof  Everything looked ramshackle Utility meters always next to the driveway as is an elevated basket for garbage. Dogs run loose

our 3 stops: Sarchi ox cart factory, butterfly house and a coffee plantation

dying Morpheus butterfly  We would see lots of theses on our last traveling day

passion fruit flower: we ate lots of passion fruit which are very tiny, the size of a cherry

we learned a lot about coffee bean processing. All of this is run by water power. No electricity. In the whole country, all electricity is either, wind, solar or hydro derived. No fossil fuel burning

typical scene from our bus window

Sarchi church

me raking the coffee beans. Plenty of sun for that. New factoid I learned. Peaberry isn't a specific species but is a mutant bean on the regular coffee bush. Only 1-2% of coffee cherries are peaberries. They are separated out as they have a distinct flavor. Coffee is their third export behind bananas and pineapples. Tourism is their top industry

The kiskadees coming for a drink that morning. Saw lots of those

some sort of fruit back in the hotel gardens

Where we went starting and ending in San Jose in the Central Valley: medium green first 2 days, yellow third,
burgundy, fourth, fifth, orange 6th and turquoise 7th. We went 765 miles but rarely going much over 40 mph
due to switchbacks

We spent most of the time on the Pacific side but crossed over the continental divide to get to Fortuna.
Different wildlife on the other side

There are 5 'blue zones' in the world where people routinely live over 100. Various factors contribute to this such as physical activity, strong family ties, vegetable and fruit based diet,
little smoking, engagement in the community and lack of stress. The Nicoya peninsula
(western CR) is one of the 5 as is some Greek Island, Sardinia, Italy, some Japanese remote
island and Loma Linda CA where there is a huge Seventh Day Adventist population. Ticans
(what people from CR call themselves) are a happy, friendly group. They are not particularly wealthy but they are never hungry and have universal health care. They have a stable,
intelligent government. They abolished the military 70 years ago. Their only wars were
against an American William Walker who tried to grab the country (along with Nicaragua
and Honduras) for himself. They are surrounded by corrupt countries such as Nicaragua and Panama. Most of their laborers are Nicaraguans. They are very environmentally conscious
and are attempting to undo the years as a Banana Republic of the US. Fortunately for them,
a banana virus scared off the Americans in the 50s.

We met up with the other 37 members of our tour group Thursday night coming from all
over the US with concentrations from Louisiana, Seattle and New Jersey. Over the next
week, we became friends with some of them drinking in the evening next to the pool or
in each other's rooms. We had assigned seats on the bus so that no one would get to
hog the front seats and you would sit across from different people each day. My friend
and I alternated morning/afternoons for the window seat. The bus was new and clean.
The air conditioner worked well. Our guide was a very knowledgeable friendly 40
something Tican. I liked him a lot. The bus driver, who probably did not speak English,
was competent and friendly. Some of the days we seemed to be on the bus forever
but I liked looking out the window watching the changing scenery or talking to various
individuals on the bus. We stopped for something every 2 hours alternating which
side of the bus got to get off first (rice and beans). There was another Caravan group
that travelled with us that we occasionally would meet up with. Caravan has lots of
clout in the country and is able to negotiate good prices on some of the luxury
properties so it was a good value.

Costa Rican food

Breakfast: rice and beans

Lunch: Rice and beans

Dinner: Beans and rice...they like to mix it up

I did like the food. Lots of plantains. I do not like bananas but do like fried plantains.
Lots of unusual fruit and juices too. Lots of fish, especially sea bass and tilapia though
I had salmon and mahi-mahi and snapper at some meals. They have a cattle industry.
You could see their skinny Brahmin (from India) cattle all over the place. Happy cows
though as they get to roam all over the place and are not fattened up by corn and
hormones. Meat is less fatty and a bit tough. They are not big on spicy food.
They add Lizano sauce instead of catsup to most of their food also known as
English sauce though I don't know why. It was good..sort of lemony and peppery. We
would have 3 buffets a day, some of it was very, very irresistible. I worried that my
deluxe breakfast buffets would make me fat in Spain. They didn't as I would be walking
for 15 hours a day and not eat much else. But here, less walking and even more food.
I would make myself eat the salads and fruits first. After much paranoia about gaining
20 pounds, it turns out it was only 2 pounds but this has been adding up. No more
traveling for awhile and now I can exercise much more as winter has disappeared back
at home.

So for our first tour day it was driving to the Sarchi, the ox cart town, the butterfly
garden and the coffee plantation where we had lunch. We also had a coffee tasting
too along with various liqueors. Most of the time in between stops, he would be
lecturing us on different facets of Tican life. We went through the town of car lots,
Grecia. Taxes make it prohibitive to get a new car excepting if you are very wealthy
so there are lots of used car lots of car repair places. Cars are inspected annually so
cars have to be in good repair. Toyotas are the favorites. As the roads are narrow,
big American cars are not useful especially as gas is about $5 a gallon at every
station, price set by the government. Lots of reliance on buses, both intercity and
between towns.