Puerto Limon, Costa Rica

January 7, 2008

As I arrived in Costa Rica I chastised myself for never visiting this beautiful country when my brother and sister-in-law, Robert and Jennifer, were here as Peace Corp volunteers. How wonderful it would have been to experience this lush and green country through their eyes…but alas, I never made it until now…and I am glad that I am finally here!

A morning bus ride that skirted the port town of Puerto Limon carried us past untold acres of bananas and pineapples. These beautifully manicured crops have become both a blessing and a curse to the people of this region. A blessing in that it is giving a lot of work to people that need it….a curse in that the rain forest is being destroyed to provide land for cultivation. As we rode for miles with bananas growing on either side of the road I was fascinated by the patterns that the systematically laid-out rows of bananas made. Small canals separated about four or five rows of dense plants. The consistent rhythm became almost hypnotic as our bus moved at a steady pace. We learned from our most articulate guide that each plant produces only one bunch of bananas, taking almost a year. Once this single bunch is harvested, the mother plant is chopped down allowing the soil’s nutrients to go the small offshoot, or new plant, that is budding at the base of each plant. Mother Nature at work!

I was fascinated by the large blue plastic bags that enclosed each ripening bunch of bananas. It seems that these bags have several purposes. First, since the plants are sprayed by crop dusters once or twice a day with pesticides, the bags protect the fruit itself from the chemicals. In doing so, the bags also create a functional “greenhouse” effect causing the temperature inside the bag to increase and thus hasten the growth of the fruit. Likewise the blue bags provide instant “packaging” when, after harvesting, they are hung on an ingenious electric tram system, that interrupts the fields about every acre or so and delivers the ripening bananas back to the packing facility. It is all a very large and complex operation…controlled by mega companies like Dole and DelMonte …and, again, provides great economy for the region.

The pineapple fields were equally fascinating. Planted so densely that I am not sure how the workers access each plant, the blue-gray color of the maturing plants offered a wonderful contrast to the darker mountains in the background. The smell of the ripening pineapples was intoxicating and made my mouth water as we made our way up and up into the countryside finally arriving at a private reserve of some 400 acres that borders the Barulio Carrillo National Park. Here we boarded aerial trams that quietly and slowly carried us thru the canopy of the rain forest allowing us to experience up close and personal some two-thirds of all rain forest species. Ferns and orchids, mosses and air plants, birds and snakes…we saw it all.
A wonderful Costa Rican lunch followed with delicioius black beans and rice, chicken and pineapple….oh that pineapple….some of the sweetest fruit I have even eaten.

A forty-five minute hike with an expert guide show us even more of this special place. We avoided stepping on the leaf-cutting ants has they labored to transport sections of leaves they had cut…sections that appeared to be 100 times their size. I was fascinated with our guide pointed out that most carried a “body guard” ant on the leaf. This ant’s job is to protect the one carrying the leaf and simultaneously clean the leaf section of any bacteria so as not to harm the colony. We saw spiders that spin their webs horizontally so as to catch a few rain drops which will, at night, reflect the moon’s glow and thus attract mosquitoes. We saw large palm leaves that had be carefully “scored” by male bats to allow these large leafs to fold over, tent-like, yet still live and remain green, thus providing a shelter for the bat and his potential mate. We marveled at the tiny “elf slippers”, small red like flowers that were shaped exactly like small bedroom slippers that with water, thus providing nectar and water for humming birds. Indeed this rain forest was filled with so many fascinating and incredible symbiotic relationships of nature.

Yes, I truly regret that I never visited my Brother and his wife while they enjoyed this beautiful country of Costa Rica. Perhaps they will return with me some day to share more of its incredible and natural beauty.