Sarapiqui

We started our day with some bird watching at 6 AM. Jorge set out some bananas to attract birds, but they never showed. So we started walking. We saw Tropical Kingbirds, Montezuma Oropendola's and two varieties of Toucan (Keel-billed and Chestnut-Mandibled) as well as a lot of parakeets and fly catchers.

 Keel-billed Toucan

After breakfast, we went white-water rafting along 12 km. of the Rio Sarapiqui. Since it is the beginning of the rainy season, the water was fairly low, but we had a good time. The toughest part of the trip was getting down the banks to the rafts. Jorge told one of his stories: While on the river a girl asked him what was the name of the animal that liked like a cow, but was grazing in the river. Jorge said, "that's a water cow, and if you eat it, it tastes like fish". I wonder if it counts as fish for Lent?
In the afternoon, we visited a pineapple farm. After planting, it takes about 9 months and then they use ethelyne to induce it to fruit, from then it takes 23-29 weeks for the fruit to ripen. We watched them pick the fruit - 60 laborers pick 54000 pineapples a day. The fruit is then sorted based on size and color for either processed fruit or sent to the stores.
Before dinner, Johnny, a Churataga native showed us how they make pottery. Starting with the special clay a mixture of fine sand and water, they turn the clay by hand and use a tools from gourds, and corn cobs to shape  the clay. It is coated with 7 coats of white paint and then polished with a stone, then they sponge on red paint. Finally then form a design by adding black paint, or scraping away red paint for the white color underneath, then polish with stone again. Finally, the pot is fired, in all a 15 day process.

Johnny sponging on red paint

After dinner, we had a bat lecture. Of the 5000 mammals, 1160 are bats and over one hundred live in Costa Rica. We learned that they classify bats based on what they eat: fruits, insects, animals, fish, and three of them (all on the American continent) blood. We got to look at an insectivore and fruigavore close up (captured that night for our benefit and then released after our talk). A busy day and all 3 meals offers us rice and beans (which we soon learned would be true almost every day.

 Insectivore bat