After taking a shower to wash off salt water, sunscreen and evil bug repellent last night, I fell into bed at 8:30, waking up this morning at ten minutes to howler monkey (4:50). Killed time reading till Molly awoke about 8:00.
We walked into the village of Cahuita one last time, for a breakfast of heuvos fritos (for me) and cinnamon-lime crepe (for Molly), then checked out of our hotel, unfortunately being required to pay $60 extra for the night we cancelled. We found the bus station despite the hotel owner’s poor directions, and boarded a big bus for Puerto Viejo, a journey of about twenty minutes. From there we stood on a street corner till we found a ride another mile and change down to our hotel, Costa de Pepito, in Cocles. It was too early to check in, so we left our luggage behind the front desk, drank our welcome-to-the-hotel drink of delicious fresh maracuya (passion fruit) juice, and tried to figure out what was next on the agenda.
We settled on a half-mile walk up the coastal roadway (narrow, with bikes and pedestrians and huge trucks all vying for a piece of the asphalt, with the beautiful Caribbean stretching alongside.) We found a place for tacos for almuerza (lunch), and then went next door to Caribeans, an artisan chocolate-producing place. We took a three-hour tour of its cacao finca (farm). This was something Molly really wanted to do. I admit I did it mostly because she wanted to, but it was really fun. The tour was led by a guy named Paul, an American who came here twelve years ago and fell in love with the place, leaving behind a job in tech to pursue a dream of having his own business here. Very inspiring. We walked through a cacao forest up a somewhat strenuous incline with giant golden orb weavers lining both sides of the path. Their webs are so strong that people use them for fishing line. People were touching the webs to test their tensile strength. I stayed far away.
Paul cut open a cacao pod and we all tasted a seed from it: slightly sweet on the outside, with a crunchy center. This is me smelling it.
The view from the top of our trail was pretty.
Then we proceeded to my favorite part of the presentation: the chocolate-tasting. As with a flight of wine, we tried chocolate from four different growers. It was fascinating to taste the subtle differences in flavor. Then we moved to a tasting table where there were tiny chunks of chocolate next to tiny bowls of different flavorings: ginger, garlic, turmeric, chili, hot pepper, wild oregano, lemon grass, and half a dozen others. Our job was to invent pairings that we liked. My favorite was maybe my raisin/vanilla combo.
We saw a poison dart frog.
After the tour we walked back to our hotel and checked in. A Texan named Fred was behind the desk. I think he liked talking to us, because he did so for quite a while before leaving us in our wonderful, cheery, clean large room.
Molly did some hand laundry and I rearranged the contents of my suitcase, and then we walked over to the hotel lobby for dinner. On the recommendation of the appealing waiter, I had marlin in garlic sauce. It was perfect. Partway through dinner, a calypso band starting playing Cariibbean-influenced music, with Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds being my favorite. I drank a margarita that was good, but not as good as Frank’s, and then went overboard and had a passionfruit daiquiri, and started admiring the arms of the drummer.
We returned to our room and I’m writing this now. I’ll be sad to leave this place. So far, it’s been wonderful. I will shortly vanish into my mosquito net for the night.