Montezuma’s Chocolate

Whilst in Costa Rica, we went on a tour of a coffee plantation and farm, to find out about the coffee-making process. They also told us about the sugar-making process, and the chocolate-making process. At the end of the chocolate-making, our guide made a drink which he described as Montezuma’s xocoatl recipe. I thought this would be good to make into ice-cream. Here goes:

250ml cream

400ml milk

4 egg yolks

100g sugar

250g Whittaker’s 72% Dark Ghana chocolate* 

2 cinnamon sticks

Pinch of chilli flakes

1 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla paste

Beat the egg yolks and sugar together until pale. Heat the milk and cream in a saucepan, and add the remaining ingredients. Stir to melt the chocolate, until almost boiling. Allow it to cool a little, then add a small amount of the chocolate cream to the eggs and sugar, and combine. Add the rest of the chocolate cream mixture, combine thoroughly, and return it to the saucepan. Heat it again, stirring constantly to prevent it catching, until almost boiling. It should be a thick smooth custard at this point. Cool in the fridge overnight, then churn it in your ice-cream maker.

* This, I am sure, is what Montezuma would have used if he'd known about it. You may substitute a local equivalent.

Butterflies

We’ve done one three-hour tour in Manuel Antonio, but decided that further exertions in the tropical heat were contra-indicated. There is, however, a butterfly house just up the road, so we decided that this wouldn’t be too taxing. Our initial intent to make ourselves look like locals by taking the bus was thwarted, however, by our inability to find the actual bus stop. Sigh. We took a taxi instead.

Although advertised as being open from 8:00am, there was no-one at the office when we arrived. About five minutes later, someone turned up to open the office. There were two French ladies ahead of us in the queue, who seemed confused about what they wanted. The fact that the ticket seller couldn’t speak French, and they had limited English, didn’t help. Anyway, they had numerous discussions about what they wanted to do, whilst we waited. Clearly, they drive BMWs when they’re back in France. Eventually, we were able to talk to the ticket seller: “Two tickets for the butterfly house, please”. Done. Simples.

The butterflies are but a short walk from the office, so we went down there. The star attraction is the blue morpho butterfly, which is large and has shimmery blue wings. Unfortunately, they spend most of their time flying, so are impossible to photograph. The only time they stop is when they want either food or sex, and on those occasions they close their wings. I did manage to find a rather tattered specimen having a rest.

There were other species as well, including monarchs, so we were able to spend a bit of time looking around. We also saw a deer whilst we were in there. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen deer – there was one poking its nose around our hotel the other night – so we went outside to see if we could spot it. Sure enough, down by the river – a mother and fawn. We also saw an agouti truffling through the undergrowth. All in all, a successful trip. We caught a cab (same driver!) back to the hotel, and spent the rest of the day lollygagging.

That was our final full day in Costa Rica. On Monday, we drove to the airport – the driver told us three hours, but we were there in 2½, having foregone a rest stop along the way. This proved wise as traffic was already starting to grind to a halt as we approached the airport. Nevertheless, we got through check-in and security in double-quick time, and through to the VIP lounge, for breakfast. As we are travelling back across the International Date Line, we will have no Tuesday this week – we fly back to Houston, take off from there on Monday, and land in Auckland on Wednesday morning.  

Manuel Antonio

A morning’s drive from Monteverde took us to Manuel Antonio, on Costa Rica’s southern, Pacific coast. We boarded the bus reasonably early in the morning and travelled in air-conditioned comfort until we reached Orotina for a rest break. The driver slid open the bus door and…it was hot! Yes, we’ve arrived in the tropics, and away from the rain forest. Expect temperatures to reach 31°C during the day, and to fall to 27°C at night.

Why is Manuel Antonio so called? No-one seems to have a definitive answer. It’s like finding a town in the UK called Dave Johnson, but not knowing  who Dave Johnson was.

It took us another hour or so to reach our destination – Playa Espadilla, in the Manuel Antonio National Park. Our room wasn’t ready for us on arrival, so we went and had a leisurely lunch in the restaurant. Our hotel is in fact in two parts – Espadilla Gardens and Espadilla Hotel. We’re in the Gardens part, which has a pool and reception but no bar or restaurant. So we need to cross the road each time we want to use those. No matter. At 2pm we returned to a blissfully airconditioned room. There are lizards to be seen all around the place - we quickly identified Lizzie, Eddie, and Guttie, who lives in the gutter. We spent the rest of the day lollygagging. In the evening we went out and admired the sunset over the beach, and found a restaurant on the main drag alongside the beach to have dinner.

Eddie Lizard

The next day, we were up early-ish for a guided tour of the Manuel Antonio National Park. Even though we started early (8 o’clock) there were crowds of people trying to get into the park. Many were in guided groups, like us, but large numbers without guides too. It reminded me of a cruise ship day at Zealandia when three coaches arrive at once. Our guide, Allan, sorted us out pretty quickly and took us down a side track to try and avoid the most egregious overcrowding. As on previous tours we’d taken, the guides all carry telescopes on tripods to view the wildlife, as it’s often high up a tree. We saw lizards, white-faced monkeys, more bats, and some birds, including the majestically-named nighthawk, which ought to be something more substantial than a species of cuckoo. And of course more sloths – both three-toed and two-toed varieties. Allan was a fount of knowledge – he’d done a degree in marine biology and had been a tour guide on Costa Rica’s best place for dolphins and whales before coming home to Manuel Antonio.

We ended up at the beach, where we took a twenty minute break (swimming optional – we hadn’t brought our togs so not for us) before finishing the final part of the tour. This is where we had a close encounter with the white-faced monkeys – they are quite accustomed to having people around, and walked along the rails of the walkways with no problem. At the end we had refreshments – iced water or tea – and melon and pineapple. The tour had ended quite close to our hotel, so we decided to walk back instead of waiting for the bus.

After a quick dip in our pool to cool down – difficult as the water is like a bath – we then headed over the road to the restaurant and poolside bar for the rest of the afternoon.

Coffee

Here we are in Costa Rica, and my legions of enquiring fans (thanks, sis!) want to know…do they coffee? It is, after all, about the only thing that’s known about Costa Rica, outside Costa Rica.

Well, devoted fans, I have the answer: yes, they do. Early in our tour, all the coffee we encountered was of the filtered sort, and I felt it unworthy of remark. It was good, stronger than is normally served by such establishments that provide coffee in large urns. It wasn’t until we were on our way to Monteverde and stopped at Café Horizonte that I had my first opportunity to have an actual espresso made from Costa Rica coffee. Yes, they can make coffee! Hooray!

On our second day in Monteverde, we booked ourselves on a tour that promised coffee, sugar and chocolate. There were in fact two such tours on offer at the Tourist Information Centre, so I asked which was the best one. Having been told that one was more biased towards sugar, and the other more towards chocolate, as well as the coffee, we opted for the chocolate-heavy option and boarded a bus to Don Juan coffee, a short distance outside town.

We met our guide, Danny, and were joined by another group to make a total tour of 16 people. The first order of the day was to call a Costa Rican Uber, or a cart drawn by bulls. Danny asked who wanted to take a ride, and we put our hands up. There was only room for seven of us in the cart, so we took a short walk up the road and back again. The rest of the group just got to stand there, watch and wait. Then Danny took us on the tour proper, and started showing the coffee-making process, from berries or “cherries” as they’re known, to removing the mucilage, drying the beans, how long they need to be dried and stored for before being roasted – light, medium, or dark. At each stage we were given some of the fruit or beans to feel, taste, suck on etc – it was very much an interactive multi-sensory experience. At the end he got a volunteer to grind the resultant coffee beans for us, and made coffee in a non-traditional Costa Rican way. As he explained the old way: put grounds in an old sock, pour hot (never boiling!) water through, wasting much of the flavour. But you can’t tell your grandmother that she’s been making coffee wrong all her life! The best way, he said, is to pour hot water onto the grounds in a jug, mix and leave to stand for a couple of minutes, then filter through an old sock (the older the better, apparently).

And that’s the coffee-making process. Beaucoup de cheval, pas de glue etc.

Next, we went to the chocolate-making process. They don’t grow chocolate on the estate (it’s too high above sea level) but they do make it. The process is slightly different, involving fermentation of the cacao beans rather than drying, and then separating the cocoa butter from the cocoa nibs. We smelt and tasted the various stages again, before being invited to try Montezuma’s xocoatl recipe: chocolate, cinnamon, chilli, salt, monkey pee (vanilla extract), and hot water. It was a bit gritty, but otherwise fine. I may make an ice cream version of it when I get back.

The final demo was sugar cane. This is grown on the estate – in fact, it grows anywhere hot, regardless of altitude – and Danny had previously cut down a couple of stalks, which two of our group had been using as walking sticks. These were then processed through what looks like a mangle or pasta machine, with the gap between the rollers being reduced with each pass. Nicola was co-opted to feed the canes through the machine.

At the end of the process you have a liquid, known as agua de sapo, or “toad water”, in Costa Rica. The origin of this name according to Danny is that the drink is popular with policemen, who are known as sapo or toads in CR slang. It’s 10% sucrose in water, with impurities. To make sugar, you boil this liquid until you have reduced most of the water and are left with a thick molasses, then let it cool and shave it into a powder. It’s still brown, unrefined sugar at this stage. You can then refine it further to make white sugar.

This looks quite easy...

...Uh-oh...

...It's all gone Pete Tong!

That was the end of our tour. We went back to the gift shop to buy coffee-related products, have another cup of coffee, before boarding a somewhat-delayed bus (we had to wait for another tour group to finish) back to Monteverde Country Lodge. While we waited, there was a rainbow.

   

Cloud Forest

We were up at the crack of dawn once again for our tour of the cloud forest. Breakfast at 6:30 for a 7:15 pickup, and we made sure to eat well as we were in for a three hour walk. The organisation was slightly haphazard but we eventually found our guide, Alberto, who took us through the cloud forest. He explained how it was different to a rain forest – the cloud forest maintains a steady drizzle rather than the heavy downpours of rain forests. He then searched out various birds, animals and flora to talk to us about. All the guides carry a telescope on a tripod, to allow the viewing of the bird species, as they often keep well away from people. The guide then uses your phone to take a picture through the eyepiece. He told us about epiphytes, hemi-epiphytes, symbionts and parasites, and killer figs. We saw some hummingbirds, other small birds, almost a quetzal, and a tarantula in a hole.

After the tour itself was over, we went to the café where they have some hummingbird feeders and managed to get some pics of hummingbirds. A lot of it was “hand of man” as they came onto the feeders but I did manage to get some waiting their turn on a branch. We also saw a coati which was scavenging about for food.

We asked our driver to drop us off in Santa Elena, the main commercial centre of Monteverde, where we stopped for some lunch in the Tree House Restaurant, accompanied by locally-brewed craft beer. After lunch we hit the emporia for t-shirts and other souvenirs, then decided to take in the serpentaria – reptile house to you and me. They have a number of native species of snake, some lizards and also some amphibians, notably the poisonous varieties of frog used for poison darts. Many of the snakes were a bit sleepy, as they are more nocturnal in habit. Our ticket is valid for a night visit as well but I don’t think we’re going to quite make it.

Arenal Volcano

The second part of yesterday’s adventures was a climb up a volcano. Arenal volcano was thought to be dormant, known to the locals as “sugar bread mountain”. When tremors started in 1968 they thought this was just “normal for Costa Rica” minor earthquakes. However, they presaged an eruption which happened on 29 July 1968, and continued for several days, burying three small villages and killing 87. Smaller eruptions have continued, with the most recent activity being recorded in 2010. Lava from the more recent eruptions mean that the new cone is now slightly taller than the original volcano. It has, in fact, got Twin Peaks.

Naturally, we went to climb it.

As part of an organised tour, of course! Because that makes it safer. Alvaro, our guide, explained all this to us before we started the ascent, following the path up through lava-encrusted hillside. We saw some wildlife along the way, not least leafcutter ants, which were doing their leaf-cutty thing. We posed at the top for photos, then made our way back down via a different route.

Leafcutter ants doing their thing

Us doing our thing

On our way back, Alvaro dropped us at the Tabacon Hot Springs, where we were booked in for a swim in hot pools, followed by dinner. The resort is bigger than the Volcano Lodge that we are staying in and is clearly geared towards day visitors as well as hotel guests. We had some drinks at the swim-up bar before touring the rest of the pool facilities. They are based around the river Tabacon, which is a hot-flowing river heated by the local volcanic activity. We splashed around, ducked under waterfalls, and generally disported ourselves before heading back to the calm of the swim-up bar for another drink, then changed and had dinner in the restaurant. This consisted of a buffet, but was very good quality, with spicy tacos to start, a wide selection for mains and a gateaux and ice cream bar. We both had ice cream. At 10 to 9 Alvaro picked us up and took us back on the short drive to Volcano Lodge.

We had plans – best-laid plans, in fact – to get up early for “golden hour” to photograph more birds in the environs of the lodge. But at 6:00am it was cloudy and gently raining, so we decided not to do that, and instead had an early breakfast. As we approached the restaurant we saw more and more birds…the restaurant put out bananas on a bird-feeding structure, and all the wild birds were congregating on it. By this time it had stopped raining as well, so I was able to get quite a few pics there. I’ll identify them later.

We were picked up after breakfast and driven to Lake Arenal, an artificially-created lake that powers the hydro-electric facility that provides 12% of the country’s electricity. We crossed the lake on a boat and were all allocated numbered buses to take us onwards to our final destination. This took a couple of hours’ driving, with a brief stop at Café Horizonte, where we were able to look out and see the Pacific Ocean. After a short rest break there, we continued on and arrived at Monteverde Country Lodge, our digs for the next two days.

Pacific Ocean in the distance

Volcano Lodge

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuckity fuck!

Our bus to the Hanging Bridges tour was due at 8:10am. Plenty of time for us to get up, have breakfast, and be ready. Unfortunately, the curtains at the Volcano Lodge are blackout curtains. I looked at my watch…10 to 8! We ran around like Hugh Grant at the beginning of Four Weddings and a Funeral, and made it to the front desk in time – unwashed, unbreakfasted, but on time. The bus arrived a few minutes later, and we boarded, ready for today’s adventure.

Most of yesterday was spent travelling. Firstly, we reversed our trip to Tortuguero…a river trip (in the rain) back to the main dock, then by bus back to El Ceibo restaurant for lunch. At that point we said goodbye to Marco, our guide of the last few days, and were entrusted to Leo, who drove us to Volcano Lodge. This time on a minibus, and far superior in comfort to the coach we’d previously been travelling on. He dropped us off, we got our room organised, then found our way to the pools and spa in time for cocktails and happy hour. They have general swimming pools, thermal pools heated by nearby volcanic activity, and a jacuzzi. We sampled all levels of bubble and temperature, whilst supping our cocktails. As it grew dark (it happens at around 5:30pm at the moment), we went back to our room, then booked some spa treatments at the front desk, and back to the restaurant for more cocktails (we’d forgotten about the two-for-one aspect of happy hour, and the staff insisted!) and dinner in the restaurant.

The following morning (see above) the nights of sleeplessness caused by the tropical rain storms of Tortuguero beating down on the metal roof of the bungalow finally caught up with me. Still, we were on the bus, and heading for Hanging Bridges. We were the penultimate pick-up, so got there fairly soon after. I’d checked the weather forecast for La Fortuna – cloud and some sun, 28°, so packed accordingly. Yup, waterproof jacket. What’s wrong with the weather forecast here? If it’s going to rain, bloody well say so! That’s the second time this has happened! Fortunately I’m wise to their meretricious mendacious meteorology, and so was reasonably prepared. Nicola wasn’t, but that was soon rectified by a purchase at the shop before we set out. In retrospect, I should’ve left the camera behind again. Although it survived the encounter (with specialist plastic bag wrapper) it was useless for taking any actual pictures, so I might as well have left it on the bus. We didn’t see much wildlife – some bats, an owl, spider monkeys in the distance, a suggestion of a lizard and a hint of snake.

After a two hour tour in the rain, including six suspension bridges (the last of which was 94m), we were back on the bus again. The rest of the group were going off to see the waterfalls and have lunch, but we were dropped back at Volcano Lodge, where we quickly rectified the hunger situation, and checked our next move. This is a visit to a volcano and hot springs, with dinner included, so the next step was to cancel our spa reservations (poo!), and get ready for that. In the meantime, I have an hour to go and photograph some birds in the grounds of the Lodge, of which we’ve seen more so far than on the Hanging Bridge Tour.

Tortuguero

Tortuguero National Park is the home of sea turtles. The coastal area for several miles up to the Nicaraguan border is used by sea turtles, in particular green and leatherbacks, as a nesting site. In the past, the locals viewed this as a bonanza, and ate the turtles and their eggs. A naturalist, Dr. Archie Carr, studied them and came the conclusion that the harvest was unsustainable, and managed to persuade both the locals and the Costa Rican government to do something about this, and change the status of the turtles from “food” to “protected species”.

We were up at 5 o’clock to get on a dawn cruise through the National Park. This is the best time to see the various animals, apparently, because that’s also when they awake and are at their most active, looking for breakfast. It had been raining all night, on and off, as it tends to in a rain forest. Nevetheless, we were all assembled and having coffee at 5:30, in waterproof gear. We all got onto our boats, and were about to set off when a particularly heavy shower started off, and Marco made the call to delay our tour to later in the morning, when the rain had eased off a bit. So we went back, and rescheduled for 11 o’clock.

At 10:30 it was still pissing down, with no sign of let-up. Marco visited us again and said the tour would now go ahead at 2:30 instead. OK, so we were hoping that the weather would have cleared up by then. After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing about which group we should go with, we were eventually attached to a tour from another resort that had space on their boat. It had stopped raining by now, so we set out into the National Park.

The park is only accessible by water – the land inside is all swampy, and there are no tracks, so there’s no other way in. After the morning’s experience, I’d decided to leave my camera behind. Cameras and water don’t mix well. As the weather remained dry I regretted this…until another shower came in, and finally prolonged rain, so in the end it was a good decision. We saw various water birds including aninga (after which our resort is named), green ibis, blue heron, macaws fling overhead, snowy egrets, and others whose names I forget. We also saw reptiles – an iguana, several caymans and emerald basilisks (also known as jesus christ lizards, because they can walk on water). We also saw and heard howler monkeys in the trees. Our guide knew what he was doing, took us to all the places where he knew animals would be hanging out – I know all the tricks of the trade now! And Freddie, the boat driver, was also good at spotting animals, in particular the basilisks. As always on such a tour, you speak about what you see, and not what you don’t, so you don’t know what you didn’t see.

Iguana

Cayman

Towards the end of the tour the rain set in in earnest, and we motored back to our respective lodges at top speed of 50km/h. There, we decamped and attempted to dry out our completely drenched items of clothing – they need to be dry for us to move on tomorrow! We may be doing one wet and one dry suitcase by morning to preserve our remaining wardrobe, particularly if this rain keeps up all night again.

Tomorrow we have a more civilised start time of 9 o’clock to get us to our next hotel.

Costa Rica

Do you know the way to San José? As far as we’re concerned, it’s a short flight to Auckland, a 14-hour flight to Houston, Texas (like there’s any other Houston), followed by a 3½ hour flight to Costa Rica’s capital, San José. We took off on Friday afternoon, and, thanks to the vagaries of the international date line, landed on Friday evening.

Interesting things about the flights and airports: Air New Zealand is the best, and United suck. The food in United’s “Business/first” would just about make the grade for economy on New Zealand or Qantas. Houston airport smells of barbecued beef, largely because there’s a huge beef barbecue place dominating the concourse. And seeing people in ten-gallon hats is still an everyday occurrence.

We arrived in San José at around 10pm, and with a minimum of fuss were through the airport in 30 minutes and being greeted by Carlos, our driver. He took us to a boutique hotel with period charm and great facilities, the Hotel Grano De Oro. Unfortunately we had just seven hours there as we were due for pick-up at six o’clock the following morning, so we weren’t really able to fully appreciate it. We showered, slept, woke, showered, and were downstairs to meet our bus by 6:30am.

We were then driven for two hours to the Restaurant El Ceibo, an establishment clearly popular with tour buses, for breakfast. This took us halfway to our next destination, Tortuguero, but also, importantly, our first encounter with Costa Rican wildlife. Costa Rica, in case you don’t know, has an inordinate number of species. Ecosystems vary from the littoral and maritime to cloud and rain forests. The restaurant, despite being on the main road, is home to some three-toed sloths (or sloths, as some people pronounce it…I prefer “sloths”) who were, quite literally, hanging around in the trees. We spotted them, photographed them, then got on the bus for a further two hours to reach Caño Blanco. The bus, which I’m unfortunately likely to meet again before our trip is up, is of the sort that prioritises extra rows of seats over passenger comfort, so I, and anyone else with a femur longer than the seat pitch, had to manspread one leg whilst dangling the other outside the seat and up the aisle. V. uncomfortable. We swapped that for a boat to takes us the final miles up the canal to our next accommodation, the Hotel and Spa Aninga, in Tortuguero. We arrived in time for a cocktail and lunch, a short welcoming speech from the manager, and were quickly settled in.

After lunch, our luggage turned up (it had been loaded onto a separate boat), and at 3pm we took a short boat ride across the river to Tortuguero village. Every boat trip involves donning a lifejacket (elf and safety, y’know), and there are instructions on their use at the docks. First is “Don’t panic!”, then there’s instructions on how to attach them, and what to do if you find yourself in the water. Right next to this sign is another, which says “No swimming! Crocodiles!” which kind of negates the “Don’t panic!” part. Anyway, the boats look strong and riverworthy, and the canal is calm, apart from the occasional wash of a passing boat, so we should be alright.    

The village of Tortuguero isn’t very big. We were guided across the river by Marco, who’d been with us all day, then he split us into two groups. We were led by Lily, a native Tortugueran, who took us down to the beach, gave us a short talk about turtles, both leatherback and green, which lay their eggs on the beach here. We walked up and down the main street, visited t-shirt emporia to no avail, then had a quick look in at the Sea Turtle Conservancy centre who coordinate all the conservation work that goes on with these species in Tortuguero, which includes protecting their eggs, doing research, tagging the adults, and generally being nice to turtles. Which is a good thing.

We got back in time for cocktail hour, visited the bar, decided not to swim in the pool, had an early dinner, then retired. We’ve got an early start tomorrow (again) for a daybreak tour of the Tortuguero National Park. The plan is to get up at the same time as the animals for the best opportunity to see them. I’ve set the alarm for 5am.