Kangaroo's Flat Stanley in Costa Rica!

Hello!
I am Kangaroo's Flat Stanley.
From January 22, 2012 through January 28, 2012, I went to Costa Rica.  Costa Rica is a country in Central America where the people speak Spanish.  Lots of people speak English, too, luckily!
I was able to go on a few tours and adventures and I am excited to tell you about them.

I arrived in Costa Rica in the early morning and my Costa Rican friends Ronald, Sally and Laura made tortillas for me and my US friends.  Many Costa Ricans eat tortillas with every meal. Here I am keeping on eye on the tortillas.

One of the first trees I learned to identify was the mango tree.  Mangos are fruits that grow in Costa Rica and they are yummy! My Minnesota friend Connie is lifting me up so that I can get a good look.

My Costa Rican friend Laura asked me to sit on something called a "pilon", which many years ago, the native people used to process rice.  Rice is another thing that Costa Rican people eat a lot of.

There are lots of coconut trees in Costa Rica and a favorite sweet treat is a small round dessert made from coconut and pastry. They look like little coconut pies and they are delicious. I am sitting next to a package of the little pies and once they were opened, they disappeared.

One night, our friends Laura and Victor asked if we would like to go night fishing.  Here we are in the car - 4 people and me in the backseat.  Chris, Dayton, Vicki, me (all from South Dakota) and Connie.  Everyone went fishing in the dark, except for Connie because she was scared of the spiders on the rocks, the snakes in the water and the bats flying by her head!  She stayed in the car listening to all the nighttime sounds outside.  That made her more scared!  The fishing is done with flashlights that you hold under the water.  The fish are blinded by the light, and that's when you throw a spear at at them.  Victor speared 2, Dayton speared 1.

Our Costa Rican friend Alvaro came one night and played guitar while everyone sang songs and danced. I even danced the limbo.  I had a little help from my friends, though.

Agriculture is important to Costa Rica, just like it is to South Dakota.  They grow bananas, pineapples, coffee, sugar cane, rice, ornamental plants, corn, beans, potatoes, and coconuts.  Coconuts can be used when they are green and later when they turn brown.  Here is my Costa Rican friend Sorelly and me with some green coconuts that her dad cut down from a tree.

Here is a picture of me, Sorelly, bananas and brown coconuts.

Costa Rica's climate is perfect for growing all kinds of fruits.  Here I am with naranjas (oranges), water apples and bananas.  If you live in Costa Rica you can just go right in your backyard and pick a variety of fruits from your own trees. Amazing!

Alvaro made a special food for us one night.  He called them paticones.  I called them M-M-GOOD.

They are his grandmother's recipe and are made from meat and spices all encased in a slightly sweet crust.  

Another food that is very common in Costa Rica is yucca, or cassava.  This can be boiled, fried, made into cakes or put in soups.  Fried is my favorite.  This is what it looks like when it is dug from the ground.  Another amazing food that came from the backyard!

Sugar cane.  Have you ever tried it?  Sugar is made from sugar cane.  We had chunks of it cut from this big branch, and we just sucked on the pieces.  It is sweet and tastes like, well, sugar!

When coconuts are green you can slice off the end, poke a hole, and slurp out the coconut milk.  Very nutritious and it really quenches the thirst.

This is an amazing fruit.  Some people in Costa Rica and others around the world believe it can treat cancer.  It is called "noni".  It is probably one of the worst smelling and tasting fruits on the planet.  We asked my SD friend Dayton to take a bite and lets just say it did not stay in his mouth very long.  

One day our friends Laura and Ronald arranged for us to tour a banana plantation and a pineapple plantation.  Do you know where the bananas were headed that we saw at the factory this day? South Dakota grocery stores!  Can you believe it?  Here they are getting a bath.

My Costa Rican friend Saray was giving me a close-up look at the bananas as they came into the processing plant.

Here is Saray and Sally and me next to a Chiquita truck.

The pineapple plantation was next.  Here is a truck filled with pineapples that were not good enough to be sold as whole pineapples, so they were headed to the juice factory.

This is what a pineapple looks like as it is growing.  Ouch!  The leaves are prickly!

Pineapples getting a bath right before they are boxed.

Me, Saray and pineapples.

These pineapples were grown for Del Monte and were being shipped to the United States.  Help!  Get me out of here!!

Oh, this was a fun day!  We made trip to the Nicoya peninsula, which in on the west side of Costa Rica and is home to some of the most isolated and beautiful beaches in the world.  The Pacific Ocean was so warm.  Ahhh, a nice change from a South Dakota winter.

I saved this for last:  We went to see a volcano one day.  The name is Volcan Irazu, and it is the highest active volcano in Costa Rica.  It has several craters and a green crater lake. What is really neat is that you drive right up to it!

Well, that is all for now my friends!  My next adventure?  San Antonio, Texas - home of the Alamo!