2018 COSTA RICA DAY 16 In Playa Coco 01-26

Crap I woke up with a good sized hemorrhoid which I will need to deal with today, first find a pharmacy.  After getting hemorrhoid cream we went on a day trip with “Johnny D.” (tour guide/hustler).  It was really nice.  We had a driver named Carlos and we went to Palo Verde National Park which was about 90 minutes away toward the east.  On the way we stopped to look at an interesting operation where native locals harvested sand for construction from the river using oxen.  They had oxen pulling about cubic yard cart that they drove right into the river.  Then another guy scooped sand from the river bed, under water, and filled the cart.  Once it was full they hauled it up to a yard were they dumped it so that it would dry and then at some point would be picked up by truck and hauled to local construction sites where they mix concrete on site.  I’ve yet to see a concrete truck or a batch plant in Costa Rica.  Johnny D. said only natives were allowed to do this work and only in that fashion by government regulation.  It all had to do with local, native, employment and not destroying the river by dredging.  Anyway that’s what he said.

There we got on a boat which took us around on the Tempisque River which forms a huge 240 KM long estuary which reaches way up north to the Palo Verde Park.  The boat ride lasted about 90 minutes and the wildlife we saw was plentiful and exotic.  We saw numerous Iguana and Crocodile and the birds species were to numerous to even start counting.  We also saw white face monkeys were really sweet and very human like in many ways.  On our return trip we saw a McCaw which was nesting in a tree.  There is this kid that runs around the roads and looks for the McCaws and then directs tourists to them for a tip, Johnny D. paid him with a bag of cookies he bought earlier at a bakery that we stopped at on our way in.

On the way to the park Johnny D. stopped at a community house where they sold pottery made by natives (so they said) and Wendy bought  one.  Our plan was to mail it back home since we couldn’t take it on the bike.  When we got back we went on a couple hour adventure walking a store for packng material and then to a post office which resembled our DMV for mailing.  One more tip to Johnny D. for the effort of guiding us through the mailing process we settled in for dinner and planning for the next day’s departure.