Old Pruiscal Cathedral

Remember some time ago I showed a photo of a painting of an old cathedral that was done by the woman who lived here before us?

Well, last Sunday we discovered that cathedral in person. We went to this town to speak in Sacrament meeting. That was quite an experience too. Puriscal is a mountain town south of the road we take from here to get to the Manuel Antonio beach park. The roads were very windy and narrow but otherwise paved and in good shape. It was a sunny and pretty day.

Since it is the rainy season, everything is green and full of life. But the Cathedral is a ruin.

Apparently some few years ago it was destoyed by an earthquake.

It is still very beautiful and interesting and I can see why Sister Larkin wanted to paint it.

But because of the danger involved, there is a chain link fence surrounding it and no one is allowed to enter even the grounds.

View from the steps leading up to the front.

We walked all around it but the pictures were all taken through the chain link fence.

Once a beautiful colored glass window over the front balcony.

Side view.

Arched windows.

Front towers and side view including chain link fence.

I don't know when it was destroyed. The book didn't have much to say about it, but to me it was very intriguing.

Tortuguero Beach

Costa Rican North Carribbean Coast, Tortuguero Beach. I have a T shirt that says Tortuguero Beach on it, now I feel legitimate when I wear it!

Tortuguero Beach is where the turtles come ashore to lay their eggs. This is the beginning of the laying season, but they do it at night and we didn't stay overnight so didn't see any laying turtles.

We did see some fresh water turtles on the canal trip but they slipped into the water too fast for a photo. There weren't many shells on this beach. But you know me, I had to pick up a few even though they were tiny.

This beach isn't recommended for swimming as it drops off and gets deep fast. Only saw one guy out in the water here.

Sign telling us not to touch the little turtles or dig up their nests.

This little town of Tortuguero was built as a logging and saw mill town. But the saw mill hasn't been in operation since the 1930's. So the trees have had a chance to grow back up. But the forrest is referred to as a secondary forest instead of a primary one since they were once all cut down. I love the bright colors the people paint their houses.

This was a sign over a shop on the main street, rather the only street in the town.

This is the town internet cafe.

Wash hanging out on the line.

Another pretty pink house along the water.

Interesting sights on the trip to Tortuguero Beach

A green Iguana Lizard

A Green Heron

Tree Canopy over the road. These are huge Benjamin Ficus trees. This was a long trip on a bumpy, rocky road, but was the only way in to Tortuguero Beach. Like the road to Monte Verde, they don't want to pave it and make the trip easy, so as to keep down the number of tourists.

A Basilisk Lizard.

Trying to show more of his long tail. These lizards can "walk"on water.

Large Guanacaste tree with the spreading canopy.

There were African oil palm plantations on the east side of Costa Rica too.

This is part of our group of senior temple missionaries and the van we travelled in.

This is our whole group. I wish the girl who took the picture would have gotten it a little closer to the people and I would have told you a little about them. But I guess she wanted to get the concrete turtles into the picture and the canal in the background.

We left from the Marriott Hotel which is just down the street from us here in Belen. This is a display of candles that have coffee beans embedded into the wax so that as they burn, it smells like coffee. This whole area used to be coffee plantations and there are still some small growing areas in the neighborhood. I also loved the flower arrangements.

An old Spanish Colonial bench on display at the Marriott.

An old wooden trough probably used in the coffee processing.

An old carriage.

Del Monte Banana Plantation and Packing Plant

Where the bananas are grown commercially here, they put blue plastic bags over the stems of bananas so that the ripening process will be even. Otherwise the ones on the sun side of the stem would ripen faster than the others, and they want to harvest the whole stem at once.

The blue plastic bags are perforated and so allow air flow and insects etc. through. These banana plantations are north east of here on the way to the north Carribbean Coast.

I liked the rusty old Rail Road sign in front of this one.

They cut the stems of bananas and hang them on a conveyor belt that whisks them in from the plantation to the packing plant. Notice the brown leather dividers between the bunches of bananas on the stem. They are to give them some cushion on their journey. You can also see the perforations in the blue plastic bags.

This guy was pulling off the bags and taking out the dividers.

Here he is carrying away a bunch of the dividers. They sent the dividers back to the fields in large brown bags also on the conveyor.

These bananas look pretty good!

These men are starting to cut the bunches of bananas off the big stems. Their cutting implements were blades on the end of a long bar so they just had to push down to cut off the bunches of bananas.

More stems of bananas ready to cut up.

You can see their tools for cutting and some of the bananas have been cut off.

They are then all put in these big tubs of water to be washed. The less than perfect ones are culled out and put in the back of a big truck that you can just barely see at the back on the right side. These are sent to a baby food factory.

The acceptable bunches are laid out in big black plastic trays on the other side of the washing tubs, and bagged.

These Del Monte bags look just like the ones we buy at Costco! There were also other well known brand plantations such as Chiquita and Dole. The plantations where the bananas are grown were named Carmen I, Carmen II, etc. The guide said the name was for Carmen Miranda who used the be the spokeswoman for the Chiquita banana company. Becky, remember the Carmen Miranda costumes I made for that number you were in when you were in the Junior High Show?