Chiquita Bananas and the Man from DelMonte

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Left Bocas and headed to the CostaRican border - and what a border crossing it was. First of all on the way we past hundreds of acers of banana plantations and it turns out pretty much every banana we have ever eaten comes from this reigon the biggest employer here is Chiquita and there are also heaps of distribution points for "DelMonte fruits" as well.

Ok back to the border crossing, arrived and all you see is this big massive old rickety bridge with a track in the centre for trains, it looks too old to walk across not to mind take a train!! So we got stamped out of panama walked the bridge (most of the time seeing the water below through missing planks) and into CostaRica - 1st border cross done, piece of cake!!

About an hour north we arrived at my current location of Puerto Vijeo. A real sleepy town on the carribean coast which is really pretty with amazing nature and loads to do. I have been here for 3 days and you will see from the pics and videos that it is pretty cool. Spent a day at an animal shelter (which i cycled to!!! first time on a bike since CapeCod I reckon!!!) where they rescue injured animals and we got to see Sloth, Monkeys, Snakes, alligators and a whole lot more. The monkeys were really cool and we got to go into the cage with them. Alot are there cause they jump on electricity cables not re4alising and getting burned. Every day they are taken back to the forest to try to get them reintroduced back to the wild and some days they come back with a few less cause they have decided they are ready to stay out there. It was a really nice visit.

The howler monkeys are also very loud as the name suggests and the males call out a lot and at the moment they are my alarm clock because from our dorm and about 6.30am you can here them calling in the jungle behind the hostel.

Today I headed to the national park in Cahita about half an hour away and got to see all these animals in there natural environment. We did a 7k hike through the jungle and spent the afternoon at the beach. Its been a really fun few days here. Tomorrow I leave for the Capital San Jose and after that I havent really decided. Not sure there is much to do there but I need to stop over night anyway as its about 5hours on the bus. Ill let ye know.......

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Comments

[Denis]

Monkeys
See you spent some time with the Monkeys. Not much different than here so :-). Have a ball. D