“Lots of
stops today happy people.” he told us as we joined the small group on his bus.
The first stop of our tour was a roadside fruit stand where
we tasted sugar cane and various tropical fruits. Charlie earnestly explained
how to make sugar from sugar cane and then he looked at us expectantly. Charlie
often looked as though he was waiting for a response of some kind though he
rarely took a breath between fun facts. I thought Charlie was adorable, if not a
little unorganized. While we were here, the cutest little 5 year old boy I’ve
ever seen in my life tugged on my shorts and then held out a big, red hibiscus
flower. I smiled at him and knelt down to his level where he tucked that flower
behind my ear with his tiny little hands and smiled sheepishly. I thanked him
and stood and turned. As I turned, Ellen was also turning and as we faced each
other our gazes went straight to the flower tucked behind both of our ears. Our
smug smiles instantly turned into frowns of betrayal and then we noticed that
those terrible little kids were following us around. Waiting for
money.
Charlie loaded us all back onto the bus and talked about the
economy in Costa Rica. His accent was very thick and it took much translating
to follow his train of thought. While the bus driver remained silent, Charlie
would stand in the front of the bus, facing us and would sway and shuffle
around as we weaved up hills and around corners. Even when Charlie would fall
into people, he kept talking and smiling and telling us facts.
Our next stop was the Chiquita Banana Plantation which, as
it was a Sunday, was completely deserted. There were other tour groups there but
Charlie led us through rows of banana trees talking about how the bananas grow
in pods and how the trees rely on each other to grow. He said “banana” twice in
every sentence and Ellen became quite amused by this. At some point he said
something about the “master banana” which struck all of us as very funny and has become Buddy’s latest nickname. Also, as I mentioned before, I was attacked by ants
in this place. These were robust, Costa Rican Banana Ants so don’t you roll
your eyes!
As we plowed on down the road, Charlie shouted for the driver
to stop the bus. He swung open the door, shuffled down the steps and then
hustled over to a fruit tree. He plucked a brown sphere from the tree, climbed
back onto the bus and had the driver “vamonos.” He opened that little fruit pod
and smashed his fat finger around inside, stirring and pressing and when he
was finished he pulled out his finger that was now covered in a bright red oil
and he painted his nose with his finger. “Uh huh.” he said, pleased with his work.
His giant smile lit up the whole bus and he wore that red nose for the rest of
the day.
Charlie led us down the road and around the corner and
stuffed us all into a river boat and took us through the tropical jungle to
look at animals and critters in the surrounding greenery. Most of all, I was excited to see sloths
hanging out way up in the tops of the trees. We saw about four of them and I was actually surprised by just
how slowly they move. Movement for them seems competely exhausting.
For our last venture, we rode out to the beach and were fed lunch in a neat open-air restaurant just a few steps from the water. It was a delicious lunch and we even found a little Buddy.
I've decided I'm going to have to come back here someday. I can just imagine it with sunshine.
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