While back at Infotur in San Jose, we booked ourselves onto a group tour, something we had never done on a vacation before. Generally we just take buses to the places we want to go, then wander around on our own. This tour was to take us to Tortuguero s to watch sea turtles crawling out from the ocean up to the beach at night, to lay their eggs. The tour included transport (bus and then a cruise on a boat), meals, and a room at Hotel Ilan-Ilan (an eco-resort) for three days and two nights. It cost $189 each plus $40 a night.
We had to cash some more Traveler Cheques to pay for the package tour, and while we were flush with money, my wife bought a new umbrella, another big one.
We began our Tortuguero Tour outside a McDonalds at 7:30. The bus drove us through pouring rain, which caused the planned stop at a jungle park to be cancelled, and then a planned tour of a banana plantation to be cut short, although we did make a brief stop at the banana factory to watch the workers wash and put stickers on the bananas.
We were surprised (and somewhat dismayed) to discovered that when the bananas start to form on the trees, the whole growing bunch is enclosed in a pesticide-infused plastic garbage bag-sized sack, where they will continue to grow. When the green banana bunch is starting to ripen, the sacked bunch is cut from the tree, suspended on a moving cable, which ferries them to the factory where the bananas are washed. In the photo below, on the right side, you can see a woman removing the sack from a bunch of green bananas.
We found the whole pesticide-laden sack thing rather disturbing. Every day when we cut up a banana for our cereal, we never visualized that they were grown in pesticide bags. I guess sometimes its better not to know how commercial things are grown.
View my paintings at: davidmarchant2.ca
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