Day 10 of 111. Tikal, Peten, Guatemala.

We left the ship, got on a small airplane and flew to the northern portion of the country to visit the Mayan city. We climbed lots of wooden stairs to get to the top of two of the temples. The weather was great, but it was still a tough climb.

There is the classic view of the temple at Tikal, but we got to see several other ruins. Some are temples and some are astronomical buildings. The entire city was very impressive.

Most of the temples are still underneath mounds of grass and trees. We first visited Temple IV which required climbing many steps left over from studies by U Penn. The trek was worth it to get this view that was used in Star Wars.

I had to climb 126 steps to get to the top of the temple, but it made a great picture.

(Day 10 of 111) While visiting the Mayan ruins at Tikal, we saw a coatimundi. We also saw spider monkeys in the trees, but they were difficult to photograph. We also saw a wild turkey that I thought was a peacock. It had pretty feathers on its body. The tree is called the tree of life and looks hairy because of all the bromeliads living on the branches. Finally, lunch was a tasty chicken, rice and beans on a tortilla. This is my first Pepsi.

(Day 9 of 111) Corinto, Nicaragua
Driving up to the Finca Emma banana plantation, we saw one large mass (the bunch of bananas) covered with a blue bag and over that a white bag hanging from each tree. These bags protect the bananas from the sun, insects and other problematic animals such as bats. A tiny colored ribbon hands out of the bottom of each bag to signify the age of the banana plant. The bags are transported from the fields to the packing facility hung from a rail. They look odd floating across the grassy field.


Some of the banana plants are started from small tissue samples that are carefully grown in a nursery. Once established, however, successive generations of the same plant are used. One bunch of bananas comes from each tree. The banana fruit comes from the female flower. The bananas are measured with a tool similar to a caliper to know when it is time to harvest the bunch.


At the packing facility, the bunches are inspected, sorted, soaked in bleach water, sprayed with citric and and a preservative that prevents the ripening process until the plastic bags around the bananas are opened at their final destinations. I thought it was interesting that groups of about 18 bananas are called “hands” and that there are usually five hands in a bunch.


Of course, we stopped at a Hacienda to have a snack and a rest. The snack consisted of fried plantains as well as fried cheese and beans and salsa. It was all delicious.

(Day 8 of 111) Costa Rica
Like many people, I am very fond of coffee, especially French Roast coffee. So, it was very interesting to visit a family-owned coffee plantation. This one was about 50 acres. Coffee originated in Africa, but since we are only 10 degrees from the equator in Costa Rica, the beans grow well here. The coffee grows at the higher elevations (that is, the Aribica beans) which produce the best coffee. It is grown on the hills, so it has to be harvested by hand.


I was surprised to find out that the coffee bean is actually a seed from a red berry on the coffee plant. Inside each sweet-tasting berry, you can squeeze out two seeds. The berries are picked and then sorted using density. The berries are dumped in water. The better seeds sink. The lesser seeds float. The beans have to be fermented, dried, and finally roasted. It is the roasting step that actually gives the coffee it’s distinctive coffee flavor.

The difference between a blonde roast and a dark roast is only about two or three minutes of roasting time (15 minutes for blonde, 17 minutes for French Roast, and 19 minutes for dark roast). We also saw some beautiful tropical flowers in the Doka Coffee Plantation’s butterfly garden. A great visit where I learned a lot.

While we traveled back from the volcano, we spotted this sloth hanging on the electrical wires next to the road. I was not able to get a great picture, but he/she was fun to see. We were told that there are three-toed and two-toed sloths. The two-toed is more rare and larger and lighter colored in fur. We also saw some cute birds at the volcano state park.