Bahia Ballena
Bahia Ballena
Another physically lovely place with only 2 other sailboats in the vast anchorage. One American which left shortly after our arrival, and the other showing a Canadian flag where its club flag should have been and a Fleur de Lis where its Canadian flag should have been; hmm, wonder what that means? When we put the dinghy in the water we went over to ask them and found out they are French Canadian, shortly after they left and then there was just us and a few pangas. Later that day another boat came in proudly flying their Canadian flag. Sealise is the name of this boat and the people onboard, Paul and AnnaLise are from and returning to Vancouver after cruising on and off for the last 10 years. Their crew Inar is from Denmark and has been with them for some of their trip. We spent a couple of ‘happy hours’ with them, did a bit of trading and made some new friends.
The village we were anchored off consisted of a very unusual main street made up of houses built on stilts on the water side and larger houses built on the side of the hill facing them. From the water the stilt houses looked a bit shabby, but from the street side they were mostly very nice little homes with all the modern conveniences anyone needs.
The road through this little community turns into a trail which follows the shore all along to Montezuma. We walked for about an hour or so and along the way met Clemente, an ex-pat American who now has a house in Tambor, the neighbouring village. He has lived here many years and really likes the Tico people, though he warned us of the shanty towners who are not so trustworthy. Further along the trail we found the shanty town, which was similar to the other community except these buildings were made from plastic stretched over wooden frame, or rough wooden shacks just hanging together. There was no electricity here but there was water, quite a strong stream running down the side of the hill. A lovely little shack right beside it had a hose rigged up to give themselves constant running water into a big wooden sink standing right beside the stream. At the bottom of the stream on the beach was a woman doing her laundry using the smooth rocks to rub the clothes against, and all the water she wanted for rinsing. More than we have.
Continuing along the trail we came to a fairly jungly area where we saw no people, but we did see monkeys, lots of them. They were up a couple of very big mango trees. What got our attention was things dropping from the trees. Actually the things were being thrown from the trees. The monkeys pick the tiny mangoes, about 2” long – way too small to eat yet and very bitter. But they keep on picking them, bite them once and throw them away. So you can image these trees will get stripped pretty fast before the mangoes every ripen. We tried to take video of them but it didn’t work as they were too high up and quite wary of us.
Further along the beach we met Juan Lopez, a Tico man who explained something about monkeys and parrots in Costa Rica. The Government now protects both of these species and between them they are doing so much damage to fruit trees that the growers are giving up trying to grow them. Juan Lopez also told us how to catch langosta and what type of tool t use and he showed us the type of shellfish the people here eat. They catch a very big flat clam that they call oysters and a big shellfish which looks a bit like a conk.
Sharing food ideas is such a universal way to show friendship to strangers and new friends, Clemente told us what type of vegetables and fruit to look for in stores, Juan Lopez told us what to harvest from the sea, and earlier that day we met 3 very black Frenchmen from Martinique who showed us how to open the dried out brown coconut husks which are lying around all over the place. First he shook it to establish it worth opening, then whacked it with a huge rock, opened it up to show a nice little coconut, whacked that, tasted the milk to make sure it was good before giving it to us to drink and eat. Translating that into our more immediate world, don’t we women always want to share our recipes as a show of friendship.
Another physically lovely place with only 2 other sailboats in the vast anchorage. One American which left shortly after our arrival, and the other showing a Canadian flag where its club flag should have been and a Fleur de Lis where its Canadian flag should have been; hmm, wonder what that means? When we put the dinghy in the water we went over to ask them and found out they are French Canadian, shortly after they left and then there was just us and a few pangas. Later that day another boat came in proudly flying their Canadian flag. Sealise is the name of this boat and the people onboard, Paul and AnnaLise are from and returning to Vancouver after cruising on and off for the last 10 years. Their crew Inar is from Denmark and has been with them for some of their trip. We spent a couple of ‘happy hours’ with them, did a bit of trading and made some new friends.
The village we were anchored off consisted of a very unusual main street made up of houses built on stilts on the water side and larger houses built on the side of the hill facing them. From the water the stilt houses looked a bit shabby, but from the street side they were mostly very nice little homes with all the modern conveniences anyone needs.
The road through this little community turns into a trail which follows the shore all along to Montezuma. We walked for about an hour or so and along the way met Clemente, an ex-pat American who now has a house in Tambor, the neighbouring village. He has lived here many years and really likes the Tico people, though he warned us of the shanty towners who are not so trustworthy. Further along the trail we found the shanty town, which was similar to the other community except these buildings were made from plastic stretched over wooden frame, or rough wooden shacks just hanging together. There was no electricity here but there was water, quite a strong stream running down the side of the hill. A lovely little shack right beside it had a hose rigged up to give themselves constant running water into a big wooden sink standing right beside the stream. At the bottom of the stream on the beach was a woman doing her laundry using the smooth rocks to rub the clothes against, and all the water she wanted for rinsing. More than we have.
Continuing along the trail we came to a fairly jungly area where we saw no people, but we did see monkeys, lots of them. They were up a couple of very big mango trees. What got our attention was things dropping from the trees. Actually the things were being thrown from the trees. The monkeys pick the tiny mangoes, about 2” long – way too small to eat yet and very bitter. But they keep on picking them, bite them once and throw them away. So you can image these trees will get stripped pretty fast before the mangoes every ripen. We tried to take video of them but it didn’t work as they were too high up and quite wary of us.
Further along the beach we met Juan Lopez, a Tico man who explained something about monkeys and parrots in Costa Rica. The Government now protects both of these species and between them they are doing so much damage to fruit trees that the growers are giving up trying to grow them. Juan Lopez also told us how to catch langosta and what type of tool t use and he showed us the type of shellfish the people here eat. They catch a very big flat clam that they call oysters and a big shellfish which looks a bit like a conk.
Sharing food ideas is such a universal way to show friendship to strangers and new friends, Clemente told us what type of vegetables and fruit to look for in stores, Juan Lopez told us what to harvest from the sea, and earlier that day we met 3 very black Frenchmen from Martinique who showed us how to open the dried out brown coconut husks which are lying around all over the place. First he shook it to establish it worth opening, then whacked it with a huge rock, opened it up to show a nice little coconut, whacked that, tasted the milk to make sure it was good before giving it to us to drink and eat. Translating that into our more immediate world, don’t we women always want to share our recipes as a show of friendship.
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