Ok, yesterday Carlos, Christine & I went for a jungle walk. I mean the jungle. He took his machetti, which is like carrying a jacknife to Costa Ricenses. We had to mark the trail as we plowed through brush and leaves. It was a thrill! I can't even beleive I did it. If I had understood his broken english about where were going I don't think I would've gone. But I was stuck ( didn't want to be a whimp) and so glad I went and trudged behind Carlos through this jungle. He told me we were going to find the "Achiote" tree, he knew the area it was in, but we had to climb down steep paths and up again with really not much of a pathe because everything grows so fast here. We climbed over gigantic ant hills, saw the biggest "elephant tree", crossed the river in our shoes and found the achiote and it was lit up by a stream of sunshine, I felt we had found the hold grail). The tree has these red fruits on it that CR indigenous people use for face painting in their rituals and it is used as a natural "red-orange" food coloring also. Also known as the "Lipstick Tree". It looks like a fruit, but it is a flower that turns into a pod with red seeds inside when crushed turn into red paste. I am using it as watercolor in some of my now recent paintings while I am here. We also saw the property owners beating beans. They gather dried tumbleweeds with the beans attached and then two men beat the dried brush with two bamboo sticks in each hand until the dried beans fall to a collection at bottom, little red beans. What a day, my muscles in legs are killing me today. It was quite a hike and I got some great pictures.
