El Tanque and onwards

After the boat tour from Nicaragua to Costa Rica, we find a bus to Muelle de San Carlos (three hours), and from there another hour to El Tanque. 

It's just a small road village, but we've found a couchsurfer there. After the usual moment of confusion at the bus stop (Is this the right spot? How do we find the guy? Hope this works..), we are hailed by a señor with a friendly smile and an enormous belly. He's the owner of the local bar, and immediately made the mental connection of "people with huge backpacks" and "that place where the couchsurfer lives". 

So he can provide us with a detailed description, and we find Sayyon's place. (It's actually a former hotel, that now rents out appartment-rooms.)

Sayyon is a nice, laid-back guy from Costa Rica that spent most of his life in the States. He's about to start Med School in San José, but wants to avoid the hustle of the big city until it's absolutely necessar.

Hannah and me probably aren't the most entertaining guests: After three days of perpetual bus rides we just want to hang around a bit. But Sayyon doesn't seem to mind, actually seems to enjoy our relaxed company.

Slacklining in the former hotel garden.

Trying to relax harder on that slackline.

Extreme relaxing with aid of hammocks.

Also, our host has a few completely new tastes for us to try: He is experimenting with cocoa wine. This means he chops up the cocoa tree fruit, mixes them with water (and a bit of sugar), and lets it ferment.

The result is a very interesting drink that resembles cider, but with some completely exotic notes to it.

Step Two is to extract the cocoa pips (or nuts? What are they actually called?) after the fermentation, dry them, grind them, and then make chocolate of them.

He also shows us something else: The pods seen in the following picture come from some kind of legume tree, and actually contain bean-like seeds (as usual, with legumes..) covered in some candy-cotton-like sweet fluff!

A wonderful tasty snack for travelling, coming in it's own natural wrapping. (But damn, if forgot the name of that fruit again!)

So, THIS is supposed to be edible?

Oh why yes it is, like legume cotton candy praliné!

So after two nights of sleeping really long and one day of not-doing-much-at-all, we are back on the road.