Hip hip Jorge!

Hip hip Jorge is not hip hip George.  It is hip hip Horhay, which is how you pronounce the name of one of our guides.  That was our cheer for Jorge.  Today, we went to the Yorkin river, and saw the Bri Bri tribe.  This is our visit, after the bus ride where I realized I had left my camera in the hotel room: First we got in canoes, 6 to 7 in each one, and traveled by motor upstream to the tribe’s home.  It took about an hour to get there, as we were going against the current and the water was shallow sometimes, forcing the boatmen to get out of the boat and push the canoe.  Once we arrived at the tribe, we walked on the trail to their village.  We walked through the town, seeing the high school, the meeting place, other important buildings, and lots of plants.  We arrived at the visitor’s center, where we learned about the tribe’s history.  We learned that the tribe used to be ruled by women, and then the Spaniards came,  The men then took control.  Eighteen years ago, one women changed the culture again, back to the old tradition, women ruling.  She and other people helped to make their tribe a better community.  We had a really delicious juice, starfruit juice.  When we were done learning, we had a while until lunch, so we went  the river to swim.  We got everything wet, our whole bodies, and the current was so strong, we had to hold onto rocks to keep from being swept away.   Once lunch was ready, we ate up and went to play soccer with the young villagers.  Well, they weren’t really young, one of them had a mustache.  They beat us 2-0.  After that we went to learn to make chocolate.  The seeds inside the fruit have pulp, and so we sucked on that.  It was soooo good!  It tasted like different kinds of sweet fruit all blended together.  We then learned how to crush the roasted beans.  The rock was very heavy, trust me, I tried it,  After they were crushed, we grinded them to a pasta-ish form.  These two forms were very bitter.  After it was all pasted, we took some and put it in hot and cold water.  It tasted like hot chocolate.  We mixed the rest with condensed milk and it turned to real chocolate!!!  We dipped bananas in it, and it was really, really tasty!  After a little more soccer, we went back to the canoes.  It took much less to get back this time, because we were going downstream.  Now we are on the bus again, going back to the hotel.  Tomorrow is snorkeling and kayaking!!!  Adios!

Cate