A night in Morocco.

A Restaurant that has been a family favorite of ours for many years is Casablanca Moroccan right here in Warrington. We have had many a celebration there as its s fun place to go with a group of friends and enjoy some food from a different culture.
  The restaurant is in a small strip mall that unless your looking for it would never know it's there. Once inside you feel as if you are in Morocco. The atmosphere is authentic & very comfortable. I love eating in a living room style fashion. Last night we were there to celebrate my son's 23rd birthday.
 

  The meal is all traditional Moroccan cuisine served over 8 courses.  During the meal you get entertained by the belly dancers. Our group was a bit shy as no one got up to dance with her not even the birthday boy.
There was also a male belly dancer which gave many smiles to the group of red hat ladies.
   
Once seated they come around and wash your hands with rose water and give you a towel for a napkin. I always like when we bring someone new and we tell them you eat with your fingers no utensils, the expressions are priceless.

The first course is Hummous & baba ganouji served with pita bread for dipping.  Hummous I know but baba ganouji, no. It's eggplant  pureed with tahini and various Mediterranean spices.  

  The second course is three salads and is one of my favorites. You get carrots in a garlic vinegar, marinated eggplant, and cucumbers & tomato salad. All have wonderful flavors that you eat using pita bread.

B’stilla is the third course, also a favorite of mine. B'stilla is a traditional Moroccan pastry filled with  eggs, chicken, toasted almonds, and sweet cinnamon spices. The top is dusted with dusted with powdered sugar and cinnamon. It's sweet and everyone always thinks this is dessert.

Rabbit

 

The forth course you get to choose a chicken dish made a few different ways or rabbit. Since we were a large party we got chicken made 4 different ways & 1 rabbit to try. I kept thinking of my rabbit, Latte & just couldn't bring myself to try it. The chicken dishes were all very good, spicy being every one's favorite.

Fifth course is  Beef, Lamb or chicken shish kebabs.

Couscous with vegetables is course number 6. Before it comes everyone is wondering how does one eat couscous with your fingers?  You don't, it's the only course you get a spoon.

Seventh course is a basket  of fresh fruit. I have seen more then once these fruit items going into the purse for later.

The meal ends with Baklava and mint tea.

Once again a fun night had by all.

Missing the Tico Life Style

Watching the snow fall outside I am thinking about the young boys I watched make snow angels or in their case sand angels on the beach in Manzanillo. I have only been home for a couple of days and already missing the tico life style.

 People are always asking me why I love Costa Rica so much. I am not sure I know the exact answer to that question other than it’s the happiness I feel while I am there.  They say the people living in Costa Rica are the happiest people in the world and I have to agree.  Yesterday as I was food shopping in Wegmans, still a glow from my trip, a smile on my face, I said hello to the folks I passed. I was greeted with a few smiles but mostly got looks as if I was a crazy person that should be avoided. Not at all like the warm friendly greetings I received while peddling my bike along the road in Puerto Viejo. 

The country is full of beauty, wildlife, and each time I go I discover something new. It is one of the many reasons I keep going back as each area I visit is uniquely different. Life is at a much slower pace, which allows people to enjoy their surroundings and live in the moment. Something I have to remind myself to do more of, as you never know what you will find.

 I enjoy waking to the sounds of the howler monkeys at sunrise. I don’t need to play bejeweled to occupy my time I simply look all around at the wonderful colors of the flora, birds, and butterflies. 

 There are no angry birds in the rainforest just the sweet sounds of their calls. 

Multi tasking takes on a whole new meaning here, its peddling a bike or taking a walk while searching the trees for wildlife. All your senses come alive in Costa Rica. For these reasons and many more I will be looking forward to my next visit.

 

Life in Costa Rica is Pura Vida.

The beautiful Beach of Punta Uva

Corteza Amarilla Art Lodge a great place to stay outside San Jose

Living room with lots of comfy places to relax

Most people when coming to Costa Rica spend at least one night in the San Jose due to their arriving or departing flight. There are lots of traditional options around the airport, Hampton Inn, Marriott, etc. 

All which are good choices but I prefer to stay just outside the city in one of the many towns that surround San Jose.  On the advice of a friend we stayed Corteza Amarilla Art Lodge in Santa Ana, just 15 minutes from the airport. 

 It’s an eco-friendly boutique hotel that is very unique and very comfortable. The staff here are friendly and helpful with anything you may need while staying here.

The restaurant area is all open air and the food was excellent, breakfast is included with your stay. 

Breakfast Buffet

We enjoyed the fact there were a lot of places outside your room to sit and relax. Plus Free Wifi.

We played some cards, had some wine, and enjoyed the music selection. It made our last night part of vacation not just a place to sleep. 

Meals served in the gardens

Jagaur Rescue & The Sloth Sanctaury in Costa Rica

Jaguar rescue

  I found the tour to be both interesting & informative.  It's wonderful what they are doing both helping the animals and educating those who come to visit. A wonderful surprise to me was getting to go in the baby howler enclosure where you actually play with them. Each afternoon when there are no tours they take the howlers on what they called, a monkey picnic, where the monkeys are free to climb trees in hopes a troop of howlers will come by and take one or two. It's a good way to release them into the wild & has been very successful. 

  The goal here is to rehabilitate and releases as many as they can.  There are several baby sloths here and they are very cute. It was a wonderful experience to watch a baby practice climbing trees. There are no adult sloths here, which means to me their program works well. 

The volunteers are very helpful and you can tell they care about what they are doing here. 

This is a place you don't want to miss. Well worth giving the $15.00 admission fee to help fund the rescue. 

The Sloth Sanctuary

    A month or so before my trip I saw too cute baby sloths on animal planet. It was filmed at the Sloth Sanctuary.  This had me very excited as I would be able to visit it while staying in Puerto Viejo. I even was thinking about volunteering here one day along with my Mom. We decided I would go check it out which I did and found it to be very disappointing. 

Buttercup

First we entered into a large gift shop where we paid $25.00 for a 2 hour tour. We got to see Buttercup who was the first sloth that was bought here years ago & now sits in her queen’s chair. 

Next we meet the baby sloths & were told how they all got here. They are really cute. But there was not much talk about how they would be released back to the wild more talk about how they could never survive if released.

 Next we watched a 15 - 20 minute movie about how the owners got started & the 2 success stories of the sloths they did release. 

From here we meet 5 of the adult sloths all living in zoo like enclosures who are here due to an injury & will remain here for life. One cage had 2 sloths together, good buddies we were told. However they are male & female. She told us they have had births here, a surprising fact. 

 I asked how many adult sloths they had & there are 138 living there.  We did not get to see any of them. You could see the area where they are living and it’s some form of enclosure of cages.

 Now I am not by any means authority on sloths or sloth rehabilitation but it looks to me if a sloths gets here it doesn't leave. Maybe this is okay as sanctuary does mean, a safe place.

  I think the people do believe in what they are doing but it's more like a sloth zoo. 

The last hour of the tour they take you on a very slow canoe ride through the steam outback. This should be optionally. Of course it makes the tour longer & can charge more. I imagine the sloth sanctuary is a popular tour for the cruise ships coming to port in Limon. 

Some of the sights of Puerto Viejo

Sunrise over playa Negra 

Biking along we saw a wedding party

The beautiful beach of Punta Uva

George drives like Mario Andretti through Braulio Carillo

"This is fun today" he says as we weave around trucks nearly missing the ones coming at us.
20 minutes it took to drive through the cloud forest.

Hiking Chahuila National Park

We set out around 8:30am to spend the day in search of wild life & some time on the beach. We decided to enter the park at Puerto Vargas instead of the entering on the town side. We had been to the town of Chahuila the other day & it seemed very crowded.
 The path takes you along the coast with beautiful coves to stop to take a dip or do some shelling. We did both along the way & I got many treasures. We saw a couple of sloths up in the trees but no monkeys.  We reached the point which is half way between both entrances, my batteries went dead in my camera plus we still haven't seen any monkeys so I thought we should go further.

A vacation within a vacation Banana Azul, Puerto Viejo

  Our stay at Villa Tucan is over but not our stay here is Puerto Viejo. We have just moved to the other side of town to the Banana Azul. It's located right on the beach giving us a completely different feel from living in the jungle. Upon arrival we got our welcome drink and off to the beach we went. It's a black sand beach full of tiny pink & purple shells. We have lounge chair & waiter service it feels like a vacation within a vacation.

Fresh coconut water

Koki Beach! Puerto Viejo

Last night we had a few cocktails while we watched the world go by at Koki Beach. The whole restaurant is made from recycled materials & the chair I was sitting in was so comfortable I could of slept in it. Good thing I didn't or I would have missed out on a fabulous night.
The atmosphere here is both comfortable & fun, making it a place you want to keep coming back too.

Janet, the resident sloth made a visit last night on her way to her favorite tree. You don't see a sloth inside a restaurant very often.

It was the Jorge, one of the owners Birthday. We celebrated with a shot. Both the owners,Chris & Jorge are fun, happy guys, who you can just tell love what they do.

  For dinner I had the grilled Caribbean lobster & George had surf & turf which both were great. For dessert we had banana in a box & chocolate moose, rich creamy chocolate & oh so good.

I went back today to see if I could find her as that was the tree but no luck