Post for Saturday, June 20, 2009.....

Good news! Everyone survived whitewater rafting!! What a great time for all who went. We enjoyed a wonderful trip down the Sarapiqui River. The guides were fantastic and we saw several types of wildlife when we weren't paddling! We saw monkeys, toucans, parrots, king fishers, porcupine, and sloth. Our fearless leader, Cindy, took an extra "swim" in the water when she fell out of the raft! We also had 3 other "swimmers" but everyone had a blast! The other thing we did today was tour a pineapple farm. We got to learn all about the whole process from planting shoots to the harvest. The pineapples are planted and harvested by hand. The pineapples are unloaded at the plant by floating in water. They are then rinsed, dried, sorted, boxed and stored at 45 degrees. We learned that pineapple does not have to be yellow in order to be ripe, and should be stored at 45 degrees to prevent it from fermenting. All in all it was a great day!!!