Alajuela Province (part 2)

While in Alajuela Province we traveled to the city of Los Chiles located in the northern-most part of central Costa Rica on the border with Nicaragua. We embarked on a boat cruise along the Rio Frio (Cold River) to see the wildlife. It was awesome. We saw caimans, monkeys, bats, a two-toed sloth, lizards and many different species of birds. We also visited Picadillo La Luz, a small local business run out of a family's home in San Carlos.  The owners, a husband and wife team, figured out a clever way to extract the fibrous pulp from inside the trunk of papaya trees in order to make picadillo, a traditional food dish of Costa Rica. They extract the pulp, wash it, strain it, dry it and package the product for local consumption.  The husband invented his own shredding device (along with a few other interesting devices) that makes the process much quicker. We were given a tour of his 'factory' and then we sat down to a delicious serving of picadillo (in this case, it was made with potatoes, pork and the papaya pulp and served on a flour tortilla, like a soft taco) . The family also provided a homemade version of Bailey's Irish cream liquor and shots of their own personal moonshine.