Funny How Things Remind You...

Whenever you get back from Italy you think there is no point ever cooking again, you will never recreate such lovely food....

Says nmj

I am inclined to agree.

She reminds me of the time we emerged from a jungle track in Costa Rica, to see a sign in Italian:

Pizza! Al Forno di Legno!

We had driven through a 'monkey trail' in the Guanacaste region of Costa Rica, in search of a secluded beach about which we had been told. Playa Prieta is a beautiful white sand beach edged by the jungle and buffeted by huge pacific waves. It is a paradise if ever there was one. If you are really lucky, howler monkeys will visit, curious to investigate your presence. Even in high season you are unlikely to see any visitors there apart from a handful of local people. It is too far off the beaten track for most tourists to bother.

Playa Prieta

'Monkey trails' are the rough tracks that cut through the jungle of the Guanacaste region, and offer shortcuts for the very brave from one main road to the next. 'Main road' is something of a misnomer in Costa Rica. Anything but the Pan American highway is nothing more than a dirt track, full of potholes and very slow going. The monkey trails are so but with bells on. Cut through the jungle, they link small communities who are more used to travelling by horse back. These days most have vehicles, but you are a brave person to attempt it without a jeep, a spare wheel, a jack and the nouse to use it. Or a horse.

We forded rivers, scrambled over tree stumps, went eeny-meeny-miney-mo at every junction and, fingers crossed tightly, emerged at the small community of Portrero. And then I saw the sign.

Pizza! Al Forno di Legno!

My Italian is not great, but I knew that this meant pizzas baked in a wood burning oven. The Husband was beside himself. His favourite food ever - since a trip to Italy the previous year when my sister had introduced him to the sheer joy of a genuine Italian pizza - found on the edge of the Costa Rican jungle.

We stopped at the small hotel, owned by a family from Milan. They really did have a wood-burning oven, and the pizza was spectacular. Neither our Italian nor our Spanish were good enough to establish why they were living on the edge of the jungle in a remote part of Guanacaste. That was ok. It allowed us to make up their story as we ate our pizza.

We saw a turqoise-browed motmot as we left. I am a secret twitcher, and as I spied it through my binoculars I felt even more excited than I had the time I spotted a migrant hoopoe in Anglesey.

Turqoise-browed motmot

A few days later we saw a Jabiru, after a very arduous three hour drive along the roughest of roads and a change of wheel at the roadside. It was well worth it. This is a monster of a wading bird, at almost four foot high, and from a distance looks like a little old man in an overcoat.

The magnificent jabiru

Costa Rica is a very special place. They welcome tourists - their economy depends upon it - and yet they remain committed to sustainable tourism and protecting their natural inheritance. We were woken by howler monkeys each morning at 5am. We saw Iguanas sunning themselves in the midday sun as we drank our pipas frias, and fireflies lighting up the bush at night. We saw huge Olive Ridley Turtles clambering up the beach at night, and tiny turtles making their way back to the sea.

Iguana, sunning itself

The pipas frias seller in Playa del Coco

And Portero has the most wonderful pizza al forno di legno.