Epic Tales of Sustainability Pirates of the Caribbean

Our second field trip took us to places once frequented by Capt Morgan and his pirate buddies, and sites still inhabited by dragons (well, caiman and crocodiles).  We boated to remote corners along the Río San Juan de Nicaragua, explored the dungeons of a 17th C castle, and did not stop there, even when pirate ghosts (or was it a virus?) haunted us.  We forged our way down the Caribbean coast, reaching the Sixaola and Yorkin rivers, and then beat back the rapids until we arrived at our final destination, the BriBri community of Yorkin, in the foothills of the Talamanca mountains.  What follows is a small selection of highlights from our mighty big adventures.

First Mate Christie leads us back in time, to El Castillo, Nicaragua, a little bit of pirate paradise:

Senior Pirate Regan:  Junior pirates breach the castle wall. They seem very pleased with themselves:

Later they are captured by Hogla, who makes them listen to her jokes and laughter: Captain Adam has a great idea.  The pirates will flee their captor, Hogla!  Up a really tall almendro tree in the Indio Maiz Reserve.  

But the threat of Hogla in pursuit with her stories makes the pirates bolt, under cloak of darkness, this time for an unspecified location, where they intend to live off the land and make friends with animals they meet along the way.

Senior Pirate Regan demonstrates how to drink from monkey pots, to live off the land like pirates:Meanwhile, Junior Pirates Chalmers and Megan give an impromptu class on how to forage for sugar cane, to live off the land like pirates: And Pirate Jessica demonstrates how to forage for piña coladas (virgin, which is not how pirates usually live off the land):

Sometimes friendly children took pity on the pirates, welcomed the wanderers into their homes and fed them.  This made the pirates feel happy:

The pirates make it all the way across the Nicaraguan-Costa Rican border and down the Caribbean coast, to the Yorkin River, on the edge of Panama  (Wow.  That's far.) 

At the border of Panama and Costa Rica, they meet friendly BriBris who offered to take them across the river to Panama, in case the pirates had business there to do.  But the pirates didn't have their passports handy so probably they didn't enter. 

Finally, they make it to their safe haven: the Yorkin Village.  

Here, cacao abounds, as do choco-bananas, which is what pirates like best. That's why the story stops here!