Remember Woody Allen's movie Bananas? Well, take
away the inept Guerrilla fighters and political assassinations and you
have Costa Rica, the nicest and most peace-loving republic in Central
America. Costa Rica has rainforests, beaches, rivers, mountains, volcanoes,
birds, animals, butterflies, and flowers. It also has bananas, bananas,
and more bananas—in fact, Costa Rica produces about two million
tons of premium bananas a year, 20% of the world's total. For the Costa
Rican economy, bananas rank second only to tourism.
Bananas are money to Costa Rica. They say “Money doesn't grow on
trees.”—neither do bananas. The banana plant is not a tree
but a giant herb and a member of the lily family. It is the largest plant
on earth without a woody stem, and grows as high as 25 feet in one year.
Did you ever wonder where bananas came from? Probably not, but I'll tell
you anyway. Bananas originated in Malaysia and the East Indies. Today
primitive wild bananas still grow in these areas. Men have farmed bananas
since pre-historic times. If you are a student of ancient Hindu, Chinese,
Greek, or Roman literature, you can find references to the banana in
old dusty manuscripts and scrolls. Aaachoo! Excuse Me!
In 327 B.C., for example, Alexander the Great found people eating bananas
in India. An ancient Burmese legend tells us that wise men first realized
that bananas could be eaten by observing the birds eating them. It makes
one thankful that these same wise men failed to notice that the birds
also ate worms.
When Spanish explorers came to the New World, they brought the banana
with them. Friar Tomas de Berlanga planted the first banana root stocks
in the Caribbean in 1516.
Three hundred years later, American sailors returning from the Caribbean
brought bananas to the United States. They were officially introduced
to the American public at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition.
Each banana was wrapped in foil and sold for 10 cents. Today the average
American eats 29 pounds of bananas a year.
Click Here for information on our Costa Rica Tours.
