The Ice-Cream Bean (or guaba or guama)

Throughout our stay here, we have often come across new and interesting fruits and vegetables. Recently, trucks coming into town have carried this fruit from a tropical tree called Guaba or Guama. Apparently it is also known as the ice-cream bean. This is because of the unique vanilla ice cream flavor of the furry, pulpy material covering the actual bean. Yep, I said furry. 












Here we have Adela holding a more ripe version of the same. Bentz is in the background, trying to figure out exactly how much of the fruit to eat. What you have to do is kind of put the whole thing in your mouth and then chew and suck off the white stuff. This is like another bean type plant, much smaller that this one, that we tasted in the jungle that tasted exactly like caramel. Seriously cool stuff.














Here we have a truck of the stuff. Bentz is obviously trying to cute-con the lady out of another pod. I can´t remember if he was successful. This was a Saturday morning, and we had taken an outing with the Lopez family, walking through the animal market and into town. Carlos had finished the super-busy Valentine Day rush at the flower plantation where he works, and was ready to relax on a walk with the family.


















They are such an awesome family, and we feel so lucky to have gotten paired with them. Here they all are in town, taking a little caminata. And just like us, Carlos and Susana were probably steeling themselves in preparation to deny all requests from the children for purchases of candy and toys.