Cuba, Costa Rica and a bit of the US.: Day 15. 17.4.16. San Jose to Sarapiqui. GT day # 2.

Met our guide, Omar at 8.30 and into the van with Carlos, a very roomy van too.

Passed quickly out of San Jose to Alajeula, famous for Juan Santamaria, a hero in Costa Rica, he fought and won against William Walker, a US filibuster (mercenary) by burning the house of the filibusters. Walker escaped to Honduras, where he was later caught and shot. Santamaria has a day celebrated in his honour – April 11.

We travelled up from the Valley of San Jose, into the hills and quickly arrived at our first stop – Doka Coffee Plantation for a coffee tasting, tour and a look through the butterfly house. The making of coffee was interesting and Omar was quite a good teller of the story as he also a coffee picker.

The coffee tasting station.

The famous old 5 peso note. This depiction of life is factually inccorrect in a number of ways. But the paining it very famous.

How they brew coffee in CR. The filter is made of cloth and washed and re-used.

Omar holding an 'Ox Cart', this is a symbol of CR. We have seen a couple on display, but they are no longer in use around the place.

A transparent butterfly on the walls of butterfly house..

Some form of clematis/passionfruit.

Yellow one.

The elusive Blue Morpho. Easy to capture in resting mode.

and quite interesting to look at.

An amazing carnivorous plant growing in the butterfly house...

Its centre was the deepest velvety purple...

and from the side, it was really cool to look at, veins and traps in its shape

This is one capture of the blue Morpho in flight.

Evidently they aren't really blue, its the way the sunlight plays on the structure of their wings.

And there were plenty of them, but so bloody quick.

again not in focus, but the colours were great.

Omar explaining the various stages of growing the coffee plant from seed.

A plant lasts about 15 -20 years, so they are always planting out new crops.

Omar doing his thing, next to a 12 month old plant (I think)

The coffee pickers basket.

Coffee flowers.

Many parts to the fruit, apart from the bean. The parchment is used in compost, the rest I can't recall.

An old Ox Cart.

And a painted up one.

Part of the coffee milling plant, all powered by water.

The roasting machine.

Bags and bags and bags of coffee. CR produces high quality/low quantity coffee.

The beans.

Doka Estate was the place we visited.

old machinery...and the girls.

Drying the beans on the concrete. Raked into rows for the sun to do its works.

The roasting times were surprisingly short I thought.

Their logo.

As we moved from the central valley, which houses San Jose and Alajuela, we learnt that 60% of Costa Rica’s 4-5million population live in the Central Valley area. So the rest of the country is pretty sparsely populated in comparison. However, Costa Rica IS a small country, so for us there was still plenty of populated areas we were driving through.

We were travelling up Volcan Poas, a 600 000 year old volcano. Costa Rica still has 7 active volcanoes out of around 200.

Costa Rica lays claim to 5% of the world’s biodiversity in a tiny 151 square kilometre area.

Cloud forest type outlook from the van.

Trees carrying lots of Epiphytes.

We continued our Sunday drive up into the hills, where we were most surprised by an incredible amount of traffic. Seems there is a Strawberry Festival up here today and it feels like half of San Jose are coming to the party.

The car park for the festival.

People standing around.

Welcome to the Strawberry Festival.

One of the hotels along our route.

More of the forested hills.

We stopped briefly to look at La Paz (Peace) Waterfalls, then we continued up the mountains and over the top to the Caribbean side of the country. Through some villages, including Poasita, through some cloud forests, past the Strawberry Festival on the hill – there were many people attending, lots of tents and marquees set up selling things too. A bit like a ‘field days’ set up along the road, as there wasn’t a lot of flat space off to the sides.

Roadside stall near one of the waterfalls.

La Paz.

The bridge crossing in front of the waterfall.

Next stop was San Fernando waterfall and Colibri (hummingbird) viewing area. We saw many birds including some hummingbirds, Passerini’s and a beautiful duck egg blue Blue winged Tanager. Hopefully captured a few, but not holding out much hope.

A Blue Hummingbird.

and a green one.

The San Fernando Waterfall.

Suzie assuming the pose, in the hope of holding steady enough to get a clear shot.

The mountains, valleys and forest views are magnificent, bit hard to capture from the moving van. Lots of epiphyte laden trees, vines, and lush growth.

We stopped to have a look at a White-nosed Coati and fed it some of the strawberries we had bought earlier along the roadside.

The Coati.

White-faced Coati.

We were also struck by the number of families and groups stopped on the roadside with a blanket and picnic perched just near roadside fences on awkward hillsides – just picnicking according to Omar.

We stopped for lunch at a roadside restaurant, where we had pre-ordered. I had a nice pork chop with beans and rice, plaintains with the obligatory pineapple juice. Big meal. This was close to our final destination.

Roadside view.

Quite cloudy.

Roadside views.

The ornamental plant farm.

We arrived at Tirimbina Forest Reserve, an ecological park and research station with Hotel next door. The location is Sarapiqui. Here we are doing a chocolate tour.

Suzie and I had to go back to the van to change into closed shoes, Carlos had already left for the hotel, so Omar had to call him back so we could change. We weren’t happy that Omar hadn’t mentioned this prior to us leaving the van in the first place.

We had missed the departure of the bigger group we were joining, so our crew started off on the 20 minute or so hike through the rainforest, over a long swing bridge over the River Sarapiqui (Margot decided to give in after the swing bridge – Carlos came and met her and Omar came back after dropping us off)

Jeannie is not real keen on heights, so was NOT looking down on the swing bridge.

Looking down to Frio Sarapiqui.

Here come the rest.

We met up with the rest of the group in the area for the Indigenous Chocolate demonstration.

There was something cooking on the wood stove when we arrived.

Sergio and Teresa did a great job of explaining the chocolate making process:

·Cacao pods, seeds we tasted

· Drying process, including saliva

· Roasting

· Crushing

· Grinding with addititives – cinnamon, sugar

· Mixing with water to make hot choc, which we got to drink

· They also tempered the powder, we tasted this mix too, which had been melting on the stove top the whole time.

· Finally they had some dark and light chocolate for us to taste as well.

Sergio unveiling the cacao pods. Not the coffee pods we are used to at home.

Once cracked open the seeds are revealed. We tasted these.

Then the drying process, they moved in these sections over 7 days or so, using the sun for drying.

Here Teresa is using a warm rock to crush the roasted beans.

Adding the hot water to the mix.

Mixing it the old fashioned way.

Pouring our tastes into the small cups on the left, there were a range of spices to add in the little jars near Sergio including, chilli, nutmeg, cinammon, corn starch for thickening.

And it was all good? Some of the stages of the process were not so tasty but the final product certainly was and Sergio and Teresa led us through the process very well.

The group with us was mainly a bunch of 19 sophmores, juniors and seniors (yr 10,1 11 and 12) from Barnstable School in Cape Cod, and the guides did well to keep them all engaged. There were two teachers and then another two couples and a late arrival three were Spanish speakers so the demo was done in both languages.

During the demonstration and Agouti meandered along behind Sergio, so that was a distraction, but great to see.

The agouti, that came to see us.

A sleek looking creature.

Sort of guinea pig like, but taller and bigger. No tail.

The Cacao pods were beautiful colours.

Here with one of our drinking cups.

The chocolate that had been tempering on the stove.

Cleaned up and drying, on the left the grinder we used to mix together the cacao, cinnamon and sugar, the hot rock and some other bits and pieces.

The rock was stained with chocolate, from its use as the pestle (with the mortar)

The process.

We walked back to meet Omar and check in at the hotel next door. We saw a sloth hanging in a tree on the walk back. Pretty cool!

The sloth silhouette.

Just doing what they do, hanging upside down.

The rooms are pretty good, air conditioning is excellent and an absolute necessity, it is hot and humid and generally sticky. It was about 5.45 when we checked in.