Day 5 In Costa Rica Continued- Coffee and Chocolate Farm Tour In Monteverde

Mar30

Seeing as Costa Rica is known for its delicious Coffee, and of course its successful coffee exportation, we had to stop by and tour a local coffee farm. But to make things even better, the farm also produces and manufactures chocolate. And right when we thought our luck couldn’t get any better, we were even provided traditional Costa Rican food for lunch before the tour even started!

We began with the coffee part of the tour which began with a brief history lesson about the start of Costa Rican coffee and its importance in helping boost Costa Rica’s economy. We started by looking at the beginning stages, which of course are the coffee seeds. We then saw how the coffee cherries are picked, and how the pulp of the cherries are removed. From there, the coffee beans must be washed and dried under the sun. They are then stored in large, fiber sacks which helps with the breathing and aging process. Selection, roasting, and packaging of the coffee beans are all completed on site. And any brave volunteers were given the opportunity to ride in a traditional ox cart which showed how the coffee beans were transported years ago.

From there, we were given some historical background into the fascinating world of chocolate. We learned how the cocoa beans are roasted and ground, once the husks of the seeds had been separated. We then tried the fruit of the cacao, and made our own chocolate too! Although the experience was incredible, I have to admit, buying pre-made chocolate is a much easier process! And as an additional treat, we were shown how sugarcane is traditionally extracted to make sugarcane juice, which was also delicious!

We had a great time touring Don Juan’s Coffee and Chocolate Farm, and much to our surprise, we had the chance to meet Mr. Don Juan Cruz at the end of the tour. Born in 1937 to one of the first pioneering farming families in Monteverde area, Don Juan was a true gentleman with delicious coffee and chocolate! (http://donjuancr.com).

As our tour came to a close, it was time for us to return back to the hotel to enjoy our last night in Monteverde. Our group went out to a local restaurant and enjoyed the evening together before having to make our way back to San José the following morning.

Don Juan Coffee and Chocolate Farm

Lunch at Don Juan Coffee and Chocolate Farm

Don Juan Coffee and Chocolate Farm

View at El Establo Hotel In Monteverde

El Establo Hotel In Monteverde

Dinner at a Local Restaurant

Simple Quote Sunday

Mar29

“I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.”
-Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington

Snapshot Challenge Saturday

Mar28

This week’s Snapshot Challenge is in honor of a Dance Marathon benefitting the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals currently taking place at my alma mater, the University of Central Florida. Each year, hundreds and thousands of students gather together and stand for a certain amount of hours in honor of those who can’t. This year the goal is to raise $500,000 which is definitely possible! It’s incredible how far one dollar can go, and when everyone comes together for a great cause, countless miracles can be made for those in need. Now this is something that’s truly beautiful.

Day 5 In Costa Rica- Hanging Bridges and Zip-lining In Monteverde

Mar27

This morning we woke up and enjoyed a delicious assortment of fruit, cheeses, eggs, and bread, all typical of Costa Rica. The food here, especially the fruit is so fresh that it makes you question the quality of what we eat back in the States. After we finished eating, we embarked on our morning tour which was the Selvatura Canopy Tour.

The Selvatura Canopy Tour is known for being one of the best ones in Costa Rica. The cables and platforms are built into the Cloud Forest, which really allows you to feel as though you are in the sky. With 15 cables and 18 viewing platforms stretching over two miles of cloud forest, Selvatura Park has the longest cable length in Costa Rica. The Costa Rican Cloud Forest is known for its incredibly diverse ecosystem. It is home to 120 species of reptiles and amphibians, 130 species of mammals, an astounding 500 species of birds, and more than 3,000 species of plants.

We began my viewing all of the “Hanging Bridges,” which have this name due to the fact that the bridges honestly feel as though they are hanging over the entire forest. From there, we zip-lined all throughout the Cloud Forest, which was scary to say the least, but definitely worth the experience. To be able to see the breathtaking views everywhere you look during this exhilarating adventure is truly an experience of a lifetime.

At the end of the tour, we came across a “Tarzan Swing” which is a small platform suspended above ground in which you have to jump off and swing out above the Cloud Forest. There was no way I was going to partake in the Tarzan Swing, but after hearing everyone who did it say how exciting it was, I figured I would give it a try. Here I was boasting about how incredible breakfast tasted, and I felt as though it was about to come back up! I hesitated before jumping off the platform but when I did, a rush of wind hit me in the face. I closed my eyes for a few brief seconds on the way down, but knew I had to open them again if I really wanted to enjoy this. I opened my eyes and saw the cloud forest in front of me as I swung towards it. It was truly invigorating, but I have to admit that I was overcome with gladness when my feet reached the ground upon landing.

The tour was followed up with a much calmer activity, as we entered the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve to visit the Gallery of Hummingbirds. Costa Rica is known for having 50 species of hummingbirds, many of which are known to nest around the Cloud Forest. It’s difficult to take pictures of them since they fly so quickly, but if look closely at the pictures below, you can see them eating at their feeding stations. We had to keep a watchful eye though because they had no problem flying right up to us, but there were so many of them flying up to us at once!

Fresh Fruit for Breakfast

Costa Rican Breakfast

Selvatura Hanging Bridges Tour

Ziplining in Selvatura

Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve

Day 4 In Costa Rica- Leaving Arenal for Monteverde

Mar23

Today was our last day in Arenal before continuing along with our travels throughout Costa Rica. Upon waking up, we embarked on a two-mile hike along Las Coladas trail in the Arenal National Park. The view of the volcano was incredible, and fortunately the weather was great too. Upon the conclusion of our hike, we proceeded to Monteverde, also known as the cloud forest due to its high elevation, which will be discussed more in-depth in the next blog post. We took advantage of happy hour in our hotel, Hotel El Establo once we arrived to Monteverde, and since there’s never really a limit on how much one eats during vacations, we made sure to go out for dinner at a local restaurant too.

Las Coladas Trail

Arenal Volcano

Las Coladas Trail

View of Arenal Volcano from Bottom of Las Coladas Trail

Chips and Bean Spread

Costa Rican Lunch

View of Parrots Outside Restaurant

Happy Hour at Our Hotel in Monteverde

Dinner In Monteverde

View From El Establo Hotel In Monteverde

Simple Quote Sunday

Mar22

“We must become the change we want to see in the world.”
-Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi

Snapshot Challenge Saturday

Mar21

The concept for this week’s Snapshot Challenge is simple: Make time to go outside and enjoy your surroundings. There is beauty to be found everywhere, but if we don’t make time to seek it out, such moments will merely continue to pass us by.

Day 3 In Costa Rica- Full Day In Arenal

Mar20

Today we had a full day to spend in Arenal, so we took an optional Caño Negro boat tour with our group. The Caño Negro is a wildlife refuge where one can take group tours along the Río Frio, or cold river that slowly progresses into the Caño Negro Lake. Since the tour leaves from Los Chiles, which is less than two and a half miles from the Nicaraguan border, every passenger must bring a copy of their passport because you the tour starts beside a checkpoint along the Nicaraguan border. We were given the opportunity to take pictures by the Nicaraguan border, but that was as far up as the boat would go before returning to shore. We encountered a boat that was headed to Costa Rica from Nicaragua, and we were told that often times people from Nicaragua will travel to Costa Rica by boat for work and return home later in the evening since.

After the Caño Negro boat tour, we were provided lunch in a local restaurant and returned back to Arenal from there. We made a quick stop for fruit flavored ice cream because everything involving fruit in Costa Rica is absolutely delicious. As we walked off the bus and headed towards the ice cream shop, we noticed large green iguanas sitting around outside. The iguanas pictured below are so large that we sat next to them just to compare! If you find one on a tree branch, don’t be surprised if you see it jump to a different branch. They’re a lot more mobile than they look!

We made it back to Arenal where we spent the rest of the afternoon walking around at leisure and came across more beautiful views of the Arenal Volcano just before the sun started to set. We had another traditional Costa Rican dinner before turning in for the night, and if you couldn’t tell by the pictures, the food hasn’t disappointed!

View On The Way to Caño Negro Boat Tour

Caño Negro Boat Tour

Costa Rica/Nicaragua Border

Caño Negro Boat Tour

City of Los Chiles

Typical Costa Rican Lunch

Costa Rican Green Iguana

Pineapple Ice Cream

City View In Arenal

Costa Rican Chocolate Store

View of Arenal Volcano In Arenal

Traditional Costa Rican Dinner

Day 2 In Costa Rica- Traveling to Arenal

Mar18

Upon waking up and eating breakfast, it was time for us to board the bus and officially begin our tour of Costa Rica. We drove around San Juan are got to see the city by bus, before continuing with our drive to Arenal. On the way, we stopped in Sarchi, which is known to be an artisan town, also known as a tourist trap for travelers eager to start spending their allotted souvenir money. Sarchi is home to traditional oxcarts of all different colors, which happens to be Costa Rica’s most famous type of craft since oxcarts have been used to transport coffee beans for centuries. And if you didn’t already know, Costa Rica is home to incredible coffee (which will be discussed in a later post).

We were given snacks, drinks, and fresh fruit before leaving, because the key to any tourist’s heart is to give them free food to get them in the mood to start spending. Once we left Sarchi, we continued on our way, but stopped again thirty minutes later in the city of Zarcero. The bus parked right outside Iglesia de San Rafael, a blue and pink church with various paintings of the stations of the cross. When you exit the church, you’ll find yourself in Parque Francisco Alvarado, which is a fun and beautiful park known for its shrubs that have been trimmed in the shapes of different animals and fun pathways to walk through. We had a little bit of free time to quickly have lunch, so we did so before boarding the bus again.

We made one more stop along to way to the hotel, and that was to a local Costa Rican school. While at the school, we got a chance to meet the students and watch them perform a cultural dance for us that they put together themselves. It was truly a unique opportunity that we all really enjoyed. We boarded the bus once more and finally continued on our trip straight through to our hotel in the district of La Fortuna in San Carlos alongside the Arenal Volcano. As you can see in the pictures below, we had an incredible view of the volcano from our hotel, and once we were finished taking pictures we went out into the city for a traditional Costa Rican dinner, thus concluding our first full day in Costa Rica.

Artisan Town, Sarchi

Iglesia de San Rafael

Parque Francisco Alvarado

City of Zarcero, Costa Rica

Lunchtime

Local Costa Rican School

Arenal Volcano Inn

View from Arenal Volcano Inn

Traditional Costa Rican Dinner

Day 1 In San Juan, Costa Rica

Mar16

Two years ago, my family and I traveled to Costa Rica for a few days on a group trip. I have been meaning to post about our experience ever since, so here it finally goes! We flew into San Juan, Costa Rica on Sunday morning and had the afternoon to ourselves before the trip officially began the following morning. My brother, sister, mother, and I walked around the city and had lunch at a local restaurant called Nuestra Tierra, which translates to “Our land.” I ordered chicken, salsa, black beans, plantains, and tortillas, and surely wasn’t disappointed! For dessert, we had rice pudding also known as arroz con leche, along with coffee made from a chorreador.

The chorreador is a coffee making device used in Costa Rica in which hot water is poured into a cloth fiber containing coffee grounds. The coffee then seeps into the cup placed below the cloth (as pictured below). This unique method of making coffee definitely interested us tourists, and it was as delicious as we imagined it would be.

Following lunch, we continued to walk around the city until it was time to return to the hotel for dinner. We had black bean soup, homemade chips, and fish before heading to sleep for the evening. My brother and I slept in one room and my sister and mother shared another room across the hall from us.

The two of us both woke up in the middle of the night to a loud continuous banging sound in the room next door. We both assumed that it was just a couple being loud and intimate with one another, so we tried to ignore the sounds until we fell back asleep. It wasn’t until the following morning that we found out there was a minor earthquake overnight, and the loud sounds were unoccupied beds moving back and forth!