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Published: January 9th 2013
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Freshly Roasted Costa Rican Coffee
Taken at the El Trapiche Coffee Plantation Things are great in Costa Rica and we are continuing to enjoy our G Adventure Tour!!
We have found the Costa Ricans to be very friendly and seem happy and content. Most are small people so I fit right in!! It is like our summer vacation here right now. The kids have December and January off and the new school season starts Feb. 1st. Consequently we are seeing lots of kids and families around enjoying themselves. In general we are very impressed with the cleaniness of the country and the infrastructure. The highways and freeways are in good condition and modern. Costa Rica appears to be ahead of many of the Central American countries we have travelled to.
Our next stop was Monteverde/Santa Elena for a couple of days. On the way we stopped at a coffee plantation called El Trapiche where we had a hands on tour. The family also grows sugar cane and refines it as well as chocolate beans. We even made our own fudge! It was so interesting to see the whole process from the coffee plants and beans to roasting the final product ready for export. A highly recommended tour!
We settled into
our lodge type hotel in Santa Elena which is situated high in the mountains. In fact the cloud forest hike we took is 1700 m above sea level. It was a beautiful walk and saw many lovely plants and in particular the hundreds of orchid speices that grow wild in the reserve. Usually the tops of the trees are covered with clouds but we were lucky to have a very clear day. In these cloud forests there are no seasons, so everything stays the same throughout the year. Something new for me is the sloth, a very common furry animal that lives high in the trees. Apparently they sleep in the trees 20 out of the 24 hours a day.We have seen a lot of sloths as well as parrots, butterflies and hummingbirds.
What a contrast in weather from the hot climate in La Fortuna when we arrived in Monteverde! It was very windy and cool in the mornings and evenings and we had to wear jackets. The afternoons were fine with a tee shirt and shorts. Our next stop on the Pacific Ocean will be very hot again as we descend from the mountaineous region.
The area
of Monteverde was orginally settled by Quakers. They resisted development and tourism and consequently there only gravel roads that lead to the area to and try and reduce the amount of tourists etc. It really feels like you are in the backwoods!
Our next activity was certainly action packed. We went zip lining over the mountains and forest as well as rapelling off a steep platform and one of the most thrilling things was the tarazan swing!! It is hard to describe but we were literally swinging through the trees on a 50 ' rope. What a feeling!! There were 14 platforms and 14 ziplines the longest one being a kilometer long. The view was spectacular as we were zipping along above the forest canopy at a very fast speed.
Our tour guide Isaac (a young Costa Rican) always takes us out to fabulous places for dinner. Everything from the traditional Costa Rican meals to fresh salads, tasty tapas, pizzas and excellent seafood and beef. Smoothies are also popular and so good with the fresh fruit here.
Thanks for reading our blog. Hope all is well. Next stop . . . . . Manuel Antonio
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Marcy
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Fantastic!
Your holiday looks amazing so far Mallory! What wonderful places you are seeing. Way to go on the zip-line!