Monteverde Day 2

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Costa Rica 2013: Day 6:Monteverde Day 2:

This morning we ate our first breakfast in the hostel. Manoli had fresh fruit, coffee, and juice, all good and so fresh. I had some fruit and a decent pancake along with coffee and juice. While Manoli got ready for the day, I went to the ATM to get some cash for the day. Although the machine at Banco Nacional said it gave dollars, all it allowed me to get was Colones. Oh well, next time we'll use the Banco Costa Rica ATM. Our minivan showed up right on time for the trip to the El Trapiche tour we'd booked for 8:45am. Eventhough the tour cost $30 each, it was well worth it! Our excellent guide was one of the owner's sons and he was very informative and sociable. We learned all about coffee, from how the plants were grown, the beans harvested, then dried, shelled and roasted. They categorize the beans in 4 groups. The best ones are the ones that come out whole, with no splitting. Next are the ones that come out in halves, then the ones in thirds, then the pieces and undersized beans. These he says they sell to the Ticos, with a chuckle! Next, he explained all about growing cocoa plants. They don't have many of those plants right now, but are working on production. They didn't have any mature plants to show us, but we still saw how they process the cocoa seeds and were allowed to sample the dried seeds. I found them quite bitter, but Manoli said she liked the taste. We manually processed a small batch, running them through a grinder, the they added powdered sugar and manually mixed the cocoa and the sugar with a stone bowl and grinder. Now that mixture came out quite tasty! The last crop they explained was sugar cane. He explained how it was grown and harvested, then gave us each a piece to chew on. Very sweet! Then they showed us how they processed the sugar cane, using both an ox-driven press and a water-powered press. After that, we entered a cane sugar syrup processing room where we each got a blob of bowled syrup mixed with a little ground coffee. You have to mix it very quickly, and I mean VERY! When you've "kneaded" it fast enough and long enough, it turns into a sort of hard clump, almost like a rock. We each tasted some of our chunk. Wow, so sweet, reminding Manoli and I a bit of caramel. On our way to the final stop, our guide spotted a sloth in a tree above us. It was very hard to see, but I think I got a close up with my video camera. We hope to get some good photos either tomorrow or in Manuel Antonio. Our last stop was in a buidling where the owner's wife made us each fresh coffee and little tortillas with a meat and vegetable mix that was very good. The coffee was quite good too. We returned to the main office/shop, where we bought a bag of their coffee, then boarded our minivan for the trip back to Santa Elena. The whole tour last well over 2 hours and was really great.

By this time, it was almost 1pm, and we still hadn't eaten since breakfast. There was a bus going towards the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve that we could take to the Monteverde Cheese Factory, but the next bus wasn't until 3:30 and would be too late to take the tour at 2pm. So, we opted to wait for lunch and take the bus. After about a 20 minute ride, we got off in front of the Monteverde Cheese Factory, just before the entrance to the Reserve. The cheese factory was founded by 11 Quaker families from the United States in 1953. Becuase they refused to enlist for the Korean War, they were going to be jailed. Instead, they decided to "migrate" to Costa Rica, where the country's army had just been dissolved. They bought a large plot of land in the mountains and called it Monteverde, or Green Mountain. They realized after a while that they were going to need some way to make a living, so they got some information on how to make cheese and started the first commercial cheese factory in Costa Rica. That same factory now is the major producer of cheese for Costa Rica and several other Central American countries. The tour was fairly interesting, but not worth the $12 each we paid. The guide explained the history, then the process involved in making cheese. We did get to see the processing floor from above, but that was about it. After that, we were shown a slideshow of their history up until the factory was sold to a large corporation, then we sampled 5 different kinds of cheese. Like I said, it was interesting, and the cheese was quite good, but all in all not worth $12 each.

It had been raining most of the time since we left Santa Elena, and was still going strong at the end of the tour at about 3pm, so we opted to walk on a path along the side of the road to check out the commercial area we'd noted on the way their. We ended up at Stella's Bakery to wait for the bus back to Santa Elena at 4pm. Stella's Bakery appeared to have some good stuff, but all we had was coffee and capuccino, but keep in mind they close at 4pm. When we arrived back in town, we still hadn't had a real meal since breakfast, but between the chocolate, coffee, and cheese, we weren't starving, so we went back to the hostel to wait out the rain, hoping to have dinner at the Tree House restaurant. Unfortunately, it was still raining at 5:30, so we decided to find some place else to eat. One of the main reasons we wanted to eat dinner at the Tree Hosue was the fact that you could eat at tables outside under the branches of this giant tree, but with rain and wet tables and chairs, that wasn't going to happen. We ended up eating dinner at Soda El Campesino, a traditoinal Costa Rican place on the main triangle of Santa Elena. Manoli had Sopa Azteca, with chicken, avocado, etc. which she really enjoyed, and I had another Casado, this time with a pork chop. All of my plate was very good, including the pork chop which was had a very good flavor to it. Even the black beans and mixed veggies were quite good. We both had mango smoothies, and they include a small dessert of pound cake with ice cream. The total bill was 8,900 colones, or about $17.

We returned to the hostel, where we booked the Selvatura Hanging Bridges tour for 8am tomorrow, then watched a movie on NetFlix. We are looking forward to seeing a lot of cool birds and animals tomorrow.

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Photos

Hostel Room
Our room at Cabanas El Pueblo Hostel

Great View
The view from our balcony

Coffee Plant
A coffee plant regrowing

Hulling
Hulling coffee beans, the hard way

Picking Coffee Beans
J.C. ready to pick coffee beans

Old Fashion Transport
Manoli riding in an ox cart

Making Chocolate
A guide making chocolate the hard way

Sugar Cane Juice Extracting
Extracting the juice from sugar cane with oxen

Sugar Cane Juice Extracting Ver. 2
Extracting sugar cane juice with a water wheel

Making Syrup Candy
J.C. mixing the sugar cane syrup with coffee

The Finished Product
Coffee flavored sugar cane candy

Strangler Fig
A strangler fig in action

Soda El Campestino
Foggy, but hey, we're in a cloud forest

Comments

[Jo]

Tour Question
When you take your tours, does the guide speak English or Spanish?

[Zpet]

Guides
They almost always can speak English, but we leave it up to them to choose English or Spanish. One time the guide preferred English, so he could get more practice.