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Costa Rica 2013: Day 13: Manuel Antonio Day 3:
This morning is the Spices Tour we signed up for last night. We were up and ready long before the minivan arrived at 8:50 to take us to the farm. I don't think I mentioned that we were a bit hesitant about taking this tour, due to the cost of $50 each, but it sounded very interesting, and Manoli wasn't all that excited about the other tours available, so we went for it. When they picked us up, there was already a young couple in the minivan, going on the tour with us. We traveled quite a ways out of town to their farm, Villa Vainilla. It is a well-known, recognized biodersity operation with a lot of write-ups expounding on it's virtues. They are a major producer of vanilla for the region, plus grow a good many other spices, coffee, and cocoa. First, we were given a very good explanation of vanilla and how it was grown and processed, explaining the reason why it is so expensive. Each flower has to be hand-pollinated in order to produce the bean pods. Vanilla is actually a vine in the orchid family. Besides the
Waiting on the Tour
The tour getting ready to startlabor-intensive pollination, the pods when harvested have to be put out in the sun each day, then brought in at night, for months! Their are a couple of other steps in the process after that, but I don't remember them all. After the explanation on vanilla, our hostess showed and explained the growing and processing of cocoa, another of their main crops. Next, she explained a bit about black and white pepper, cardimon, and allspice, all of which they grow on their farm. We each got to bite into a pepper berry to see how potent it was. Wow, it was REALLY spicey! Finally, she explained their final crop, cinnamon. I never realized where cinnamon came from until then. There is a type of wood that they cut down, then remove the outer bark. After that, there is a layer just below the bark that is shaved off to make cinnamon. It was quite amazing. We each got a fresh piece to chew on. It was as tasty as the final, aged product, but it still tasted like cinnamon. She also told us that there are two varieties, the real thing from Ceylon, and another sort of imitation that most
Vanilla
Our hostess explaining vanilla people think is real cinnamon. They grow and harvest the real thing. After the trunk has been cut back, it regrows from the stump. They sell the shaved wood to a local restaurant to use in their oven to give a distinct flavor to their meat.
After all the explanations, we went for a walk through their fields. Our hostess pointed out all the various plants she'd explained, along with showing us a number of other pretty flowers and bromelaids they grow to keep the insects off their harvest. Sort of a natural insecticide! It was amazing to see all those vines everywhere, many with pods getting close to harvest time. It was too late in the season to see any of the actual flowers. We ended our walk at a nice little veranda overlooking the valley where we sampled several things. First, we had a tea made from cinnamon, which I found to be rather weak tasting, but she said it had some very good medicinal properties, such as lower cholesterol and such. Next, we each had a little bowl of vanilla cheesecake, then some vanilla ice cream with a delicious chocolate and pepper cookies. This was followed
by a cup of hot cocoa with a chocolate nib cookie. Everything was very good, except for the cocoa. It wasn't sweet enough to be enjoyable. Maybe with some sugar added.
After the sampling, we walked back near the start where we paid our tour and were offered some of their products. Manoli bought 4 small jars of their pure vanilla extract and one of the beans. The minivan then took us back to our room, arriving around noon or so. All in all, I think it was an excellent tour, and worth the $50 each. We'd talked to the other couple during the trip and decided to check out their recommended restaruant, El Tipico, and cafe, Emilio's. We ended up eating lunch on the back porch of Emilio's, overlooking the beach below. We both had stuffed pitas. Manoli had the felafel and I had a salmon pita. Both pitas were delicous, generously stuffed, and not very expensive. After lunch, we walked a ways down a side road near our room, but it kept going down and down, so we never reached the beach at the bottom.
When we returned from our walk, we relaxed a while in
the room, watching TV. Aroudn 7pm, we decided to go the neat restaurant we'd seen before called El Avion. An entire plane, some sort of WWII bomber I think, had a restaurant built under and around it. Although the road seemed rather empty, when we got to the restaurant, it was packed. We finally found a table on the back patio overlooking the valley down to the beach. I hate to complain, but I can't remember the last time we'd gotten such slow service. we sat at the table several minutes before they cleared the plates away from the previous diners, then waited another 10 or 15 minutes for a waiter, then anther 15 minutes or so before the food arrived. Manoli wasn't that hungry, so we shared a plate of Rotini Turrialba, me with a Coke and Manoli with a smoothie. The pasta was delicous, some of best pasta I've ever had, and not that expensive at 5,700 colones.
After dinner, we returned to the room and watched some more TV. Tomorrow we take the "direct" (I'm hoping it really is direct) bus from here to San Jose, then a bus from their to Alajuela and our first
hostel, Maleku Hostel, where we'll spend two more nights before returning home.
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