Last Trip

Today we took a trip to Poas Volcano and Lapaz Waterfall Gardens.

We headed out at seven in the morning for the volcano and it wasn't looking like the weather was going to be good to be able to see the volcano. We stopped for coffee and I bought some gifts for Anna, unless I want to keep them...haha.

The volcano is a basaltic volcano the stands at an altitude of 8,200 feet above see level. When we got up the volcano it was really cloudy and we couldn't see it. One of the guides, not ours, started yelling that the clouds were moving and just for us the clouds cleared and we could see the volcano perfectly. The guide said he had been waiting up there for 45 minutes, waiting for the clouds to move. It is often a rare occasion to see the volcano because it is so high above sea level and it is located near a cloud forest. The volcano wasn't anything I expected. It looked like a whole in the ground that smelled like sulfur and it had a pool that was emitting smoke (it's a prehistoric-looking hole that spews boiling sulfurous gases according to infrocostarica.com). I took so many pictures. We didn't stay up there very long because it was cold (first time I was really cold in Costa Rica and I had shorts on) and it started to rain more. The park also had a really nice gift shop where I only bought a few things because it was expensive.

After our trip to the volcano we went to see the waterfall. Our first stop when we arrived was to see the aviary where I was attacked by a bird who insisted on trying to eat my raincoat. It also stole one of my bobby pins. I thought I got it bad, but Peter was a target by the bird who liked me and a McCaw. I saw beautiful birds and took a lot of pictures. In that same area they had a monkey cage where there were tiny monkeys who liked to chew on my camera string; they had huge feet that were soft. These monkeys are from Brazil and are called the White Tufted Eared Marmosets.

Our next stop was the butterflies, but we had to walk through a pass that had Spider Monkeys and White Faced Monkeys in cages. The White Faced Monkeys were beating each other up and the Spider Monkeys were hiding. The Butterfly Observatory was one of the most beautiful things I have seen on this trip. There were thousands of butterflies flying everywhere. I took a lot of pictures, but than my camera battery died; that was really upsetting. I got to see butterflies hatching, butterflies who were drying their wigs, butterflies flying, EVERYTHING TO DO WITH BUTTERFLIES I SAW IT!

After the butterflies we went to the Hummingbird Garden. There were so many of them and they were zooming everywhere I thought I was going to get hit. You could here them zoom by you and you could get to see them really close, but they wouldn't let you touch. This is the only place in the world to find 24 hummingbird species that is documented.

Next, we went to the Serpentarium where we saw all different kinds of snakes. Some were large and didn't move and others were bright colored and they looked like they were ready to bite you, but they were in class cages. There were 30 species of snakes of Costa Rica there. Some of the most famous snakes were Bushmaster, Terciopelo, Green Vinesnake, and Golden Eyelash Viper.

After the snakes we got to visit Casuta de la Paz which is a house that is set up to look like the times 100 years ago in Costa Rica. This reproduction was built only using tools available to the average farmer a century ago. There was an ox-driven cart that a lot of us got pictures with, but the ox's smelled really bad.

Our next stop was the Ranarium where we saw frogs. I saw the two kinds of poison dart frogs that Costa Rica has, one is red and one is a pretty green. There were leaf frogs too that don't look like frogs when they are on a leaf because they squish down into the leaf and look like a slimy green blob.

We took our last nature hike last where I felt the spray of a 120 foot waterfall; it got me pretty wet. We started out at Templo water fall, walked to Magia Blanca (this is the magic water fall because if you look at it for 20 seconds than look away it looks like the trees are moving up towards the sky), than we moved on to Encantada, Escondida, and finally La Paz.

After our hike we shopped around at the gift shop than headed back home to San Jose.

This little trip was definitely focused on tourism, but I like that because it makes it easier to see all the beauty, but sadly they did have to damage the surroundings to make cement paths, bridges, and things like that. I enjoyed our last trip a lot even though it was gray outside and wet.

Last Weekend Adventure

Pool

About 4:40 in the morning

4:50 AM

View from my hotel door

The hotel

This crab was in Ronaldo's bathroom

Free bananas

Thursday we went to La Selva Biological Station and stayed the night. The Next morning we went to the Chiquita plantation and after that we headed to Puerto Viejo and spent one night there. We had fairly nice rooms, but three of the guys got this huge suite that had two bedrooms, two baths, and a kitchen.
Saturday morning we headed out to the Caribbean to go snorkeling. It was a lot shallower than where we had snorkeled before and you could see the coral reefs clearer. I saw them so clear that I even hit one with my knee when the tide moved.
After snorkeling we went to Manzanillo and stayed at the most beautiful resort that was right on the coast of the Caribbean. The rooms had the coolest windows that were mirrors looking into the room from the outside and windows looking out in the inside. They had nice bathrooms with hot water and some of the bathrooms had a bidet. Not only did we have the Caribbean right outside our doors, but we also had a nice pool.
The first night I stayed up all night to wait for the sun to rise with Diane, Steph, Bob, PJ, Even, and Steve and it went from pitch black to sunny from 4:40 to about 5:30. Lucky us, there were clouds and we didn’t get to experience much.
The next day we took a hike out to this lookout point that was close to Panama. The rest of the day there was a lot of sleeping and a little bit of rain. That night Peter made a bonfire on the beach and I opened up another coconut. This time it took me a lot longer because I didn’t use a rock. I used my pocket knife and I wouldn’t let anyone help me!
Monday we left to go back to San Jose. This trip we watched all three Bourne movies, Oceans 13, and Even Almighty on the bus to give you a sense of how long our rides were.

La Selva

My guide with a bird's nest in his hand

Poison dart frog

Huge spider

Bird that didn't move

Our home for the night

We started off our trip for our last weekend at La Selva Biological Station on Thursday.
La Selva is situated at the joining together of two major rivers in the Caribbean lowlands of northern Costa Rica. It comprises 3,900 acres of tropical wet forests and disturbed lands. The Station is bordered on the south by Braulio Carrillo National Park (closest national park to San Jose). The station is a protected area as well where biologists/researchers study the animals and plants and hope to increase the biodiversity of Costa Rica by keeping a large part of Costa Rica protected. They figure out how plants and animals behave in their surroundings. While we were there I went on three nature hikes, one of them was at night without a guide! I learned a lot more about the rainforest and its animals and plants while I was there by Roberto and my guide from La Selva.
We saw a lot of poison dart frogs that were red, monkeys that put on a show for us, and wild pigs with their babies called peccaries (?) that were really tame.
We learned about the plants that live on other plants (Epiphytes) and strangler fig trees (trees that grow around other trees until they cover the whole three and it dies from lack of sunlight).
La Selva has four major tropical life zones and protects a large portion of Costa Rica’s biodiversity including more than half of the 886 species of birds, home to 1850 species of vascular plant flora, thousands of mammals, reptiles, insects and amphibians.
There are two equipped laboratories at La Sleva. La Selva can sleep 80 people in six-person eco-dormitory rooms and cabins (we got to sleep in the turtle cabins). There is a huge bridge that connects the two parts of La Selva. La Selva is one of the world's premier sites at which to conduct ecosystem research according to the Organization of Tropical Studies website.
La Selva's combination of protected ecosystems and laboratory facilities is unique. There is an extensive trail system of more than 50 kilometers, which provides access to a wide range of different biodiversities. The entire property has been topographically surveyed and there are markers ever 50 meters, so, it´s hard to get lost.

Cafe Britt is Everywhere!

As I have been traveling around Costa Rica the one thing that I see pretty much everywhere is Cafe Britt coffee. You can buy it in grocery stores, tourist shops; I even saw it in clothing stores. My host family drinks 1804 coffee, it´s another big coffee I see around. Although coffee is still an important drink, many Costa Ricans prefer herbal teas. According to Culture Shock, Ticos still have one of the highest per capita caffeine consumption rates in the world. I can easily get coffee at anytime. Coffee dispensers can be found in banks, supermarkets, school, etc.
Coffee is used as one of the many remedies that Costa Ricans have. Coffee is used as a migraine cure and it apparently opens up constricted blood vessels in the brain.
According to Cafe Britt, a cup of coffee can last 20 minutes and should never be re-heated. Although this is a sin to Cafe Britt, many Ticos re-heat their coffee and even use instant coffee. There are no foreign brands of coffee sold in Costa Rica according to Culture Shock. Coffee in Costa Rica often tastes great because it is generally grown over a mile above sea level, where low air pressure results in hard beans. Soft beans burn when roasted.
Costa Ricans almost entirely rely on Nicaraguan`s to work for them. Young Ticos are no longer interested in the hard work and low pay.
The process of red coffee berry picking takes a week: pressing, peeling, fermenting, sun drying, raking and roasting at about 250 degrees Celsius. The longest roast is called a French roast.

Little Girl

All the bad bananas

Plastic bags on the bananas

Chiquita is a Spanish word used to describe a little girl.
The Chiquita banana plantation that is in Costa Rica has been practicing to be more sustainable for four years with the Nature and Community Project. The Chiquita plantation has tall bushes around their plantation to keep pesticides inside the plantation. There are signs around the plantation that say keep out when they are spraying the pesticides. Chiquita uses harmful pesticides and the workers that have more contact with them have to get blood tests every three months to make sure they have proper levels. Unlike many other plantations in Costa Rica, Chiquita takes proper care of their workers and it is their number one priority to keep their workers safe from the pesticides. All workers are trained in appropriate agricultural practices, occupational safety and proper use of protective equipment.
How Chiquita packs their bananas: Banana stems arrive at the packing station where they are counted, weighed, and examined by quality inspectors. Plastic bags and twine are separated and compacted to be recycled. In the dehandling area, banana hands are cut off the stems and placed into water tanks. The fruit that meets Chiquita specifications is cut into clusters of four to eight bananas. Bananas with blemishes are processed into puree, and the rest is sent to organic waste composting trenches. The fruit is washed in water tanks for ten minutes to eliminate latex residues that can stain the fruit. Water that leaves the tanks passes through a solid waste trap, which prevents solids from reaching the water drainage systems. Clusters of bananas weighing a total of 18 kg (40 lbs), the equivalent of a box, are placed on trays where workers gently affix the Chiquita labels. The tray is passed through a final shower to seal the cuts and prevent crown rot. The fruit is packed and weighed. Boxes are placed on pallets and stamped with a traceability code. Recycled plastic strips protect the corners of the boxes. Plants are placed in containers, which are loaded into Chiquita´s great white fleet ships and transported to the various markets.
The Nature and Community Project is a joint effort by Chiquita, the Swiss retailer Migros, GTZ, Rainforest Alliance and the local community to preserve 100 hectares (250 acres) of rainforest, promote environmental awareness through education and provide additional income opportunities for the community. The Nogua Group is one of the small businesses created to generate income for this community. This group is the one that did a play presentation for us.
Chiquita employs 25,000 people and owns approximately 37,000 acres of banana farms in Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras and Guatemala. Workers in Chiquita farms enjoy higher living standards than other agricultural workers.
Although Chiquita is not 100% sustainable they are trying to make a better situation with what they are doing. The fertilizers they use are approved by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the European Union regulatory authorities. Since 2000, Chiquita in Costa Rica has achieved 100% Rainforest Alliance certification.
Another thing that Chiquita does to be more environmentally responsible is that is has protected land close to their plantation that is connected to other protected areas. It also has planted at least one million trees along rivers, lakes, roads, and residential areas.
With expanding liabilities, in the future Chiquita may be liable for destroying Costa Rica's environment from pesticides. Chiquita introduced bananas into an environment that cannot handle them so they force bananas to work by using pesticides which makes bananas a damaging plant.

Bananas Destroy Lowland Forests

Bananas are another major source of income and are now bringing in twice as much money as coffee. According to Culture Shock, "Costa Rica is the second biggest banana producer in the world after Ecuador."
Banana farming requires a lot of land to be profitable. Many lowland forests have been destroyed because bananas need flat and moist land. Bananas are native to Asia. Because bananas need a lot of land there aren't small family farmers who can sell their bananas worldwide. This led to the domination by big, foreign-owned companies with local workers.
Banana farming created too much water build up so they had to create irrigation systems. This helps spread the pesticides that are sprayed on the bananas into the rivers, which go to the ocean.
Plastic bags are put over the bananas because they need shade and to keep the bugs off. If they hadn't cut down all the tropical trees from the forest they may have had enough shade to please the bananas. Also, don't they use gross pesticides to kill off the bugs? Because bananas are native to Asia they are not used to the bugs and fungus in Costa Rica. This is why they have to use so many pesticides on the plants. The plastic bags used to be a big problem because they weren't recycled properly and drifted into the ocean. Today, there are better recycling programs and some of the bags are created to be biodegradable. More harmful pesticides cause cancer and sterilization.
Six months after the banana plant is planted a large flowering stem emerges which is where the fruit comes from. One stem contains between 120 to 150 bananas. The banana fruits are bagged about two weeks old. The bananas are ready to harvest about 12 weeks after bagging.
Trivia: the average person in the US eats more than 25 pounds of bananas each year.

Coffee is Everywhere or Not

The role of coffee in Costa Rica has changed dramatically. Fifty years ago coffee was so recognized that tearing out a coffee field would have devastated the country. According to Culture Shock when coffee prices rose after WW II, dozens of counties rushed to plant coffee, the worlds second biggest dollar commodity after oil. Soon supply was greater than demand and price fell dramatically, which they never really have recovered.
Now, many farmers say that the cost of producing coffee is more than what they earn from it. Hundreds of fields have been ripped out. Today, coffee only covers 2% of the land and what used to be rich coffee land is now cemented over because of the rapid population growth. This large cemented area is where I live half of the time, San Jose.
Some other former coffee fields have been planted over with higher earning ornamental plants and ferns. This diversifies the economy.