Today we did a "3 in one" tour and it was amazing. We were picked up right in front of our hotel (which was really appreciated after the craziness yesterday) and we had a wonderful guide for the day. He studied in the States and then taught English for 2 years in Costa Rica before going into tourism for the last 30 years because, of course, there's more money in it than teaching! He was such an excellent guide and he answered so many questions for me. We talked about how Costa Rica doesn't have an army (instead they spend money on their schools and they have the 2nd highest literacy rate in Latin America), their healthcare system, when children learn foreign languages in school, how schools are set up, welfare, unemployment, etc. I loved hearing his perspective on everything and it was extremely informative. Anyway, here's what we did:
Coffee Farm Tour
Our first stop was the Doka Coffee Farm, which actually supplies Starbucks with about 55% of its coffee. We had breakfast there (including coffee, of course!) and then we walked around and saw how the coffee goes from being a seed to coffee in your cup. Basically, they grow the plants, pick the berries (now happens to be harvest time - schools here have their break from December-February for harvesting coffee), peel them and pull out the beans, dry the beans, roast the beans, and grind them up to make coffee. We got to see every one of the steps in that process.
Coffee Berries - the beans are inside
Workers get $2 for every basket this size that they fill.
Workers get $2 for every basket this size that they fill.
Poas Volcano
Next, we drove to the Poas Volcano, one of 7 active volcanoes in Costa Rica. (We're going to another one tomorrow.) The guide said that it's almost always cloudy at the top - sometimes you can't even see 5 feet in front of you. Well, once again we got lucky and had perfect weather so we got to see right into the crater. It was amazing! (And windy!)
La Paz Waterfalls and Gardens
Finally, we went to La Paz. It's a really nice park with beautiful waterfalls. First we walked around a butterfly garden, an aviary, a hummingbird garden, and an insect display. After a delicious buffet lunch we saw some frogs and orchids (funny combination, I know) and then we walked down a million steps to see three waterfalls. Fortunately, there was a bus at the bottom to bring us back up. :)
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