Costa rico

Our day began with an historian’s lecture about Costa Rican history. Then we left San Jose to visit the Dota coffee cooperative where we to toured the production process and visited fields where coffee grows. Though I mostly stopped drinking coffee at home, I am enjoying it here and had some for breakfast and then more samples at the Dota facility. We learned about natural and machine processes, and honey processed coffee - that’s when the beans are dried without first being washed, leaving sticky cartilage (like honey) behind, making for a more complex flavor with notes of floral aromatics and fruit, though we didn’t get to taste the “honey coffee”. After lunch we headed to the Savegre Hotel Nature Reserve, driving through a cloud forest. The lodge is in a valley, and access is via a very steep and windy road full of switchbacks. About half way down the road, cars were stopped because a truck that had careened off the road two days prior was being extricated and the road was blocked. We waited for a little over an hour while several large flatbeds pulled it up and out. See photo! (It reminded me of a similar experience during our family trip to CR in 2007, when a vehicle blocked a bridge we had to cross to get back to San Jose for our return flight.) The lodge where we are staying is quite remote and is known for its proximity to the elusive Respondent Quitzel, a colorful bird with really long and dramatic tail feathers. With hopes to spot one, we will be leaving our lodge at 5:20 am! If we don’t catch a site of the special bird, we will at least take a nature walk on trails leading to a 400-year old oak forest. It is cool and rainy here this evening. Our guide, Jose, is excellent: hard working to take care of us, and full of information while we ride the bus (today for about 3 hours, broken up). Our bus driver is excellent, too, and I didn’t worry as he navigated the challenging drive into the valley.Read more