Waterfall Frolics, to a Pacific Paddle

After another cool refreshing sleep (thankfully non-air con days are behind us) we packed up, checked out and headed off to Don Jorge Farm, eager to learn about their coffee and cocoa bean plantations. Pablocio greeted us and began to show and talk us through some of the crops grown in the mineral ritch volcanic soil - Pink banana (not for human consumption but Toucan’s delight), turmeric and ginger roots, cocoa beans, achote (red seeds used as a natural dye, used as food colouring/ by indigenous people as war paint /Rach and I as lipstick). Our minds were blown by the pineapple plants (which take 9-10 months to produce fruit unless chemicals are used, but this makes the flavour less sweet).

Don Jorge have 140 cacao trees but 30% of their fruits are eaten by chocoholic squirrels as soon as the pods become overripe. We learned about their pollinators - a special breed of mosquito, humming birds, bees, fruit bats, etc, and tasted some freshly picked beans with a mango-like white outer pulp. Tasting the cocoa throughout the process was interesting, as it starts off so bitter, and only gets its chocolate taste after 2 weeks of fermentation, before they’re dried which makes them easier to ground to powder.
We enjoyed the demonstration, experimenting with chocolate flavours and making our own, as well as learning about arabica coffee only being able to be grown at altitude, and Robusta (coffee more typical of lowlands) being double the caffeine content.

We tasted sugar cane liquor (30% proof but just tasted like sweetened water!) coffee, chocolate (a mix of vanilla, pepper, cloves, cinnamon making xocolatl - the real recipe that mayans/aztecs used to use to prepare their hot chocolate drink, with the addition of red chilli). During this, we were also lucky to spot fleeting humming birds and Yiguirro (clay coloured thrush, Costa Rica’s national bird).

After spending a small fortune on local produce we took a short jungle stroll to the farm’s waterfall to cool off. It was beautiful and we were so lucky to have it all to ourselves.

Then, we hit the winding mountain roads of Caratera national park. I was a bit sickly after all the chocolate. Stopped for a juice and toasty halfway, just south of San Jose, then continued the second 1.5 hours to Jaco. There were several patches of questionable road covering, expertly manoeuvred and navigated by Rach and Dom, and as ever I brought the tunes. After climbing high into the hills with the many beautiful cloud soaked vistas, we descended back into lower ground, where the temperature rose again and the pacific eventually came into view.

We arrived in Jaco, checked into our lovely hostel for the night, then went for a sunset dip in the sea. It was unbelievably like diving into to a warm bath, and nice to watch the surfers catching the last of the daylight on the waves. Upon leaving, a huge avocado fell out of a tree in front of me in the courtyard - now that’s foraging 🤩 🥑

After a shower we all hit a bit of a wall, decided to nip into town for some food (delicious pizza and mushroom pasta) then an early night. Rach removed a baby lizard from the room, and all was well…Læs mere