Day 24: Monteverde

Sunday, April 21st, 2019

Day 9 of Full Costa Rica adventure by Bamba Experience

Todays Bamba itinerary:

“El Trapiche tour

At 14:40 hrs you will be picked up at El Establo Mountain Hotel, Monteverde for your 3 hrs El Trapiche tour. After the tour you will be brought back to your hotel.

During the tour of the farm you will encounter a small tilapia pond, plantations of bananas, plantains, arracache, macadamia, oranges, sugarcane and coffee.

As you walk around the farm, you will learn about the process involved in sugarcane cultivation, natural history and also the opportunity to taste the sugarcane and its derivatives. Later you will learn about the coffee process, from planting to crushing, peeling and roasting. After the walk, you’re invited to make a short trip in an oxen cart (not obligatory) that will take you to the building where the cocoa process is shown. Learn about the process of cocoa from different stages, starting with a brief explanation of how the tree develops, its pollination, how to get the fruit, seed fermentation, drying, roasting and grinding cocoa, and of course how to obtain delicious chocolate. To finish the tour you will learn how to process different types of sugarcane products, such as brown sugar, traditional “perica” or “sobado” (fudge), caramel and “guaro“ (cane liquor).

During the tour you will have the opportunity to interact and make your own candy before tasting a ”gallo de arracache” and an exquisite cup of coffee, lemonade or aguadulce.

After the tour, drop-off at your accommodation in Monteverde.”

We asked yesterday at the reception for breakfast. They provide in the hotel restaurant from buffet for USD 20 per person. Opposite the hotel entrance is a bakery with big letters “breakfast” in the window. Since the hotel is good booked and Monteverde is well known for the Quakers and their cooking, we decide to go with the bakery.

Breakfast there is good and cheap. Real coffee from a Jura, good Granola, sensational bakery. We sit until 10:00.

We booked yesterday a tour with a guide in the biological cloud forest reserve of monteverde, one of the first ecological reserves of costa rica with extremely high biodiversity over 6 ecological zones, covering 10.500 hectars land. The tour starts at 10:00 am, pick up at the hotel.

We are alone on the tour. The guide comes with a huge binocular on a manfrotto tripod. A driver brings us up to the entrance, thd guide buys the tickets and we start.

Right behind the entrace a super tiny green snake, which I cannot spot with eyes only, the guide can, puts the binocular in position within seconds and shows. We learn why every guide here has an expensive binocular + tripod + laser pointer. We walk through the beautiful cloud forest and spot lot of animals, aguti back, snakes, birds, … and finally a Quetzal, Atztec bird of the gods.

Right behind the entrance an aguti crosses our path. I am to slow. It is only enough for a back of an aguti.

We walk on. A tucan hidden in a tree

The guide spots a super tiny green snake. I cannot see with free eye. With the binocular I can.

The forest is not really cloudy, but super beautiful.

As we talk a lot about the Quetzal, he spots one. He is super happy as this is very seldom, he says.

The guide is super informative, and considers himself lucky. At the end of the tour we wait at a hummingsbird place until the driver comes and picks us up. I talk a little bit, while waiting. He has got no driving license, he is in the 40ies, but very afraid of machines … There are a lot of motorbikes here, most of the tuned Suzuki gn125, I did my license on one of them, 28 years ago.

We get back and get coffee and cake in the breakfast shop.

Then I sleep until we get picked up for the El Trapiche tour by a minibus. The tour is interesting, engaging, well organized, worth it. The guide, son of the owner, explains about sugar cane, coffee, cacao. Seeding, planting, harvesting, production. We do our own candies and taste different kinds of coffee with a extensive explanation about variants, quality, roast grade, creme and tasting competitions …