Special Coffee Edition

     The coffee season blog wouldn't be complete until we got to taste the coffee, and so it was, last weekend was the big Feria de Cafe, concluding with the Feria de Bendición de la Tierra.  After a big truckload of dirt was blessed by the priests, and people collected bagsful of dirt to take home (along the lines of holy water), there was a little parade of trucks, each carrying a representation of their community's bounty, from Los Santos (lots of towns w/ saints' names were represented).

                                                            Camion de Santa Marta
This was a BIG fair, complete w/ rides for the kids (jugetes mecánico), food, artensans' crafts for sale, coffee tasting and clowns (all that was lacking was the Fat Tire)!

 The traditional oxen and cart, which carried the coffee beans in the 'old' days.

 We got our hand at picking coffee last week.  Vilma's coffee plants are on the side of a rather steep hill, without much of a "calle" (street) for walking, which is what they call the narrow paths where they plant the coffee.  I take it the professional coffee pickers don't have so much trouble staying on the 'calle'.  Vilma has a very small section of land dedicated to coffee, so the 3 of us were finished in 4 hrs., and had collected about 2 laundry sized baskets full.  Vilma figures, we would have earned $2 total for our work that day.  It certainly makes you appreciate that cup of coffee all the more!  That brings our coffee education full circle, though I'm sure we'll continue to find new types of coffee to try. There are Coffee Fairs that continue in different towns around Costa Rica throughout the year, and we heard from one man who works for the Gov't of CR, marketing and certifying coffee, that the one of the biggest Coffee Fairs in the world is in Seattle in April.  There are people in San Jose and other parts of CR who drink Bush Light (Cafe Rey), but I've never seen it served anywhere in Los Santos.  San Marcos and the other pueblos in Los Santos  is much like the Ft. Collins of Costa Rica when it comes to coffee production and growing.  They take great pride in their coffees and boast that theirs is very unique and either grown or produced in a way that makes it stand out.  Their are many family run micro-breweries here, I mean coffee producers, and then there are the giants, the big Cooperativa de Tarrazú(New Belgium).  Most of the coffees from this region are IPA's, but I'm not a fan of the bitter, acidic coffee taste, so I was very happy at the Coffee Fair, to find some milder, but still very rich tasting coffees!  By the way, some of my favorites are Buen Dia (good blend, but mild, along the lines of Sunshine Wheat), La Cumbre and Cerro Alto, my new favorites, the 1554 of coffees; also true in the way that as one would  never be able to find these coffees in the states; one would never be able to find these beers in Costa Rica).  (I'm sure there are technical terms for all of this, but I haven't taken the 'coffee cupping' classes or read the book yet!  They all say that the best coffee is exported to US, Europe and Japan, so it's possible we haven't even tasted the best that Tarrazú has to offer.  Coffee picking will continue into March in this area and then the migrant workers will move on or return to their homelands.

The banana bunches(seen above) are from the trees that shade the coffee, so we get to enjoy both the products of her backyard produce, though she takes her coffee beans to a coop for production. Vilma also has limón trees, which are a cross between an orange and a lemon.  I learned of a great, new drink, which you can also easily try back in the states if you have molasses.  I didn't know that molasses came directly from sugar cane(duh).   Well, they cut the top off the sugar cane plant, which is called "tapa de caña", also called 'rana' (frog) de caña (no one seems to know how the name frog got in there) and looks like brown sugar; add a small chunk to water and 1/2 of a limón and you have a refreshing sweet drink called Aqua Dulce!  When I finish my bottle of 'miel de caña", I'm going to buy a piece of this 'tapa', add water to it in a container and I'll have my own, fresh, organic molasses, without preservatives!

                                                       "Tapa de Caña"

Francis and I spent 3 days on the Caribbean Coast over Christmas and hiked on a coastal trail in Cahuita Nat'l Park.  It was a beautiful day and luckily a guide on the trail pointed out a sleeping Eyelash Viper on a leaf overhanging the shore.

The little yellow snake on this leaf is the Eyelash Viper.

The guide didn't need to point out this Capuchin Monkey, because he came down to the shore where we were sitting, and having just pulled out a bag of fruit for a snack, the 'mono', swiped the whole bag and ran off!  The guide threw his water bottle at the monkey and recovered my fruit, but lost his water bottle!

 We walked back from visiting friends in a nearby pueblo this week and spotted this rainbow on our way, it dropped right into San Marcos de Tarrazú!
    We're headed to San Jose for 5 days of training, reporting on our project plans and various insundry other PC topics, so I'm sure there won't be much to write about following that week, but after that we're headed to Tarcoles again(Pacific coast), to help other PCVs with their English Camp, before school starts up again the 2nd wk. of February. Prior to school starting, we're going to hold our own version of an English Club, for those who have a foundation of English, but just need conversation to practice.  We were asked to hold the "club", at the local academia (it's a private school where they teach English, among other subjects), and we agreed as long as we can invite whomever we want and there's no charge.  However, if the library opens back up again since it's closure for the holidays, our first choice will be to hold the club there.
     Friends and family are keeping us posted on weather and beautiful snowshoeing and skiing (hut) trips in the mountains!  While I miss those awesome adventures in the snowy mountains of Colorado and N.Carolina, I'm going to enjoy our beautiful summer here in Costa Rica, while it lasts!  I do love seeing those photos and hearing those stories though, knowing that you all are also taking full advantage of the wonderful access to the 4 seasons and beautiful nature of the USA, so keep 'em coming!
Amor y abrazos!    Chris