Week 2

Cacao fruit, only the white part is for eating
the middle is the part gets made into
chocolate

Sloth!!!!!!

A lot happend this week, most notably during the week we had a dance class in which we learned salsa, a dance I can't remember the name of, and regatton. We have 2 more classes over the course of the semester so hopefully I will improve. This weekend we had our first outing as an entire group. We left very early friday morning and drove to Puerta Viejo in Limon provence. In Puerto Viejo we visited a cacao farm. Cacao is the plant chocolate is made from and this farm is one of the most productive in Costa Rica. Additionally cacao farms are known for encouraging biodiversity and sloths like to live in them. Consequently, within the first 2 hours of our adventure I tried cacao fruit which is unlike any fruit I have ever tasted but is quite delicious, and I got to hold a sloth!!!! It was adorable. We ended our visit to the chocolate farm with a tour of their refining factory in which cacao seeds are turned into chocolate liquor (the stage before the chocolate is refined into what we know it to be in the states). I purchased 1 kilo of this chocolate and am trying to think up what on earth I am going to do with it.

Following the chocolate farm we went to a banana plantation. This particular plantation was owned by Dole. The banana tour was fascinating  we watched the packaging process of taking the bananas from the bunch and cutting them into appropriate bundles etc. The most interesting part for me was how much was done to make the bananas look pretty, the people at the farm explained that measures such as placing cushions in between the bananas while they are growing does nothing for the flavor or to protect against bruising, it is simply so the bananas look absolutely perfect. Its extremely labor intensive and made me feel a little bad for only selecting perfect looking bananas. The banana trees themselves were amazing too, the entire life cycle of a banana tree is around 40 weeks so once the fruit has been cut off they cut down the tree and the now dead banana tree is fertilizer for the offspring which immediately takes its place. The whole experience felt like being on one of those tv shows that show you how things are made and I enjoyed going behind the scenes in banana production.

The longest bridge in Costa Rica, Tirrimbina

Immediately following the banana tour we drove 3 hours to Tirrimbina, a biological reserve in la Virgen in the north of CR close to the border. At Tirrimbina we had a bat tour in which we learned to disregard the bad reputation bats have and got to see some of the bats that had been captured by researchers earlier that night. The bats were actually super cute.

The next morning we went on a chocolate tour!! on the tour we stopped and went through every step of the chocolate making process sampling each stage of course. At the end I was gifted 15 chocolate seeds which would have bought me a chicken or something back when chocolate seeds were used as a form of currency. After the chocolate tour was over we went for a walk in the rainforest, ate some termites (they taste kinda like pepper and kinda like carrots), and hiked about until about 1 pm when it was time to return to San Jose.

Pretty Orchid

Today I slept in for the first time since Ive been here and went to an orchid fair with my host mom. It was ridiculously pretty, orchids are the national flower here and some truely unique ones grow here including one that has giraffe spots! After the fair we stopped by the local park to listen to a band play. They were a beatles cover band who didn't speak english so some of their lyrics really made my day such as their rendition of "Where is her son" as opposed to "Here comes the sun" We then returned to the house for afternoon coffee and a catch up on my new soap opera "El Clon" which is so incredible that I intend to dedicate an entire post to its glory when the season finale plays.