In the afternoon after our ziplining at Selvatura Park, our tour itinerary included an excursion to Cafe Monteverde to see how coffee is grown and roasted in Costa Rica.
On a discount tour, Julie and I have a certain amount of skepticism regarding included excursions that might devolve into an extended shopping trip.
We could have opted out and used that time to explore our Hotel Establo Mountain Hotel's expansive, park-like grounds, but coffee is something we enjoy daily year-round, so why not go to learn more about how it is produced?
After all, included excursions are free. Even when there is a sales pitch and extended shopping time at the end, these excursions usually are mostly interesting to me.
Everyone in our tour group participated in the outing. Our guide at the plantation was a descendent of Quakers who had been part of a large migration of farmers from Alabama and Pennsylvania to Costa Rica in the 1950's. She told us all about how coffee is grown while showing us around the property.
We were encouraged to pick ripe berries for ourselves and experience how difficult it is to determine ripeness and pick the right ones without damaging them.
Nicaraguan seasonal workers provide most of the field labor at Cafe Monteverde and other plantations. The workers are paid by the bag. Based on our rate of picking, we would not earn much beyond the provided room and board during the season.
While we enjoyed pleasant, sunny weather this day, Costa Rica is very close to the Equator, so you know there are some scorching hot days in the field. It's hard work for meager pay, but the Nicaraguans are happy to have the opportunity.
It's a good reminder of how shallow complaints about first world jobs can be.
We learned about the agricultural methods used by Cafe Monteverde to enrich the soil. They don't claim to be organic, saying that is too inefficient.
Frankly, no, but the concepts were interesting and worth learning about.
Eventually, we went to a gift shop that doubled as a tasting room, where our coffee guide served various roasts of coffee and asked if we could recognize subtle differences in taste.
Most who prided themselves on sophisticated coffee palates, boasting about grinding their own beans and their expensive espresso machines or complicated brewing methods seemed to prefer darker roasts, while Julie and I liked the medium roast better.
In response to what I thought a rather silly question about which had higher caffeine, our plantation guide revealed that darker roast coffees are lower in caffeine than lighter roasts. That was the most mind-blowing fact of the coffee tour, one I was relatively sure must be wrong. Upon double-checking it this morning, it turns out that our plantation guide was right!
Yes, drinking that French Roast that to me tastes like someone cleaned an ash tray with the water is lower in caffeine than a nice medium roast like we prefer!
Emphasis was placed throughout the tour on the fact that all of Costa Rica, by national decree, grows only the best Arabica coffee beans in order to become synonymous with quality coffee. Of course, Cafe Monteverde believes theirs is the very best coffee of all.
After the tasting, most of our group began buying souvenirs, including bags of whole coffee beans for gifts or to grind back home for their own complex coffee making methods, whether espresso machine, French Press or what to me seems like a rather absurdly meticulous hand pour method.
At home, we drink pre-ground Don Franisco Vanilla Nut Medium Roast Coffee out of cans, which does not specify Costa Rica or any other particular country as the source of their beans. We use a drip coffee maker, not the cheapest but certainly not the best.
Looking carefully at the label on Don Francisco's coffee can this morning, I am proud to say that they use only 100% Arabica beans. I guess despite the foo-foo vanilla nut twist (which tastes really good with Splenda and milk), our natural taste is for Arabica beans, though not claiming to be exclusively grown in Costa Rica.
However, I will repeat that Costa Rican coffee was excellent throughout our vacation.
That evening, we returned to the lounge for a happy hour sunset.
More of our tour group were there for sunset. The colors weren't quite as spectacular as the prior evening, but the view was still quite lovely.
Julie again had dry, white wine, while I savored a Negroni.
After nightfall, we joined the group for an included dinner at a nearby restaurant in Monteverde.
We remember it being a nicely plated meal with generous helpings of excellent dishes in a lovely restaurant, but the specific details have slipped away.
We dined sharing a table with Steve and Maureen, the couple from Buck's County, Pennsylvania, whom we sat by at our group dinner in La Fortuna. We continued conversations, finding a lot of common ground.
For what it is worth, our tour also included lunch included this day, but I don't recall where or what that was. Life unfolds so quickly that sometimes you have to take notes or you lose track. I usually take pictures as shorthand, but I wasn't as diligent as I should have been.
The next morning, we arose early and went outside to take in the panoramic views once more.
An odd little creature --- a White-Nosed Coati --- scampered by outside our room, a final reminder that we had been staying in a Cloud Forest among wildlife.
Our bus brought us to the lobby at the base of the mountain for breakfast. The restaurant was surprisingly crowded. Still, we enjoyed another wonderful buffet breakfast replete with hot dishes and an eggs-to-order bar, as we had the prior day.
When we were finishing our second meals, a new tour bus from a competitor arrived. The dining room was already close to capacity. A server asked us if we could leave our table, but we weren't quite finished, so we lingered a bit longer.
A few minutes later, but still before our scheduled pickup time, we went to wait for our bus. It wasn't quite a "bum's rush," as my dad used to call it, but it was close, and not a good way to end what had otherwise been an exemplary stay. Rather than sitting by the curb to await our bus, Julie and I went upstairs to a pleasant sitting area.
Soon, we were on the road again, this time heading to Manuel Antonio State Park.
With our first morning in Monteverde free, we could have explored El Establo's optional tours. Birdwatching, Cloud Forest Hike and Treetop Canopy Ziplining were all available without leaving the hotel's property. El Establo also sells other excursions around the area at their tour desk. The hotel could be a very nice one-stop destination.
Our tour company offered two tempting optional excursions for purchase in advance with our official itinerary. Julie and I purchased their Canopy Tour, a ziplining adventure in Selvatura Park. The other optional excursion was a Hanging Bridge Tour in the same park. We could have opted for both.
Ziplining was the more physically difficult choice, so more people opted for Hanging Bridges. At lunch the prior day, our new friend Barry mentioned that they had signed up for every optional excursion, because he didn't want to miss anything. Even as we rode the bus to Selvatura Park, Harriet expressed doubts that she would actually try ziplining.
In the end, she went for it, and they were part of our subgroup.
At registration where we signed waivers, Julie and I passed on renting GoPros and also on purchasing photos. The photographer nonetheless took some photos. With our phones carefully tucked away --- we didn't want to search the thick rainforest below if we dropped one --- we couldn't take any photos ziplining. In the end, we bought one printed photo and digital downloads used in this post.
This was definitely the most physically challenging zipline course we've ever taken. We hiked uphill between platforms.
During one particularly long gap, Julie, Harriet, Barry and I got so far ahead of the rest of our group that after waiting five minutes, I hiked back down a hundred yards or more to make sure we hadn't missed a platform.
I finally saw the stragglers (our guides and most of our group, actually), and they said they were simply struggling with the climb. One of the other couples from our group were maybe ten years younger than us, but the husband had bad knees.
He told me later that before he booked, he revealed that he had knee problems, and "they" told him that it would be no problem, because ziplining was just laying back and riding. I don't think that has been the case anywhere we've ziplined.
To get to the zipline cables, we climbed a total of 27 flights of steps up to platforms where we would then lay back and ride down. It was exhausting.
For the guy with the knee problems, the climbs were nearly impossible. By the end, his knees wouldn't bend at all, so he kind of climbed the stairs like Frankenstein. Somehow, he made it through. The next day, he surprisingly seemed no worse for wear.
All the hard work was worth it --- for us, at least --- because Selvatura Park truly has a terrific zipline course soaring over the dense jungle and occasional rivers.
At one platform, one of our zipline guides pointed out majestic Arenal Volcano, which we had missed the day before on our hike in La Fortuna.
Our favorite zipline ride was when we were allowed to go tandem. Julie and I hooked on the same line to ride down together as a couple. I would really like to do the whole course that way.
Near the end, we were given the chance to try the Tarzan Swing. I did it, and it was great fun.
The guides hooked my harness onto a hanging "vine," and like a bungee drop, I stepped off from a perfectly good platform to go flying through the air with the greatest of ease. I swung out over a cliff with scenic canyon vistas beyond, then at the top of the pendulum arc where my momentum took me, I swung back the other way.
It's good that Julie couldn't dig out her phone to take a video, because my Tarzan yell was much diminished from when I was a little boy who loved watching TV re-runs of those old Johnny Weismuller movies. Sadly, I knew how pathetic I sounded as soon as I started bellowing, so I soon stopped, but the swinging action was a blast. I went back and forth a few times.
When we finished, we could probably have still signed up to join the Hanging Bridges, but Julie and I were happy to be going back to our eco-resort instead.
Barry and Harriet had signed up for every optional excursion, of course, so they soldiered on. Signing up is a good way to compel yourself to push forward. Later, they revealed that the zipline was much better, but I didn't sense they regretted doing the Hanging Bridges, as tired as they were.
Harriet, who had done the entire zipline course tandem with an instructor, said that for her, ziplining was a one-and-done experience. It can feel scary, and this time, it was physically demanding.
Julie's only photo. That's me with my back turned on the right.
As it turned out, we were not taken back to our resort until over an hour later. We had assumed the bus that dropped off the Hanging Bridge participants would take us back to our hotel. Not so.
Instead of going for a nature hike at our resort, we just waited for transportation back to our resort, biding our time sitting in a waiting room and standing outside near the driveway.
Had we known the bus would take so long to retrieve us we might have called a taxi.
In any case, it had been a great ziplining adventure in Costa Rica.
Our guide Leo spoke glowingly about La Fortuna as a spiritual hotspot. He said that in addition to the beautiful natural attractions, including hot springs and traditional spa resorts you would expect in such places, there are Ayahuasca voyages available.
Lest I be too subtle, those are hallucinogenic mind-expansion experiences using natural psychoactive derivatives traditionally used by indigenous people in religious ceremonies.
Timothy Leary is dead, but you can still go for a trip in La Fortuna using natural alternatives to LSD legally in La Fortuna.
Personally, we find the natural world and the greatest innovations of mankind sufficiently mind-blowing without risking insanity. We weren't tempted.
Our planned morning hike at Arenal Volcano Park was spoiled by rain.
As Leo joked, "It rains 400 days a year in Costa Rica." Certainly, in this unique country with so many microclimates, it probably is raining in multiple locales every day, but not everywhere at once.
We were relegated to climbing up a paved service road, which itself was under construction, because the muddy trails through the jungle might have resulted in some slip-and-fall accidents, not to mention mucking up our new tour bus.
As we walked, our guide occasionally stopped to point out wildlife, but nothing revealed itself as clearly as in the pictures on the signs.
I don't know that we would have seen more wildlife on the narrow trails in the thick of the rainforest, but it would have given more of a sense of adventure to the outing.
At the summit, we heard more about what everyone thought was a dormant volcano erupting through a new shaft in the 21st century, raising the mountain peak over time.
The view of Arenal Volcano was totally obscured by dark clouds and rain.
Julie and I were really kicking ourselves for not having taken a taxi to the park the prior afternoon when we had a chance. Then again, we had enjoyed a great afternoon and evening at our Arenal eco-lodge, and the realities of the time-space continuum mean we can't be everywhere at once.
As it turned out, we would see that volcano unexpectedly the next day from a zipline platform.
Most of this day would be spent on a long and winding road around Laguna de Arenal to Monteverde.
Fertile farmlands and ranches surrounded the huge lake.
Windmills sat atop some hills, but not in numbers plentiful enough to become eyesores.
While windmills contribute only a small percentage to the total, it is growing in importance, especially in Guanacaste, where strong winds are prevalent. Perhaps one day Costa Rica will become an exporter of energy generated by wind like Scotland's Orkney Islands.
Costa Ricans are proud that their country produces 95% of their power from "clean resources." As is true most of the time when a similar claim is made, most --- in CR's case over 70% --- is hydroelectric, made possible by their rain, rivers and lakes.
While not as quite as much as in Iceland, geothermal contributes substantially to the alternative energy output due to Costa Rica's location on the Pacific Ring of Fire.
Solar contributes the least to the mix.
We stopped for a two-hour lunch break in Tilarán, in the northeastern part of Guanacaste Province.
Julie and I ducked into Restaurante El Lago, a Chinese restaurant with a modestly priced menu.
A couple about our age, Barry and Harriet from New York City, asked if they could join us at our table. Julie is not a big fan of sharing tables, as evidenced by the fact that she insists on tables for two at dinner on cruises.
Ironically, Julie had just mentioned Barry's conversation on the bus with a young doctor --- Barry is a surgeon --- about how many neckties they owned. As it turned out, we enjoyed a very pleasant lunch together, finding that 7 degrees of separation is hardly a chasm when you actually have a conversation.
As far as the meal itself, all of the servings were huge. We should have simply split Julie's chicken dish. I had some kind of Chinese sausage in my chop suey, and I wouldn't recommend that.
After the meal, we wandered around the town. With a few tour buses stopped there, Tilaran didn't seem as laid-back as blogs make it sound as a stop on the Pan-American highway.
Back on the road, we eventually rolled into our the gates of El Establo Hotel. Its grounds sprawled up a hillside, with our building being near the top of the complex.
We were told that the best place in the area for viewing sunset was right outside our building.
It definitely looked promising.
Most of our tour group, however, had signed up for the optional Monteverde Brewery Tour and Dinner, which would be departing before sunset. Once again, no one can be everywhere at once.
Our hotel room turned out to be a cross between luxe resort and eco-lodge. For example, we had a modern, spacious bathroom but instructions to not flush any tissues down the toilet.
As seems common in Costa Rica, we had welcome fruit punches, which we could enjoy from chairs outside our rooms while taking in the vistas.
Several folks on our tour broke out private stashes of beer, wine and other beverages.
Having not picked up a bottle of wine during our two-hour lunch stop as we had contemplated, Julie and I decided to leave the "perfect spot" and instead walk down to a lovely lounge with a balcony view over a pond.
The sunset was awesome. Then, it kept getting incrementally better and better, as our far too many photos indicate, through nightfall.
I think this was the very best spot for viewing the sunset on this evening.
After drinks, Julie and I walked into town to seek a restaurant, but after checking out a few menus, we eventually returned to dine at our hotel's dining room.
With most of our group at the nearby brewery, we had the restaurant pretty much to ourselves.
We enjoyed splitting a gourmet pizza.
Those tourists who went to the brewery --- where the excursion included the kind of pub fare Julie and I always appreciate, like burgers and fries --- also had a good time.
The nighttime nature hike (for a fee) at the hotel that night was cancelled. I assume that our tour group going to the brewery influenced that decision by the hotel. It again seemed odd to me that our tour company chose an alternative to what would seem to be the most conveniently available possibility.
In any case, it had been another wonderful evening in Costa Rica.
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