Cocoa Plantation Tour

Hi friends,

Yesterday I was able to visit a cocoa plantation.  Cocoa is the fruit that chocolate comes from.  I was able to see the whole chocolate making process from start to finish.  The tour guide explained everything that they do at the plantation and showed us how they make the chocolate.  This plantation was a small operation that does not produce chocolate for export but it was still fun to see.

 Cocoa in a tree.  The guide said that the cocoa fruit never falls even when it is rotten.  It just stays up in the tree until an animal or person knocks it down.

 Another kind of cocoa tree.

Poison Dart Frog!

Fermenting the cocoa beans to get out the flavor.

After the beans are dried they are roasted to bring out the flavors.

Then they are crushed so the shell is separated from the fruit.

They make a paste and add caramelized sugar to sweeten it.

And then we ate it on organic bananas!

Jaguar Rescue Center

Hi friends,

Yesterday I went to the Jaguar Rescue Center near Cocles.  Unfortunately there were no actual jaguars but there were large cats and lots of animals that the Center helps.  Most of the animals are released back into the wild after they have grown large enough (like the monkeys) or after they have healed.   The only exceptions are the poisonous snakes and one of the cats who was brought back to the rescue center after he kept going to close to farms for chickens and cows.  It was so fun to see all of the animals and learn about some of the things that they do to help them.  I even got to hold a Howler Monkey!

 One of the Howler Monkeys climbing on the staff.

Our guide told us that all of the monkeys they have are babies that fell of their moms as they were climbing through the trees.  If the babies can't climb the tree to get back to mom she just leaves them.

This friendly toucan just wanted to check us out.

Here is an Ocelots that was rescued by the center.  He's so cute! 

These two Owls are learning how to hunt and fly again so that they can go back into the wild.

Can you spot the sleeping Red Eyed Tree Frog?

He's kind of hard to see but look at the curl in the leaf and he's right under there.

 

Easter Celebration/ International Art Fair

Hi friends,

I hope all is going well in MN.  Here in CR the weather has turned a little chilly as the rains are about to begin any day now.  The rains always come just after Easter and around the beginning of May.  That being said many people are trying to get in as much fun as they can before the rains come.  Yesterday the school that I am in had their annual Easter Egg Hunt and Carnival, complete with NHS students dressed as Easter Bunnies.  Then today I went to an International Art Fair near downtown San Jose. Decorating eggs at the Carnival!

 I found the Easter Bunnies!

              Art Fair decorations.

They had a train at the Art Fair!

                                      

Some pretty trees.

More cool decorations with vendors in the back.

Adventures at school!

Hi friends,

I know it's been a little while since I've written but it's been a crazy week.  My internship is going great but it was a really busy week at the school.  They hosted a volleyball tournament with 10 different teams for boys and girls volleyball, so there was a lot to do.  I helped out with some of the decorations for the ending banquet.  Then Emilee and I went on a tour of San Jose today.

My teacher got me a mug!

Making banquet decorations.

The finished product!

About to eat lunch.

Lunch!  Enough said.

Statue in the national park in the center of San Jose.  This statue depicts a battle just after Costa Rica received its independence from Spain.  An American man tried to claim Costa Rica for the U.S. but was defeated by the Costa Rican forces. 

Sports Day!!

Hi friends,

I know it's been a few days but there is a lot going on.  On Friday the school I was at had a sports Day.  The whole school was out for the day and the students got to participate in activities like soccer, bike races, and three legged soccer.  For three legged soccer they taped (yes they used tape) two legs from two students together (like a three legged race), then the children played soccer.  It was a lot of fun to see.  Also the English department sold snow cones to raise money.  The snow cones here are a lot different from snow cones in the US.  They start with shaved ice, then add powdered milk, syrup, and canned milk to the ice.  It is very delicious.
 


                                                          Making Snow Cones!

                                                       The teacher I worked with.  Her name is Susana.

                                                               Sack Race!

                                     The students had to kick a soccer ball through this little net from several feet away!

And finally the view from my Spanish Class.  And yes that is the Pacific Ocean!  My class was outside on a veranda.

Manuel Antonio/Quepos

Hi friends,

This week I'm Manuel Antonio/Quepos area.  The house I'm staying in is Quepos, but the school that I'm volunteering in and the Spanish Institute are in Manuel Antonio. The school is a public elementary school.  The weather here is supper hot and humid.  It is just before the rainy season here in Costa Rica and the humidity is almost unbearable.  However, it is also the flower and mango season here in Costa Rica!  I'm enjoying the mangos, which I eat for almost every breakfast.

Now to the fun part,. the pictures.


My room!  It's nice a spacious here.
                                   I live upstairs from my host family.  There are five rooms and this is the view from the stairs.  My room is the first door you come to.
 
 These are pictures of the classroom I'm volunteering in.  This classroom is the English class.  It's similar to our foreign language classes, except they don't have textbooks and have to copy everything from the board.

 
This is the view from the classroom.  You can see more of the school and the athletic fields.  The school is one story but there are several buildings spread out over a slight hill.

Coffee Plantation Tour

Hi friends,

Today was very busy.  We had a coffee plantation tour in the morning and hung out at a street market in downtown San Jose this afternoon.  There was a lot to see at the market, but I forgot to get pictures.  Fortunately for you I got a lot of them at the coffee plantation.  So here we go a look at the Cafe Britt Coffee Plantation!

  Map of Costa Rica coffee growing areas.  Coffee is usually grown in the central valley because it is cooler and there is more nutrients from the volcanic mineral deposits in the soil.  This helps the coffee grow and gives it a flavor that is unique to Costa Rica.
  This is the inside of a coffee seed.  This is what they roast to make coffee.


 After the seeds are planted and watered banana leaves are placed on top to help keep the moisture in so the seeds can grow.

 After the seeds sprout they are planted in plastic.  They take about a year to grow this way.

 As they get bigger they are planted with another seedling.


 When they get to this point they are planted in pot and they continue to grow for the rest of the year.


 Then when they get bigger they are planted in the field.  It still takes another 2 years for the plants to grow enough to make coffee beans, but the same plant can give you one harvest a year for 25 years!


 This is a cocoa tree.  Cocoa is where chocolate comes from.


 Alyssa trying out Coffee bean picker fashion.  The baskets hold several pounds of coffee beans but will only yield 3 pounds of coffee when processing has finished.

 These are what good coffee beans look like.  It's a little hard to tell but they are greenish in color.


 This is what not so good coffee beans look like.  They are brown in color.  The green coffee beans are used to make gourmet coffee and the brownish ones are used for instant coffee.