Monteverde, Costa Rica
We haven't got anything booked in until our coffee tour at 2:30pm but we're still up early as morning and dusk are the best times for animal spotting. We have a quick coffee while we're getting dressed and then it's take two on the walking trail that's right near our cabin. It's a lot hotter this morning but at least we can see if there are any wild cats roaming (as per the signed warning). It's only a short but sweaty hike to the observation deck. We observe, snap some piccies and head down. No animals spotted, sadly.
We head back into to town for a breakfast that is more Aussie standard, eggs, avo, acai bowls. Once that's done it's off to drop off some well overdue laundry. It's at another hotel and apparently the only place in Monteverde where you can get your washing done. They're not taking laundry just now and tell us to come back at 10:30. Fine, off to the cloud forest for a hike then.
The cloud forest is as the name suggests, up in the clouds. It's actually not very misty today but it is raining. But the forest is so dense that you can hear the rain is pretty heavy but you're barely getting wet as it can't get through the thick canpoy. Again, it's been recommended to do this in the morning for nature spotting but we really suck at finding things without a guide. Plus, no matter how hard we try, we just can't quite slow down enough. Although we do better in here. It might sound a bit woo woo but you feel like you need to whisper in here. Like this is natures house and you should slow down and walk quietly. Too bad some of the other stomper visitors didn't get that memo. It's very peaceful nonetheless.
We're finally able to drop off our washing and it will be ready in 4 hours. We head back to the cabin to quickly shower (whilst damp and shady in the forest it's still humid as shit) and head out for lunch before the coffee tour. We head to a well rated soda and it's just us there for lunch. We're not deterred as it's the off season and it's been quiet most places. Jeff has a burrito and Courts gets a quesadilla. It's delicious and we tell the waiter so and he informs us it's all his Mum's cooking. A big two thumbs up to Mum in the kitchen. This seems to be the way of it in most sodas, they're family run affairs.
A short drive later and we've arrived at a coffee plantation Cafe Monteverde, for our coffee tour. As soon as we drive in we see rows and rows of coffee plants. We check in with reception, help ourselves to a coffee and a short time later we're on.
Our guide today is Jessica and she first runs us through the "About" section of the company. They're essentially trying to produce coffee beans as sustainably as possible, which is no easy feat. Not sure if we've mentioned it, but it rains a lot in Costa Rica. Great for growing the plant but also great for fungi to grow which ruins the plant and potentially the beans while they're growing. They've been able to go chemical and pesticide free almost completely, bar what they use to combat the fungi. They're doing some experiments on the property to find other ways to grow the plant without the fungi, which is all very fascinating.
They've got some goats on the property which they feed fruit and in return they poop out a nice fertilizer they can use for the plants. They plant other trees like bananas amongst the crop to try and entice the animals, bugs etc to eat those instead of the coffee plants. A lot of effort goes into the process, including the manual harvesting (only pick the red ones and they don't all turn red at the same time) usually done by Nicaraguans.
The final leg of the tour is the tasting. We try a dark, medium, natural and honey roast. It's all really delicious and smooth. Jazzed up on caffeine we buy a few souvenirs and we're off. We collect the laundry and head back to the cabin for a rest. It's raining and we're feeling pretty beat after a few long days, so we treat ourselves to a takeaway pizza and a cosy night in on the couch in our forest cabin.
