Cloud forests and coffee

After three days of Playa Palo Seco, it was time for another change of pace. The next group destination was slated for Monteverde, a city engulfed in tourism. Aside from the lavish nightlife—eating at fancy dinner restaurants and visiting local bars—the class explored much of the outdoors through structured mountain hikes that the pioneering Quakers established. On one of our class treks, we ascended into the national “cloud forest” (1440 meters above sea level), and as the name implied, each step drew us closer to the thick mist. We eventually reached the Continental Divide, a vantage point for both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. And just for fun, students spat into both sides of the country. ☁️ 

The next day, our class was given a tour of a local coffee plantation. As a major product of Costa Rica, coffee sales played a vital role in the nation’s economy. We were taken through the whole process of growing organic shade-grown coffee and got to chew on the fleshy fruit of the coffee trees (seeds were harvested for roasting). The students also helped plant new trees to shade the incoming crop. Before we left, the plantation took us through a sugar sampling demo where they harnessed their “buey” (oxen) to a grinding machine that extracted the juice from the sugar cane. Having been raised in an agricultural community, I was truly impressed with their traditional farming methodology. 🐂