Kenzie and I had a chance to slip in a quick trip before school started again, so with the help of a great deal on airline tickets we decided to spend a week road-tripping around Costa Rica!
It was a long travel day, starting at 3:30am. We were so tired that we forgot to get the typical PDX carpet on the way out. Instead, we got San Jose, CA (not nearly as nice). After a long travel day, we got some sleep at a nearby hotel and then set off the next day for the drive to La Fortuna.
We had planned for an easy day of driving without any set plans. And I’m glad we did because we got lost on the back roads in the countryside. But as is usually the case, we have some of our best experiences when we are lost or have no plan. As we wandered through the little villages and back roads, we came across a little farm that offered tours of their plantation. They grow coffee, chocolate, and other miscellaneous fruit.
We dropped in to see if they had a tour available and as it happened there was a group of people from Spain who had arranged a tour and they were kind enough to let us join them.
We spent several hours wandering the property, eating LOTS of fruit off of the trees as we went (we were stuffed by the time it was over), and learning about how coffee and chocolate are made. This farm does everything from growing the coffee and chocolate beans right through roasting and processing both on-site. All on a small family farm. It was really interesting seeing (and sampling) the process at every stage.
We’re here in the rainy season, and the rain is no joke. It’s so warm, so it’s not bad being in it, but I’ve never seen rain and thunder/lightning so intense. We were caught in a rain storm during part of the tour and had to hike through a sudden flood of water that runs through the farm. But we both had a blast doing it!
After our tour it was another hour of driving to our hotel at our destination for the next few days, La Fortuna.
