From Coffee to the Canopy

As it always seems to go...just as we are settling in here on the coffee farm, and it is time to go! Our initial experience here at Finca Flor Mar was so jarring - dark, isolated, and bombarded from the incessant wind. As the days have passed, the rain is gone and the wind has calmed during the day (which means the rainbows are gone, too, sadly) and we have also calmed from the transition from our last "home" to this new one. It has been a good lesson for Matt and me...we are often so quick to react to a new situation and label it as "bad" or "good" or whatever. We need to give ourselves some time and know, as Libby reminded me, "to give it time for the treasures of this new place to be revealed." I realize the pictures make it look quite bright and welcoming...not the for boding place we first encountered! :)

This morning we met Alex Rodriguez (yes, that is really his name). Alex lives down the driveway where he has lived his whole life. His sister, Jami, is married to Ken, who owns Finca Flor Mar. We learned from Alex that this is the oldest coffee farm in the Monteverde region, started and owned by Marvin Rockwell, who was one of the original Quakers that settled in Monteverde. Who knew!

Alex gave us a tour of the farm and told us about the process they use. The harvest was completed about 2-3 weeks ago. The fruits got plump and red.

They are picked and then dried with the fruit (pulp) still on so the sweetness of the fruit (yes, it's really sweet and delicious) soaks into the bean. The bean itself is covered in what Alex called "miel" (honey). It is a slight bit slimy and really tasty. We all sucked on the fruit skins and the green, miel-covered beans as we walked the farm. (There is caffeine in the pulp but not the miel).

We saw the harvest drying in the sun on long sieve-like racks. The wind and rain has made this process very hard. As a result, a few days ago, they had to build a make-shift green house to protect the beans while they're drying. We helped Alex stir and flip the beans to help them dry. (Maryann, are you laughing at my newly-found knowledge and enthusiasm for coffee??!!)

We walked just a short way on the very primitive road that leads down into the valley where the coffee plants are. Alex showed us a video of the 10' long boa he came across on the road the previous week! Awesome!

Alex made Matt a cup of coffee from beans harvested just 2 weeks before and told us about business collective Ken started with another local farmer called Thrive Coffee. The goal is for farmers to see more money for their work by farmers selling their coffee directly to consumers, cutting out the "middle man" who takes such a huge cut leaving the farmers with very little. The collective started a few years ago with only 6 Costa Rican farmers. There are now more than 6,000 farmers from across Central America! It was an honor to stay at this farm and support (indirectly) the social justice and forward thinking work they are doing.

That is how our day began...it ended with us walking through the rainforest canopy on a series of 8 hanging bridges in the Santa Elena reserve of Selvatura. It was breathtaking! We arrived at 2:30pm and the rain and wind had subsided and we had beautiful views of the rainforest with the misty clouds hanging below us. The longest bridge we crossed was 515 feet long! We stopped in the middle and spent so much time taking it all in. We saw a bunch of howler monkeys, two of which were a mama snuggling a babe. From the other side of the bridge, we watched people flying through the canopy on a zip line. There is a series of 13 zip lines that take you through the canopy. Our time there was a highlight.

We are off in the morning to meet up with Libby in the overrun-with-tourist beach town of Jaco on our way south to the Central Pacific town of Uvita where will spend the next week. We can't wait to see Doula and share Costa Rica with her.