Don Juan Coffee & Zip Lining

A map of Costa Rica made from coffee and cacao beans.

Sunday was a busy morning. Everyone had to be up by 7 to eat breakfast (tipico = scrambled eggs, rice & beans, toast, cheese), get ready, and check out. Most of the group was going zip lining at Extremo. http://monteverdeextremo.com/ While Alba and I went to Don Juan coffee tours. http://donjuancr.com/

The coffee plantation was small, and seemed mainly there to offer tours and to sell coffee. The majority of coffee is produced elsewhere in the country.

The cacao fruit The seeds inside are crushed to make chocolate. 

We learned all about coffee production: it's history, growth cycles, health benefits, etc. I realized I am not a coffee fan because I don't like bitter things. I also learned that roasting coffee beans destroys the caffeine. Therefore, light roasts have the most caffeine, esspresso and darker roasts the least.


The tour also showed us about sugar growing, another important crop in Costa Rica. We took a sugar cane, pressed it multiple times with a hand cranked press, and in the last go round included a lime, collected the liquid and drank it. It was not as sweet as I had suspected it to be. They must boil that liquid down (like maple sugar) until sugar is formed.

The seeds of the cacao are ground up. We added spices like salt,
pepper, cayanne, vanilla to make this amazing paste. 

Next we worked on the chocolate part of the tour. We ground up some cacao seeds, added spices and made this delicious paste that was a sacred food to the Mayans.

Of course the tour ends in the store so I bought bags of coffee for everyone (they had placed orders with me before we left), as well as some coco butter, ground coco, and come sugar.

After, Alba and I returned to the hotel to wait for the others. I had time to catch up on emails as well as some writing. I also went into the town and bought a hammock for $26 and a hat for $8.

Once the rest arrived, we jumped in our van and went to lunch at a local place near the soccer field. It's funny to see these girls get their phones out as soon as we stop. They know now to ask right away for the password to the wifi. Conversations are stuttered as some focus on their Instagrams, photos, Snapchat accounts. It did not exist if it is not posted!

The only problem we had occurred on the way home. We stopped at a "soda" a diner of sorts called Mi Finca which is known for its Macaws out back. In the midst of the confusion of ordering smoothies, two louts approached Ashley and distracted her while she was checking out. A few minutes later she realized her phone was missing. We searched the area multiple times, backtracking her steps but could only surmise it was the two who had distracted her.

Once back in Samara, some of us met up at Lo Que Hay to see Lindsay sing with her boyfriend, soon-too-be baby daddy.

It was a good to end to a nearly flawless weekend. But just as I arrived home, while the girls still had some walking left to do to get to their Tico homes, the skies opened up. I had never heard such rain (my place has a tin roof and I am on the top floor.) I thought of the girls I had just left who probably got drenched before reaching their homes.