Last post

Aight, so today was the last planned day, and soon I will be back on my way to the states. Overall, I've had a sweet time here and learned about the different industries that make Costa Rica successful. I've been able to research and witness how tourism, coffee, and bananas are key for this economy.

There've been various aspects of the culture that I'll never forget. The odd peculiar meals for breakfeast, Madre who says "ahhhhhhh" all the time, rice and beans for every meal, hanging out with my housemate Marty, and the wildlife/experiences. My favorite thing we did was the whitewater rafting. Not only did I get to see the nature and swim in the canyons- but I did it all while plunging into the rapids. I also really liked our class. Learning about sustainability and the importance of Green Business changed what I thought was important. I don't know if I'd consider myself a treehugger or anything... but I'm definately closer than when I first came on this trip.

Today we got to go to this place (la pez?) that wrapped up the trip perfectly. Seeing colorful birds, snakes, bugs, monkees, and butterflies made a sweet biodiversity experience. On top of that was an excellent lunch with some delicious Costa Rican pineapple, and some really good rice pudding. We also took a long walk, seeing 3 incredible waterfalls. Before all this, we went to a volcano that was more of a poison-gas seeping hole. We were extremely lucky, as when we walked up the clouds cleared and we got to see it perfectly. Other people who were there had been waiting 2 hours for the clouds to clear. On the way back home I fell asleep like I usually do on the bus rides and awoke to Marty asleep on my shoulder.

Above you can see pics from today- including when a bird landed on top of my head. As if thats not weird enough, the blue-yellow bird from above grapped my umberella strap in its beak and wouldn't let go. It felt like the birds were attacking me. Awesome.

Banana (4)

These pictures were taken at the Chiquita Banana farm, and seeing as how I've talked about various aspects of bananas, I want to focus this post entirely on Chiquita. What I saw when I was there, who they are, what they stand for. They are taking steps towards sustainability and although it's very hard for them to get there, recognition is definately in order. Glenn commented that Chiquita is doing more for the environment than basically any other banana plantation- and this post will be about that.

The first thing that was really cool about Chiquita was the series of small businesses that the students/homemakers/workers set up. I learned about two: (1) the banana show, (2) the newspaper crafts. These programs were geared to provide additional income to the surrounding communities. "Grupo Nogua" was really cool and can be seen in the 4th picture.

Chiquita is a large business with over 25,000 employees and 37,000 acres of banana farm. At this particualar branch we went to (the Guayacan branch), they pay each worker $13 a day. While this may not seem like much, it's a considerable amount over what other banana farms pay their workers. On top of a higher paycheck, Chiquita also supplies the workers with health/accident/maternity/and life insurance. The banana industry employs a great deal of work in Costa Rica and I thought it was interesting how much Chiquita has given back. Besides donating buildings and sporting equipment, they are leading the industry in regards to Environmental sustainability.

One of Chiquita's main accomplishments is their work with the Rainforest Alliance. This Conservation organization helped Chiquita to use less pesticides and other harmful chemicals without losing bananas. Chiquita is also taking steps to grow new trees around local homes and reconnect destroyed forests. All in all, they have planted at least 1 million new trees.  Besides new trees, the bags used to protect the plants are recycled- resulting in 3000 metric tons that was recycled last year.  Whether these bags were downcycled or not... I don't know- but it's better than them being thrown away... sort of.  Chiquita also claims that they've installed traps to stop waste from polluting streams and rivers.  Way to go!

I was also impressed by their care for the workers. Chiquita enforces safe working conditions by providing protection and training for each worker. Workers are also enforced to take showers after work to ensure that any chemicals they did come in contact with are washed off. Their are various other regulations, all part of the SA8000 which they follow.

Coffee (4)

The last 3 coffee blogs have covered history/problems of coffee farms, the coffee bean process, inorganic/organic, as well as what Free trade and Fair trade is as it pertains to coffee. Without a lot of topics left, I will explain how the coffee industry brings tourists as well as some Costa Rican coffee recipes. I think this will be a fun and informative topic to end on. Perhaps I will do one more small personal blog, but it will be nothing big.

After typing in "Best quality coffee" on Google, it came to no surprise that a Costa Rican coffee brand came up first. Through countless times in research, I have read about the perfect conditions that Central America has to offer. With the rich volcanic soil and high altitudes, people make it a point to try the coffee when they come here. Even for us, we toured 2 coffee plantations to see what they were like. I was continually reminded of this crops importance by the 'Cafe Brit' bags for sale virtually every place we went. Our host mom would offer us coffee at every breakfeast, and I even bought a couple bags to take home with me. I remember reading that on average, the Costa Rican Tourist drinks 2 cups of Costa Rican coffee a day. WOW. I don't know if this is a lot for coffee drinkers- but it seems like a lot to me. I don't think I've noted anything about the world market for Coffee, so I think I'll discuss that a little. In 2004, coffee was the top export for 12 countries, with Brazil be the number 1 coffee producer. Prices for coffee fluctuate a lot, but recently they were selling for around $1 a pound. With it being so important, a lot of people drink the beverage. While consumption has been shown to coorelate with certain diseases, it has been shown to lessen the chance of others. Overall, I think if you enjoy it- you should drink it.

With the importance of coffee to Costa Rican's tourists, and thus- their economy, I have to wonder what else is being done with the beans. As I've learned, there is many ways to prepare coffee besides just black & with cream and sugar. A various array of cold and hot coffee's are popular to touristy-coffee restaurants. I will include one hot drink:

Ingredients:
25 grams of dark chocolate
1 tablespoon of cream
3 ounces of hot espresso
2 tablespoons of whipped cream
1 tablespoon of sugar
Preparation:
Melt the chocolate slowly and add the cream.
Serve the above into an espresso cup adding the coffee little by little and mixing it to leave a creamy drink.
Maintain hot and decorate with the whipped cream and the sugar.
Cinnamon and cocoa powder can be used as decoration on top as well.

one cold drink:

Ingredients:
¾ cup of coffee
1 cube of ice
1 cup of marrasquino
1 ½ tablespoon of sugar (optional)
Preparation:
Serve the mazagran in a cold cup or glass. Add the coffee and the ice cube, and sugar if necessary.
Mix and drink!

and one food item:

Costa Rican Coffee Panna Cotta with Bittersweet Chocolate-Rum Sauce
-a creamy custard dessert with Costa Rican flavors

INGREDIENTS
2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin
1/4 cup dark rum
1 1/4 cups whipping cream
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon instant espresso powder
1 cup coconut milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup sour cream
3/4 cup whipping cream
2 tablespoons dark colored corn syrup
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 tablespoon dark rum
8 sprigs fresh mint for garnish

DIRECTIONS
Sprinkle the unflavored gelatin over 1/4 cup of dark rum and allow to soften for 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, stir together 1 1/4 cups of whipping cream, brown sugar, and espresso powder in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a simmer, stirring until brown sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat, then whisk in gelatin mixture until dissolved.
Whisk in the coconut milk, vanilla extract, and sour cream until smooth. Evenly divide the mixture between eight 3/4 cup custard cups or molds, cover each with plastic wrap, and chill at least 4 hours to overnight.
Bring 3/4 cup whipping cream and corn syrup to a simmer over medium-high heat. Once simmering, remove from heat, and stir in the chocolate until melted and smooth, about 2 minutes. Stir in 1 tablespoon of rum and set aside.
To serve, run a knife around the edge of each mold, then set each cup into a shallow bowl of hot water for 10 seconds to loosen. Invert the mold over a serving plate and remove the panna cotta. Spoon chocolate sauce around each panna cotta and garnish with a sprig of mint.

Now while I am not the creator of these recipes, perhaps my vast amounts of readers can try them out. If nothing else, it was a fun way to end my blogs on Costa Rican coffee.

Tourism (4)

My past 3 blogs on tourism have been about ecotourism and the Economy, ecotourism and the Environment, and Hot Spots for Ecotourism. I will focus this blog on Ecotourism as it pertends to the beaches and aquatic life.

I decided to focus on this because of our recent trip. During snorkeling, I saw a lot of cool fish/coral. Sitting up on the beach, though, I realized how much dead coral had washed up on the shore. What's more, I went to eat some pineapple where the monkees seemed to be relying on the Tourists for food. I could see how the tourists are making a bad footprint in the area.

The worlds' coral reefs cover approximately 368,000 square miles of the ocean floor- which is a tiny amount in comparison to the rest of the ocean. It's interesting to know that about 1 million different species call this area their home. When tourists go snorkeling/ scubadiving in the Costa Rican waters they many times purposefully or accidentally destroy coral. My friend Marty accidently touched coral reef while he was swimming- probably killing it. Other tourists probably feel like because they're on vacation, they should be able to do whatever they want, so they touch it. and kill it.  As coral is killed, fish that rely on coral will die.  The fish/animals that ate those fish will then die- and thus a vicious cycle begins.

Likewise, some tourists think it's fun or necessary to feed animals. What they don't realize is that by feeding monkees and such they are ruining the animals' natural capability to find food.  Eventually monkees (for example) will lose this ability all together and rely on tourists for food.  I was talking to our tour guide and he said it was a major problem, because we're disrupting the natural way of things.  Like in many areas, human interference doesn't have to be seen as a bad thing- but we make it a bad thing.  Cradle to Cradle shows us that we can grow and interact with the world while being completely healthy.  My experience on the beach and in the water shows me that nature is much too beautiful to destroy.  By educating tourists, this problem can be reduced, although the only way to completely stop it- is to not have tourists at all... and that will never happen.  

Personal (4)

This weekend we took a trip to Puerto Viejo as well as various other places (which I don't remember the name of). After setting off for a couple hours on the bus, and watching Bourne Identity, we spent the night at a nature-science place. Scientists from all over the world went there to study biodiversity and it was interesting getting to tour around. We saw some poison-dart frogs, some neat plants, monkees, etc.

The next morning we had breakfeast and went on our way to Puerto Viejo. On the bus ride, we had enough time to watch the other two Bourne movies. We also had time to watch various other movies throughout the trip. It's amazing how long it takes to get somewhere, for being as small of a coutry as it is. After arriving at our hotel, we went around the town- which was pretty sketch. I talked to this guy for a while with a guitar singing 'amazing grace'- and then we all went to a Karioke bar, which was great. Marty and I sang 'can you feel the love tonight'. There were only 2 english discs, out of about 200 or so. We sang through both of them. Pretty much all of us. Costa Ricans would stop by and watch all of us singing old american songs and laugh. It was a good time.

The next day we went snorkeling in the ocean- which was fun- and had lunch on this beach, where I saw a Sloth, a Yellow Pit Viper, and A white-faced monkee. The monkee came right up to us. It was hilarious. He even went up to this ladies purse, opened it, and was about to take stuff out before she snatched it away. It was amazing watching this monkee eye us for food. Every once in awhile someone would drop food and the monkee would dart down and grab it.

After one night, we went to Manzanillo which was by far the coolest part. This place was like a 4 star-er. It was right on the beach, the rooms were great, and the food was fantastic. During the day we'd swim and hang out. At night, I'd usually go for a walk on the beach or something. There were hundereds of these little crabs on the beach- and surfers out in the Caribbean. It was just a sweet experience all-together. Our bathroom even had a thing that sprays water on you when you're done. Sa-Weet! hah.

The drive back to San Jose wasn't bad, but I saw another cockroach in my room- and when I tried to kill it, it ran under my bed, and then I couldn't find it. Freaks me out. It's the second time I'm going to go to bed knowing theres a cockroach in there with me. OHhhhh to be in America... the cockroach free country. 1 week left. But beside the roaches, I love it.

Coffee (3)

After discussing the Fair Trade/ Free trade Coffee as well as the diferrences between Cafe Brit and Cafe Tal (Organic vs. Inorganic), this post will be completely focused on the costs of growing coffee.

Coffee originally was grown under a shady canopy and through changes has moved towards non-canopy growth. Because forests have been largely cut down for this agricultural purpose, as we've learned, a lot of animals have lost their home. Traditional- forested coffee farms- would attract a lot of wildlife (Estimated 150 of birds!) mainly because they mimiced forest better than other farms.



The problem arises in the 1960's-ish, when farmers began getting rid of the forest to increase the amount of beans per plant. While this proved effective, the bigger picture shows it wasn't a smart move. Besides destroying animals habitat, no canopy meant more pesticides and fertilizers had to be used to keep the plant effective. With no cover, rain falls harder on the plants, washing the dangerous chemicals into the soil. Insecticides, herbicides and fungicides also had to be used to assure the health of the plants. Although, by this point, it's hard to call this plant 'healthy'. Getting rid of the shade also subjects the plants to a greater chance of premature death. So while the farmers are getting more beans per plant, the environment seems to be the one taking a blow. It kind of follows the brute force model in Cradle to Cradle where our current day mindset is something like this: If brute force isn't working, you're not using enough of it. We are stressing the land/diversity to a devastating point, and all for what? So a little more profit can be made. That is a major focus in business. Though as I've been learning, it's equally important to have Equity and Environment. Economy isn't everything.

It's ironic, though, to see here wood-and-plastic frameworks over plants to provide them shade. It's like farmers forgot why trees were there in the first place. In a desperate attempt to mimic what nature did best (as is done with multiple industries) a man-made shade was made from large plastic sheets. As far as I know, these sheets are not biodegradable, and there discarding process would be all but beneficial.

With problems like these, I have to wonder, why doesn't everyone just go organic? Why don't the farmers let the trees grow back? Because the Yield is lower (amount of beans per plant) for organic coffee and it's more labor intensive, most coffee farmers are afraid to switch. It seems to most all that it's not worth the risk. Maybe we'll get to a time where the government or NGO's will pay the difference so that the environment can be nourished back to the way it was: perfect.

Personal (3)

Aight- Here's the lowdown on the last few days:

Last thursday we went White Water rafting in the pacuare river. I've been rafting in Colorado before, but this was exceptionally good. It's ranked #5 in the world, and with all the rain the previous day- and how sunny it was- the conditions were great. We got breakfeast upon arrival, the ususal- Fruit, rice, beans, etc. Not too long after, we embarked on the 18 mile trip. Throughout the trip, we went through canyons and forests, and the scenery was incredible. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures because I didn't want my camera to break. We also got to see some Natives of the area, who were washing their clothes and playing in the river. After a while, we stopped for lunch, and the guides prepared a pretty good wrap and trail mix lunch. YUM! haha. Anyway, we got up to a class 4 rapid, and the guide even let us all jump out of the boat at one point and float through a rapid. I went under a few times, but maintained a strong grip on the outside of the boat. We went swimming multiple times and had fun pulling eachother into the water when we weren't in the rapids. The experience was the best one on this trip, and even got me thinking about becoming a rafting-guide after college for a bit. I think it'd be a blast- and it's just my kind of thing.

Friday through this Wednesday we spent in the OSA Peninsula. At one point on the way, we all had to get out and push the bus because it got stuck. I don't think I've said anything about the roads- but they're aweful. Seriously. Potholes up the wazoo. We also took a 1 hour - 2 hour boat ride to get to our camp. The first boat ride was the roughest, as the waves were pretty wild, and it was raining. Last year, the boat flipped. This year, it did not. That night we slept in tents. There were some enormous bugs I've never seen just walking around. Sa-weet!

The next day we took a boat ride to a national park, where we got to see monkeys, colorful birds, insects, mammals, and just a bunch of neat stuff that we didn't see at Monteverde. The howler monkeys were especially cool. We also got to crack open fresh coconuts- with some help from the guide- and eat them. It was pretty delicious. The next day we took a boat ride to an island where we snorkled. I got to see some exotic fish. While it wasn't as cool as the first time I went snorkling, it was still fun. The nights were filled with card games and dancing and sleeping.

The pics above are just some random ones:

1- the tents

2- some crocs

3- a jaguar footprint

4- trudging through the rainforest

5- swimming around

6- chillin in paradise