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Our 2003 trip to Costa Rica!

The coast-to-coast chocolate and vanilla tour

Our 10-day tour of Costa Rica (April 21-May 2, 2003) was made all the more enjoyable by knowing that most of the places we visited were owned and operated by campesino community conservation groups. Our group of seven intrepid travelers included Jan, Pat, Mary Alice and myself (all in our 50s), Kenny (65), my daughter Elizabeth (13) and Kenny's son Dan (11).

Palmichal de Acosta

Tired from our long day of travel from Maine, we hit the sack as soon as we arrived in Palmichal de Acosta, and awoke to the sound of birds and the rush of the river alongside the Nacientes Palmichal lodge. After a delicious campesino breakfast, we walked up pleasant, not-too-steep trails into the community's reserve, where we gazed out to a hill covered with primary cloud forest, rare in the Central Valley. We learned about the difference between reforesting with quick-growing woods as opposed to native species, and saw their greenhouse of native saplings.

Reserva Los Campesinos

After a 4-hour trip to the coast, we arrived in Quepos, near famous Manuel Antonio National Park. Our destination was not the beautiful but over-visited beach, but an isolated community about an hour and a half inland from Quepos. In Londres, about 30 minutes from Quepos, we changed from our 15-seater bus to a 4-wheel drive taxi to negotiate the 45-minute trip to Quebrada Arroyo and Reserva Los Campesinos. After a delicious dinner we retired to our spacious cabins. The railings on the porch emphasized the natural shapes of the branches used in their construction.

In the morning, Don Miguel, president of the Vanilla Producers Association, talked of the history of the village. They had been successful in raising chocolate until monilia started ruining the cacao pods. Then they had a successful business raising vanilla and making extract, until another disease wiped out the vanilla crop. He showed us beautiful crafts that villagers had made out of the vanilla pods, still sweet-smelling after eight years. Now they are starting to raise vanilla again, only organically, and are supplementing their farm earnings with income from their cabins and tours.

Miguel and his friend Misael led us up through the Los Campesinos Reserve, stopping often to tell us the uses of different flowers, trees and plants. Almost everything is used for food or medicine--and Miguel and Misael even showed us which plants they used to make into toys when they were kids. The wide, round leaves of one tree make terrific pinwheels. Miguel deftly shaved off part of the stiff hairs on "monkey's comb" pods with his machete, and made monkey faces on the pods to give to the kids. Halfway up the trail, at the edge of a deep gorge, is an "andarivel", a sturdy metal box suspended from a cable. Four people can fit in the andarivel, which zips maybe 75 feet across to the other side of the gorge, controlled by ropes and pulleys that Miguel and Misael handle. It was a quick and exciting ride. Not long after that, we reached the covered lookout at the top of the ridge, from where you can see the coast south of Manuel Antonio. I asked Miguel if he had ever imagined that all the things he learned working beside his father in the countryside would someday be so fascinating to foreign tourists. " I never imagined it," he said. "Never." What an incredible way of preserving culture!

Pineapple grown in the village awaited us when we came down, and then we were off across a narrow 380-foot suspended bridge that offers a view of the village's spectacular waterfall. At the other end of the bridge is a large waterfall-fed swimming hole, refreshingly cool after our long walk. We were in paradise! Our lunch featured heart of palm, which we had seen freshly harvested that morning. Reluctantly we left Reserva los Campesinos, and made our way back over the steep, muddy roads to our little bus.

La Cusinga Lodge

It took us bout 4 hours to get to our next destination, La Cusinga Lodge, in Uvita de Osa. The view from the main lodge at La Cusinga is stunning--a panorama from the reefs of Punta Uvita to the north, around to Isla Ballena and the Tres Hermanas rocks to the south. Isla Ballena is where whales from both hemispheres come to give birth in the early spring.

In the morning the group hiked through the rainforest reserve to see huge ancient trees, monkeys, and green and black frogs. The afternoon was spent playing at beautiful Playa del Arco, reachable by a rainforest trail about 20 minutes south of the lodge. Isla Ballena protects Playa del Arco so that the waves and currents are gentler than on most Pacific beaches, making it an ideal beach for families to enjoy swimming, boogie boarding, and learning how to surf with resident instructor Michael. Dan actually learned to stand up briefly on a surfboard and decided that he wanted to "move to California and become a surfer." Playa del Arco gets its name from a large cave that runs between one part of the beach and another. At low tide, you can walk through the dark cave, with faint glimmers of light reflected on its wet walls and waves surging in from either side.

The next day we visited Hacienda Baru, a wildlife refuge near Dominical, half an hour north of Uvita. Most of the group got harnessed up for their Flight of the Toucan canopy tour. Two of us were given the equipment for an ascent into the crown of a huge tree, where we spent some time on an observation platform, enjoying the sense of purity and peace in a place so unfrequented by humans. Back at La Cusinga, people played at the beach and in a waterfall pool.

El Copal Reserve, Turrialba

In the morning we had to leave the beautiful views and get in the bus again to cross Cerro de la Muerte, the Mountain of Death, on our way to Turrialba. After a short stop in San Isidro de El General, the bustling hub of the southern zone at the foot of the mountains, we headed up into the cool heights. We stopped at La Georgina, the traditional place for a quick lunch on the way to or from the south. Traditional Costa Rican food is served cafeteria style. Hummingbirds provide the entertainment at lunch, flitting around the bird feeders outside the window where we sat. We arrived in Cartago around 3:30 and visited the Basilica, the shrine to Costa Rica's patron saint, the Virgen of Los Angeles, affectionately called 'La Negrita'.

There we met Beto and Ernesto, who accompanied us down a winding road to the village of El Humo de Pejibaye, where we loaded everything into a large cart with seats that was pulled behind a tractor. We arrived after dark at El Copal Lodge, where cheerful cooks were awaiting us with another hearty campesino meal. In the morning we searched for birds along the trail in the El Copal reserve, then walked or rode back to our bus, where we headed for the Atlantic coast, and went south to the Talamanca region.

Yorquin

We awoke early at Las Calateas, our lodge in the hills near Cahuita, owned by a cooperative from the village of Carbon Dos. Soon we met Benson Venegas, director of ANAI and our tour leader for the day. Last year ANAI was one of only seven organizations worldwide to win the Equator prize, recognizing their efforts over the last 25 years in conservation and poverty reduction. Benson accepted the award at the Johannesburg Summit in August 2002. We were lucky enough to have him as our guide to the Bribri indigenous territories.

He took us to the town of Bambu, where we crossed a wide river in a dugout canoe, and started hiking, through lush tropical countryside, toward the isolated village of Yorquín. We hiked past a country school, where kids were playing soccer, and Benson got soccer-loving Dan involved in the game. He made a goal!

Soon we heard the voices of two men from Yorquín, almost yodeling over the crest of the next hill. They had come to take us on the next leg of our trip in their dugout canoe. The water in the river was low, after a long dry season, and we were going against the current. Our boatmen were straining every muscle in their bodies to keep us from running aground on the rocks, as they maneuvered the boat with the help of strong poles, and their life-long knowledge of the river. I'd never seen people work so hard. There was no danger involved, since the river was low, but their efforts served to keep us afloat.

Finally we reached Yorquín, and walked to the Casa de las Mujeres (the Women's House) for refreshments. We swam in the river, accompanied by several kids from the village who kept our kids entertained, then we returned to the lodge for a delicious lunch, which included fresh palmito.

The cacao tree is sacred to the Bribri tribe. In their mythology, the cacao tree was made from the wife of their creator, Sibu. After many years, cacao farming is being revived in Talamanca. The women showed us a fresh cacao pod, and let us suck the fruit around the cacao seed. They showed us how the seeds are dried and fermented, then toasted and ground to make the bitter hot chocolate favored by the Bribri. You can also visit their organic banana and palm heart plantations, all of which are cultivated in harmony with the forests that cover half of their territory.

Tourism is handled in a way that fits in with the Bribri culture. Bernarda Morales, head of the Stibraupa Women's Group, explained that when tourists visit, everyone in the association donates their time for transportation, cooking, serving and cultural presentations. They also donate the food that is served. The money that we pay for the tour then is put in a fund to be used for the needs of association members. For instance, if someone needs a home, or some land for a farm, they can apply to the group for funding.

After the presentation came one of the highlights of the trip for me. Bernarda asked us about where we came from and what we were involved in and what we thought of their project. One member of our group said that visiting Yorquín and seeing the conservation efforts there gave her hope for the future of the planet, whereas before she had been very pessimistic. Another person said that he could see that the values he grew up with in the city were not necessarily the best ones, as he had formerly believed. We were all glad to be there in that moment of sharing.

Going downstream in the dugout was quite a bit faster than going up because the current was with us. We bounced through some rapids before joining the bigger river and arriving again in Bambu. From there we traveled to Shiroles, where we stayed at the Finca Educativa, a well-appointed lodge and educational center which also runs trips to Yorkin and other villages like Amubri and the Cabecar village of Cachabri, where a local shaman shares his knowledge of healing with medicinal herbs.

Puerto Viejo, Manzanillo and Gandoca

The next day we went in search of dolphins near Monkey Point. We saw a few, then went snorkeling on the reefs near Sonny Boy beach, just south of Manzanillo. We had a great coconut-laced Caribbean lunch at Maxie's on the beach, then relaxed at La Costa de Papito, comfortable cabins in a tropical garden near Cocles Beach, south of Puerto Viejo de Talamanca.

That night we splurged at La Peccora Nera, an Italian restaurant where the enthusiastic owner and chef rhapsodizes about what he can make for you and how he will do it. You can watch his every move through an open window to the kitchen, clearly visible from all the tables.

The next day, we saw how organic cacao is processed on a larger scale than the very hand-crafted method we observed in Yorquin, and we learned how the Talamanca region is becoming a center of organic banana and chocolate production. This is important from an conservation point of view since the region is also a "hot spot" for bird migrations, especially raptors, with 2.9 million birds touching down in Talamanca each fall on their way to winter in South America. The tall Talamanca range forces the migrating birds into the small strip of land between ocean and mountains that we were visiting.

Our last adventure was a night walk on the Gandoca beach, to see a giant leatherback turtle lay her eggs. Volunteers from all over the world help monitor this ancient ritual. The turtle that we saw was laying her eggs near the most frequented part of the beach, so a volunteer collected them and moved them to a hatchery where they will have a better chance of survival. "Awesome" seemed to be the general comment on the experience. The leatherback nesting season is usually from February through May. The next morning we piled back in our little bus for a ride back to the Central Valley, the end to a wonderful adventure.

This trip was so successful that I am coordinating with Horizontes Nature Tours to lead more trips to the many rural community tourism destinations in Costa Rica through CONSERVacations.

Waterfall pool at La Cusinga Lodge

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