Friday 3/17- Happy St. Patricks Day to all you Irish out there. Today Ramie got a message from Deiner up at the coffee plantation that the coffee blossoms are blooming and he invited us up to see them. Ramie was cautious about asking me if I wanted to quit work early to make the trip up the mountain to see them because he knows that I'm stressed and overloaded with work right now. I could work 12 hour days 7 days a week and still not get caught up. He hears me say this all the time and knows that it stresses me out even more when anyone asks me if I want to get away from behind the computer, even if it’s only for a couple of hours. The thing with these coffee blossoms blooming is different though, this is rare to see and I do want to go, even if that means getting more behind on work! Of course we asked our CR besties if they wanted to come along and see what this was all about. They were in but they had some appointments that they had to attend to first so we couldn’t go until a little bit later in the afternoon. That was kind of ok, though, since it gave me an extra couple of hours to work.
Ramie let Deiner know that we were super excited to come up there again and would be up around 1pm, but we had another request to add. Ramie asked Deiner if Rita (mom) would cook an early dinner for us. Typically they offer this as part of a regular plantation tour, but we just wanted the dinner tonight without a full tour. We had one additional request to go along with the dinner as well, chicharones had to be on the menu! (Chicharones are a dish that is supposedly common down here but difficult to find in any restaurants, it’s made out of the same part of the pig that the bacon comes from, but it’s cut into bite-sized chunks instead of slices and then almost deepfried in it’s own oil… and it’s DELICIOIUS!)
Deiner responded that Rita was more than happy to accommodate our request and to plan on having dinner with them. I continued to work up until about 12:30, got changed and we waited for the “come get us” message from Geoff and Tracy. Their appointments took longer than they were expecting, but eventually around 2pm we were on the road. We made quick time getting to the plantation, we said our hellos to Emilio and Rita and then Deiner asked Ramie to take him to his house to pick up his ATV. The two of them left and were gone for about 15 minutes before returning. Once they were back we all loaded up to go for an ATV tour through the plantation. We traveled down the road for a mile or two before we turned off and started traveling up another mountain road, twisting and turning through the plantation. It was breathtaking! An entire mountain side covered in Costa Rican snow!
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| I'm not sure what I'm doing with my head in that coffee plant.. Probably sniffing it. |
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| Standing in fields of beautiful snow... In shorts!! |
We eventually made it to the end of the road at the highest walk-able point of the plantation. We got out of the ATV and stood in awe looking over the coffee fields and the valley below, spotting, of all things, on St. Patrick's day......
no, not a leprechaun, but a rainbow which appeared to end right in this very coffee field.
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| You can just barely see the rainbow in this photo, unfortunately it did not photograph well |
I guess we know what's in the pot of gold in Costa Rica….COFFEE! We learned that Deiner’s decision to call Ramie today & ask if we wanted to come up and see this was because coffee plants only bloom like this for 2 days per year. The blooms just opened this morning, by tomorrow most will have turned brownish and by the end of the day almost all of them will completely fall off. As I mentioned, what we’re calling Costa Rican Snow is a rare to see and the reason is because of the short window that they bloom.
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| This is Ed, he also lives in Uvita and has a You Tube channel and is friends with Deiner he was filming a lot of our tour. |
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| Geoff, having a great time seeing this for the first time |
Deiner also told us that when he saw that the plants were blooming, we were the first people he thought of and were one of only 2 people that he called and invited up to see it. He always says we’re like family to them, and this only goes further to prove this. We <3 these guys!!
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| Deiner with his proud coffee plants |
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| Deiner really loves his plants |
We all hopped back in our rides drove just a short way back down the mountain before we pulled over again.
Deiner told us more about the coffee plants and the importance of the bees pollinating the flowers while they are in bloom. If the bees don't pollinate the flowers they won't get as many coffee beans, the harvest will not be good, and they won't be able to make enough money from the sale of the coffee.
They don’t earn a lot anyways when they sell to the big coffee companies. It's rather sad how little the farmers actually get paid and the amount of work that goes into making that delicious cup of coffee. While we were out in the fields we also checked out some of the other trees and plants that are mixed in with the coffee plants and asked why they have banana trees, citrus trees and other various types of plants mixed in. We found out that all of these taller trees help to provide shade to the coffee plants, which can be good for the plants, plus they can harvest things like the bananas and citrus fruits to supplement the coffee income during different times of the year.
Once again, we jumped back in the ATV to head down another road to a different, smaller field that Deiner wanted to look at.
When we arrived we met his uncle who was working on pruning some trees. Deiner climbed to the top of the hill where we heard him making some odd monkey sounds only to look up and see him hanging upside down from a tree limb saying he is a monkey. He is such a character!
He started to walk back down to us and realized he lost his cellphone during his antics. Tracy was already up the hill and near him, helping him look, Ramie headed up the hill next and then his uncle also joined in the cellphone hunt. They spent the next half hour or more combing the ground looking for the lost phone, calling it and listening and having a tough time locating it. Eventually Deiner’s uncle found it halfway down the hill laying against the base of a banana tree. If that tree had not been there, the phone would have fallen all the way down the cliff and been lost forever! The 4 that had climbed to the top for the cell phone hunt started their walk back down the hill, but of course, none of us really expected to be off-roading on foot and weren’t wearing the appropriate shoes to be climbing hills like this and we may have ended up with another slight problem. Fortunately the only casualty on this hike was Ramie's flip flop which ended up breaking. He ended up walking the rest of the way back to the ATVs barefoot and would have to spend the rest of the day with only 1 shoe.
Back on the ATV’s and Deiner guided us through his extended family's property. Aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, brothers and sisters, nieces, nephews all live on the same large plot of land all with their own houses and families. As we drove through the family neighborhood, Deiner would yell out to them and we would all greet them as we drove past. The family has a lot of land and they are all spread out, yet close enough that if they need anything, they are all right there to help each other out. Everyone was so friendly and we got the feeling of being welcomed to the area. They are truly living the traditional Pura Vida lifestyle.
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| Had to stop to admire the view of the ocean |
Eventually we made it back to the plantation and of course Emilio brought out the moonshine so we had to take some shots. It's pretty much a tradition and a rule when you go to visit them. We took our seats at the table, continued the conversations and before long we were being served some delicious traditional food.
After we finished our plate, the chicharones came out and we devoured those quickly, then more shots of moonshine and baileys.
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| Chicharones |
You know, everyone is Irish on St. Patricks day, especially the makers of the homemade Irish creme baileys drink!!
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| We joked with them that we were renaming their farm to this |
It was getting pretty late and almost dark and we decided it was time to head out before we were driving back down the mountain in complete darkness. We only then found out that Rita hadn’t yet served dessert! She was making banana marmalade for us. She looked a bit disappointed that we were leaving but she understood and was kind enough to put it in a container for us to bring home, with the request we had to return her container. No problem at all! We thanked them again, gave them hugs all and headed home. It was now dark and this was the first time we’ve driven down this mountain in the dark. It was an easy drive, especially once we got to the paved portion, but man it is so dark when you are that far back in the jungle!!
Today was a truly magical and breathtaking day and was worth every second of it. We are so thankful that Deiner thought to call us and invite us up to witness this beautiful sight.
Pura Vida!
Thank you for sharing so fun to go on these adventures with you & Ramie! Amazing!!!!
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