Costa Rica '08

2009-10-27T02:27:00.003-04:00

theres gotta be something more to this life

Ecotourism part 4

2008-06-09T19:54:00.003-04:00

Currently, ecotourism is the fastest growing sector within tourism in general. What that means is that ecotourism is becoming a force to be reckoned with because tourism is such a huge service industry. That being said, there are some problems in the industry. Because of the diversity of flora and fauna and the beauty of Costa Rica, this has become a huge part of the economy. The stability of the government here also attracts visitors more so than other central american countries. It is also pretty close to America, a 4 hour flight from Atlanta, so tourists do not have to adjust to a significant time change or any major culture shock. A lot of people speak english (although definitely not all, like tour books lead people to believe), and the higher standard of living also attract tourists. There are over 1 million tourists/year that visit Costa Rica producing over $1 billion in revenue. Most of the tourists come from North or South America, although Germany and Spain also provide a decent amount of tourists. All this ecotourism, which is sustainable and healthy in somewhat small doses, has begun to get overcrowded in Costa Rica due to the 6% increase in tourism numbers each year. Some national parks have been littered in and animals are used to humans feeding them, thus changing the whole ecosystem. Also, there is some greenwashing done by high end hotels and other resorts that are near ecologically interesting tourist attractions. These hotels claim to be good for the environment or different than normal hotels but in actuality they are just as bad for nature. Often times there is a lack of enforcement by rangers in the national parks, and closed areas areas are sometimes intruded on by reckless guides that don't care about doing damage to the environment and just want tourist money. All this tourism has both helped and hurt the economy. It helps by bringing tourists to spend money here and transferring money from wealthy countries to third world locales where many people are living in totally different ways compared to developed nations. Some bad things are that local people who only speak spanish can be exploited or ignored by tourist companies and left to their own business, not getting part of the economic pie that tourism bakes. The attraction that tourists go to see may interrupt the natural cycle of things surrounding a peasants home in the countryside by driving by in big buses and littering, but nothing is done to compensate them.

Bananas part 4

2008-06-09T19:53:00.008-04:00

We finally got to go see a banana plantation! On Friday, after leaving La Selva, we headed to Chiquita. There we visited a Guayacán farm on which Chiquita grows its bananas. The plantation was a sort of experimental farm for Chiquita, trying out new methods to be more sustainable and better for the environment. The plantation is connected to a large forested area which is kind of a preserve. It was saved so that animals can travel through the corridor to a different national forest. Anyway, we learned that bananas are not native to Costa Rica which is the reason for all the chemicals that are used to help the bananas grow or pesticides to keep bugs from infesting them. These pesticides and chemicals are eventually drained into local rivers and things because of the elaborate system of aquaducts/ditches (i cant remember the word that is used for dispersing water on farms) goes between all the plants. The bananas have to have a specific amount of water, not too much or they will drown and not too little or the plants will die.
The way bananas grow is pretty interesting. First of all, bananas are not a tree. They are a plant, and the banana group begins as a flower. The flower takes 9 months to mature and turn into a bunch of bananas, and as they ripen, plastic bags are put over the bananas to protect them from bugs. Because this plantation is the main eco-friendly project for Chiquita, these bags are recycled and reused, but on most plantations this doesn´t happen and often times these bags are found in the ocean or other random places along the drainage ditches.

This plantation takes extra care to make sure their workers are safe. These methods include wearing a long sleeve shirt (oh yeah, im sure that does a lot) and a mask. Workers also get their blood tested every 3 months to make sure that they are doing okay, but all these methods dont really seem to be that effective. To me, it seems kind of fake. They do all these things to pretend that they care about their workers, but in actuality, these methods are just to look nice and don´t seem very effective. The health of the workers is still largely at risk, and the company looks the other way because they are doing a tiny bit to act like they care.

We got to see their packaging plant, and it seemed to be safe overall. The workers looked happy and had simple jobs like washing off the bananas, throwing out the ones that looked flawed so they could be used in baby food and other things, putting stickers on each banana by hand, or packing the bananas up in boxes to be shipped to America and Europe. We also witnessed the crazy Chiquita Banana Show, where local women try to become actresses and follow a cheesy script explaining how the bananas are grown and processed. It was one of the most bizarre experiences of my whole trip, along with the Cafe Britt show, and was hard to understand because it was all in Spanish. They had outrageous costumes and wore makeup to look like men. At one point the women grabbed some guys hands and made them dance in a circle. It was awkward to say the least, and one of the women had disturbingly sweaty hands. They took us out to the banana field for an extension of the bizarre show where they showed us the plants. Every banana plant is tied down to the ground with multiple ropes because the plants are too big to hold themselves up, which is one again an example of why bananas probably shouldnt be grown in Costa Rica. This will never change most likely. Overall, the plantation was very interesting and demonstrated some big problems that Chiquita has some not-so-effective solutions to try and fix.

Coffee part 4

2008-06-09T19:52:00.001-04:00

The economics of coffee: pricing, different classifications, and middlemen.

Here in Costa Rica there are different prices for coffee compared to in America. According to my research, that is because America imports over 1200 thousand tons of coffee each year while Costa Rica imports no coffee since it is grown here. The demand is normal and the supply is high, while in America the demand is high and the supply is lower. Here, a 1 lb bag of Cafe Britt coffee is $5, but in America it is $9 plus the shipping for it to get there. At the award-winning Del Cafe... Tal, we could purchase coffee for $10/lb while in America large scale stores like Starbucks purchase it for $15/lb. This mark-up is not necessarily seen by the producer themselves but more likely by middlemen, unless significant effort has been put forth in order to eliminate them like in Daisy's case. Also, you can buy coffee directly from foreign producers and will most likely get a better deal rather than going through a large intermediary. Starbucks even sells a Costa Rican coffee called Tarrazu that is 1 lb for $13, and it is out of stock on their website. The description is full of fluff to make the coffee sound different and great. Examples of this are "single-origin coffee offers vibrant flavors and a refreshing acidity" and "vibrant and refreshing coffee is complemented by bright, fruity flavors like lemon, strawberry, peach and pineapple". I believe almost none of this superfluous marketing ploy.

Once again, the price of coffee depends on its classification. The price varies significantly if the coffee is Fair Trade, organic, organic certified, shade-grown, or sungrown. Some of these methods are healthier for the environment in general, while others are not, so it is up to a eco-friendly consumer to purchase the more expensive coffee. Since I do not drink coffee, I don't know if there would be a difference in the taste between all these classifications but I'm assuming not.

The Caribbean

2008-06-09T19:19:00.008-04:00

we just got back from the caribbean which was awesome.

thursday: In the morning we visited a medical supplies place called Makol. We learned about the medical sector of the economy and how cutthroat socialized health care is in Costa Rica. The hospitals, run by the government, are narrow minded and only buy the cheapest product, even when in the long run or bigger packaging they would get better deals. The hotels also have no way of inventorying things, so when an order comes to Makol, who is only a distributor, products are needed ASAP. We also learned that the socialized health care system works well when you have a life threatening problem, but if you just have a normal check up, you could be put on a waiting list for over a year. Kind of a flawed system. Costa Rica is also having problems with Nicaraguans illegally entering the country using their socialized health care and schooling systems without paying for anything through taxes (see any resemblance to the United States and illegal Mexican immigrants? I do).

After the stop we drove to La Selva (The Jungle) research station. Here we went on a few nature walks and relaxed. We saw some monkeys that got pretty close to us on our afternoon walk which was neat, and we also saw the tiny tiny tree frogs for which Costa Rica is famous. A few students opted to walk around at night but we didnt see anything. Nevertheless, it was extremely scary because we had no idea what we could run into and didn't have a guide. We stayed overnight, had a short morning walk, and drove to Chiquita. There we saw this ridiculous show, the packaging factory, lunch, got bug bites for the first time, and drove for a long time to Puerto Viejo. On the drive we finished off the Bourne movie trilogy, 2 movies in a row, and it was fantastically distracting.

Puerto Viejo, on the caribbean coast, was kind of shady town to say the least but was still fun. I was offered drugs multiple times, but that will happen in a Rastafarian-dominated place. We had dinner and went out on the town.

saturday: We got up early and drove to Cahuita national park to go snorkeling. I finally got some fins that were actually the correct size and a better snorkel which made me very happy. We saw lots of coral and fish, and even a decent sized stingray in the water. The water was very shallow water compared to the Osa, but was kind of murky. After snorkeling for a while, we had to switch out with this other group so we sat on the beach for awhile. There, we came face to face with white face monkeys right next to us. I could have touched them if I wanted, and they were obviously used to human interaction. They even tried to steal this lady's purse. We also saw a yellow eyelash pit viper (a very small but bright yellow cool snake) and a sloth that was high up in the tree.

After lunch we drove to Manazillo, a very small town close to Puerto Viejo. It was what one of our teachers refered to as a "postcard beach". Our hotel, Hotel Las Palmas, was amazing, very nice accommodations. It was definitely the best place we had stayed at which made everyone happy. The beach was clean and isolated so there were no large groups of tourists, no sketchy people trying to sell drugs or crappy crafts, just the ocean and nice hotel rooms. It was great. A group of us stayed up all night to attempt to see the sunrise over the ocean, but we were up and the cloud cover prevented us from seeing it happen unfortunately.

sunday: After very little sleep we got up to eat breakfast and a small group went to the actual town of Manzanillo. We went on a little walk to see Panama and this cool view. It was very hot. We also walked around the town and surrounding houses and saw some interesting things. We went back to our hotel for lunch where I had a great hamburger, hung out at the pool and ocean, and relaxed again which was glorious. This was one of the first times that we could actually just sit around and relax and not have to be going going going doing lots of different activities. We ate a good dinner (our hotel had fantastic food), watched strange movies on tv while falling asleep, and made a bonfire on the beach. I slept really well.

monday: Drove back to Puerto Viejo to hang out for 2 hours and eat lunch, JC/me/paul/peter rented moped/scooter things for an hour whcih was the best thing ever. Everyone except me had near-death experiences, right in front of the place we rented them from. We also ate at Peace & Love Pizzeria, which was some of the best pizza I've ever consumed. Then we drove home. It was a good day

Coffee part 3

2008-06-09T19:18:00.010-04:00

Coffee has some problems when it is not shade-grown. These coffee plants need direct sunlight to grow and are 3X as productive as shade grown coffee, which makes it extremely attractive to companies or plantation owners. Since there is no need for forests with this kind of coffee, often times jungles are cut down to create land in order to grow this coffee. This isn't just bad because of the deforestation, erosion of the soil due to lack of deep tree roots, and elimination of diversity of flora and fauna, but also because sungrown coffee needs pesticides which may end up draining into local rivers and polluting the groundwater. Over 2/3rds of land under pasture in Costa Rica (meaning plantations or fields) is subject to high erosion risk. When you consider how much of the economy is based on agriculture, that adds up to be a signficant amount of erroded soil that can't be helped due to the original deforestation used to clear the land for the agricultural plants. Also, as we learned at Cafe Britt, more than 70% of the coffee bean is actually discarded, including multiple layers of shells and other non-edible parts, which often ended up as waste in streams. As the bean is processed, it is soaked in water for a day to get the gelatinous coating off of the bean. Sometimes, this water was disposed of incorrectly into local streams causing pulp buildup in streams surrounding plantations and sugar to be in the water which ends up taking some oxygen out of the water, killing everything that was living. Thankfully, the Costa Rican government decided to enact a pollution control law in 1995 that makes sure that solid and liquid waste are properly disposed of.

Eco-tourism part 3

2008-06-09T19:18:00.007-04:00

We had an extension of ecotourism this past weekend. We went to the Osa Peninsula, which I already talked about somewhat. The Osa Peninusla is part of a huge national park in the southern pacific side of Costa Rica, Corcovado National Park. It covers over 100,000 acres of land, and is very difficult to access so there aren´t a ton of beachy tourists. Our hotel/tent place that we stayed at did a few things that were sustainable, which surprised me. Because of the limited food resources and things like that in the middle of nowhere (actually named Drake Bay, Costa Rica), the food scraps are fed to a pig that lived near the hotel. The master plan is to fatten up the pig with the scraps and feast on him later, which is pretty smart but old school. Rumor has it that they also had their own personal cow out back whos milk was served at breakfast. Warm, unpasturized milk that hasn´t been processed to 2 or 1% or skim doesn´t taste all that bad actually. The hotel had limited power sources and didn´t use lights during the day and the dining area was pretty dark at night. Even though this hotel was kind of like camping, it was still luxurious to a certain extent which surprised me.

The snorkelling that we did was also an extension of our ecotourism trip. Observing local fish in their natural habitat while limiting the human effects on the environment is what ecotourism is all about. While we did ride in gasoline powered boats and we did put ourselves in the coral reef to examine fish and other wildlife, this type of tourism in preserved waters is still not awful for the environment like other kinds of ecotourism. I always cringe when I think about the bus that we have taken all over the country because I know that the fumes coming out are very strong and definitely not good for the world and CO2 emission problems.

Bananas part 3

2008-06-09T19:14:00.006-04:00

Dangerous bananas? Yes, its true. Bananas can be extremely harmful to the health of the environment and plantation workers. This post will be about the problems that plantations and their overseeing corporations have when it comes to the general health of the world. There are problems with the rights of immigrants and human rights, violations of labor standards, pesticide runoff problems, and deforestation in order to expand plantations. There is a major project/ group in Costa Rica that has been formed to help change the environmental conditions of banana growth, and it is called the FORO EMAUS or Emaus Forum in English. They have problems fighting against powerful corporations unwilling to change, political parties, and mass media. Another problem is the consumer. Because people in America and Europe prefer bananas to not only taste good but look good too, extra pesticides and chemicals not necessary to the health and taste of the bananas are used. I feel that if people realized that bananas that look okay but not great taste the same and are better for the environment, there might be a market for that specific product. Bananas weren't originally meant to grow in Costa Rica. The plant is from Asia, and this is the underlying reason why so many harmful chemicals have to be used to assist in the growht of the plants. Some chemicals used in banana production have been so harmful to workers in the past that they became sterile and unable to have children. The problem with some corporations is the fact that they sometimes refuse to comply with Costa Rican laws and other international "requirements" in the banana agricultural sector. Spraying the pesticides by airplane and not by hand also expands the affected regions because the pesticides are airborn and can be blown around by the wind to where some workers may live. After many years of pesticides being used, the ground often becomes saturated and unable to grow anything becasue of the chemical content. A way that workers can protect themselves is by joining unions, so nearly 90% of all banana plantation workers are part of the union UTRAL and many file complaints about working conditions, which is why they have improved significantly in recent years.

The weekend (aka saturday-weds)

2008-06-04T21:21:00.009-04:00

On Saturday we went to the pacuare river to white water raft. It was about an hour and a half away from San Jose, up more mountains and around windy roads which we’ve become accustomed to. We had to get up really early again in order to leave by 6:30 to make it for breakfast at the white water rafting place. We tried to get only guys in our raft in order to paddle stronger and faster, and we almost succeeded but didn’t. We had a little briefing session in the van on the way up to the river., but not super detailed. Once again I felt unsafe, but oh well. There were class 2-4 rapids Most people in our boat got tossed out at one point or another, and it was really really fun. Probably one of my favorite parts of this entire trip. Going down the river, we were in the middle of the jungle which was quite breathtaking. Unfortunately, my camera is not waterproof so I have no pictures. We even got to see native Costa Ricans (like indians) along the side of the river at points which was pretty cool. We were in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Our guide was great, and nobody was seriously injured thankfully. We ate lunch on the river and swam around, and after lunch we rafted for another hour. I realized that being in the front of the boat is 50 times more fun than being in the back because you get splashed and its just out of control. After we finished, we went back to San Jose and pretty much everyone just crashed at home since we had to get up even earlier the next day to leave for the Osa Peninsula on the pacific coast near Panama.

Sunday, we had a very long bus ride to the Osa Peninsula, including a moment when we had to get off the bus so it could "perform a somewhat dangerous manuever" which involved students pushing the bus from behind so it could bottom out on a tiny bridge. We had to ride on boats to get to the town we were staying in on the peninsula, and the ride was really fun. We went through a forest on the boat (pictures to explain that will come later) and got to go pretty fast out on the open ocean. We got to our camp/tents/nice place that would serve as our hotel for 3 days and everyone got to relax which was wonderful. Dinner was delicious too which made the travel day much better.

Monday we had another early morning, around 7am, to go to the corcovado national park which we had to ride a boat to. This trip has been so crazy for our normal schedules as college students considering all the early mornings. There were 3 groups of about 10 students, and luckily I had a really crazy guide who also worked at the hotel we stayed at. He was in tune with nature to the fullest and hadn't worn shoes voluntarilly in 15 years. He let us on the trail and had us eat termites if we wanted (which taste like wood/dirt but are extremely healthy), eat some kind of muscle thing that was growing on a rock in the ocean, and swim in the this swimming hole that was at the base of a stream coming out of the peninsula that lead to the ocean. We saw lots of bugs like spiders and leaf cutter ants and even a jaguar footprint in the dirt. We also saw tracks of the Tapir on the sand. The Tapir is the largest mammal in the park, and kind of looks like an anteater. We headed back for lunch and saw a half-eaten sea otter that we had to wade past which was pretty repulsive. After we ate lunch and hung out at the beach, all the groups went to the waterfall. My crazy guide lead a small group of us from this little waterfall everyone was at (about 6 feet tall) to a the huge waterfall upstream that was probably 30-40 feet tall. We climbed up rock faces and there were multiple times that I thought I was going to slip and fall off of it and die, but luckily there were no fatalities. After the waterfall visit we took the boats back to our hotel and played cards until dinner and after dinner. This weekend was full of more cards than I've ever played in my lifetime probably.

The next day we went by boat to rainy boat ride to the island where we went snorkeling. The water was clear blue which was gorgeous, and the coral reef we were over was pretty far down so to get a close look at the fish you had to dive down a little bit. We also hung out on the beach for a little bit and then went home early for fear of being trapped on the island by what seemed to be an incoming storm. Most people went to sleep in their tents when we got home but I wasn't tired so I read outside and thoroughly enjoyed the awesome view from my deck. I slept a little before dinner since everyone else was still sleeping and then hung out with everyone at night.

On wednesday we road the boat back to the town where we left our bus and had the longest bus ride ever. It was a long day.

itinerary until i leave
Thursday, June 5, Leave to La Selva Research Station, Caribbean (BRING MU T-SHIRT)
Friday-sunday, chill in the puerto viejo, go to banana plantations,
Monday, June 9, Return to San Jose
Tuesday, June 10, Class, Lunch, Class
Wed, June 11, Evals., Group Reports, lunch, Final Exam
Thur, June 12, Poas and water falls visit (no swimming) (BRING MU T-SHIRT)
Fri, June 13, Free day, packing, Farewell Dinner
Sat, June 14, fly home

Manuel Antonio fotos

2008-05-31T00:47:00.008-04:00

cocodrillos (crocs) in the dirty river
dirty croc river. they were massive.
the tiniest croc next to the malnourished cows
small croc next to big croc.
view from our hotel, this is as sunny as it got the whole time. probably raining in this p
the town of Manuel Antonio, that i thought would be resorty. it was not.

dinner time pictures. morell, heidi, me, jon campbell, and paul
monkey road kill. sorry but i had to.
wrestling match. bad idea.
hanging out outside. me, stephanie, steve, and diane.
another view from the hotel
on the beach walking toward the national park
pacific ocean, for the first time in my life. pretty cool even though it was overcast.
cool rocks in the ocean
mas
mas
forest.
another lovely view. it was still pretty even though we had crappy weather.
if you look closely, there are 3 little black dots in the brightness on a branch in the top middle of this picture. those are howler monkeys, and this giant branch almost crushed us when it fell and they screamed and it was one of the most intense moments ive ever had.
me posing on the rock everyone else posed on too oceano pacifico
playa y oceano pacifico
another view
i think there is a white face monkey in this picture. right in the middle at the top, a black dot-ish thing. sorry, i tried.
upper left corner, small rodent-esque animal thingy. very hard to see, well camoflaged.
mas playa y oceano
flores
hotel pool. rain on the water.

final view of manuel antonio. thank you tropical depression/storm thing for giving us tons and tons of rain.

Monteverde Cloud Forest fotos

2008-05-31T00:12:00.008-04:00

cute puppies at the pitstop on the death ride to monteverde. for the record, puppies are and will always be cuter than babies. hands down.
first sign of clouds entering the cloud forest. the first sign of the incredible non-stop wetness we were about to experience for 2 days. mas clouds
carmen and morell after the tarzan swing at the zipline tour place. it was cool to say the least. notice the wetness

1/2 of carmen, morell, evan, and I after doing the tarzan swing. notice the wetness

bug on the night time forest tour. notice the wetness.

tree frog. its tough to take clear pictures at night using flashlights instead of camera flashes which we weren't allowed to use for some reason. notice the wetness.

a caterpillar that had been eaten from the inside out. pretty cool. notice the wetness.

tarantula. guess i got over my fear of spiders?

it was pretty cool. it only comes out at night because sometimes if they come out during the day a huge wasp will come, stun the tarantula, pick them up (spider is about the size of your palm) and fly it somewhere, inject its babies into it, the spider would wake up, and 2 months later hundreds of wasp babies would burst out of the tarantula killing it. nasty but cool.

my night time tour group and guide. notice the wetness.

selva (forest) in the morning

what tarzan supposedly swang around the forest on

caterpillar of some sort that was alive. whoops, my flash went off so i could finally get a clear picture.jon campbell in front of the strangler fig tree, hollow in the middle because the tree let things grow up beside it, get to the top to take in the sun, they throw their roots down the side of the tree, eventually the middle of the tree rots out and dies, often times bats live in here.famous female Quetzal through the telescope, didnt get a pic of the male

female Quetzal in the tree

plant of some sort

different plant of some sortmy early morning (6am) tour group

leaving the cloud forest.

leaving the cloud forest. notice the wetness. still. everything i brought on this trip got soaked.

cool river on the ride home

man with horse and dog on the drive home

La Fortuna waterfall fotos

2008-05-31T00:04:00.004-04:00

the whole group walked behind the waterfall where it said "danger dont go back here". it was really cool too

didnt want so much of the rock, but oh well i didnt take it

how the picture was supposed to be taken

pj and i after getting out

neat-o
more neat-o. very epic and beautiful place

in america, you'd never be allowed to swim in there. but hey, we arent in america!

hugeness

Arenal Fotos

2008-05-30T23:40:00.008-04:00

arenal from the crazy van ride to monteverde

again
it was awesome
the crazy road. no guard rails, driving fast, near death experiences
arenal from afar

somehow i got GREAT pictures from the moving vans driving to the boat at lake arenal
arenal
another arenal. most impressive natural thing i have ever seen. ever. way better than the rockys.

awesome view from the boat

arenal. in all its glory from the boat across lake arenal

other flower in the lava rock fields
view from the lava rock field of the cloudy surrounding mountains

flower in the lava rock field
lava rock field

one of my favorite pictures of Aren

arenal from the bus

funny man with his belly hanging out

the massive arenal

lake arenal from the lava rock field
chase and I on the lava rock field with lake arenal in the background

the first view of Arenal, which Glenn and Saul told us was pretty good. don't worry, it got waaay better

the picture in our room that i took a picture of in case it was never cloud-free

our hotel room when we put all 3 beds together for television viewing purposes

Arenal in all its morning glory

me and probably the most dangerous thing i've ever witnessed

Ecotourism part 2

2008-05-29T23:55:00.007-04:00

As mentioned previously, ecotourism is a way to use the environment the way it is and turn it into something economic. A lot of the tourism in Costa Rica has something to do with this, the majority of which is the national park system and all of the activities that local people and visitors can do in them.
This weekend we experienced some ecotourism at its finest. Traveling to Monteverde, we learned that the local people petitioned to not have the roads rebuilt in order to keep the destination from becoming a day trip so tourists have to stay overnight and will perhaps do the nighttime or early morning tours through the rainforest. Roberto, our guide for the weekend, informed us that the entire Monteverde cloud forest was centered around ecotourism, as tourists come to experience nature 360 degrees. We went on a zipline tour of the forest, which was very cool. Ziplines themselves are a good way to provide an attraction for tourists yet preserve the majority of the forest, because tourists come to see nature and not just go on a ride like a roller coaster. From the ziplines we were up close and personal with the trees and rain that come along with being in a rain forest, and we also saw some amazing views when one of the ziplines crossed an expansive valley. I feel like this type of tourist attraction, compared to one of the 4X4 tours offered in the area, is much better for the environment and surrounding flora and fauna. Ziplines, after being constructed, are a no-emission activity, which is amazing. Being able to profit basically soley off of nature is such an incredible thing to witness because we enjoyed it, the environment was not harmed, and the company that we ziplined through was able to profit. It was a win-win situation for everyone.

An even more environmentally friendly type of ecotourism were our nature hikes through the forest at our hotel. People travel to Monteverde from around the world to witness tons of species of birds, including the rare Quetzal, and other animals in their natural surroundings, without making too much of an impact on them. We walked through the forests with guides, first through the secondary forest, which used to be fields about 50 years ago, and into the primary forest, where the trees are exponentially larger and more impressive. It was raining so we didn't get to see a ton of animals at night, but we did witness a tree frog sitting on a leaf, minding its own business and a few other small bugs. It was really cool to be able to see animals in their own habitat, with a minimalized impact by humans upon them. This really was the manifestation of ecotourism in my mind. The morning walk was the same thing, and my group was able to see both the female and the male Quetzal, which is a huge deal. We really lucked out to see this bird, considering there are only 400 pairs of them in the entire Monteverde forest, which spans hundreds of thousands of acres.

I also noticed the opposite effect at Manuel Antonio, as the human race crept up on nature and forced it into a small park surrounded by human things. We saw white face monkeys, banging on the roof of a nearby hotel and running across wires put up over the road in order to let them safely cross. Unfortunately, we also saw a dead monkey on the road, which was identifiable by its sharp teeth, small mouth, and curly tail. Clearly the encroachment of humans upon nature here is for the worse, but that is magnified by the fact that Manuel Antonio park is one of the most visited in the country. Another way that this was evident was by the trash and general smell of the town, which was just unclean to put it lightly. On the walk through the park though, we did witness an abundance of life, including more whiteface monkeys, howler monkeys, a couple of rodent/small dog looking things that were not dogs, and some birds. There were so many animals here because human tourists cornered all the animals in the one safe place they could live in, kind of like a small cage between civilization and the ocean. Without a guide and in the rain we probably missed out on some wildlife, but by that time we were all out of money for the most part, so we made the best of it.

Overall, ecotourism is a good thing for the environment here in Costa Rica. The country on the whole is trying to preserve more of their trees and things like that, and being able to keep their environment healthy and unaffected by humans as much as possible while having a major tourism industry is quite an amazing feat.

Coffee part 2

2008-05-29T10:49:00.007-04:00

Cafe Britt coffee is sold everywhere we have been. I saw it at the hot springs, I saw it in gift shops around Arenal, and it was even sold in the gift shop at Monteverde. I guess it pays to be the big name in the coffee industry, especially since the coffee grown at Del Cafe... Tal is supposedly better tasting. While Del Cafe... Tal is working on having a website for international ordering and advertising, Cafe Britt already has a well developed website that makes it easy t order their coffee and stock on store shelves. Maybe in time Del Cafe... Tal can catch up with Cafe Britt or perhaps create their own niche in the coffee market by being a local high quality Fair Trade coffee plantation.

There are 5 indicators that the coffee that a consumer purchases is sustainable.

The first is a certification, but this is a vague category. Their are multiple seals, or no seal at all on the product due to the costs associated with becoming a certified sustainable coffee plantation. There is a bird friendly coffee certification, which is one of the top certifications that the coffee truly was "grown under the most stringent environmental standards of any certification system", especially because to receive this certification they must already be organic too. The Rainforest Alliance is another group that can qualify coffee as being sustainable, but not necessarily organic. This group only has the requirement that 30% of the beans are certified, so if you truly want organic/sustainable you have to look for a different mention that says the coffee is 100% Rainforest Alliance certified or certified organic. The concept of truly sustainable coffee is difficult to find out the truth about.

The second indicator is the country of origin of the coffee. Many countries that grow shade-grown coffee are more sustainable than those that don't because they leave trees and other native biodiversity alone to shade the plants. This is obviously better than a country that cuts down forests in order to grow coffee.

The third indicator is something called Botanical variety, which means which type of coffee (arabica or robusta) coffee you might be purchasing. High quality is arabica, while low quality is robusta, so make sure labels specifically mention 100% arabica coffee. Bourbon and typica are other types of arabica coffee that require shade to grow, which gives more evidence that the coffee was grown in a more sustainable way than catuai and caturra sun grown coffees.

The fourth indicator is to buy coffee from a small roaster and not from a big-time corporation that roasts coffee from multiple plantations at one time. Small roasters know their suppliers better and may have precise information about the origin of the coffee sold to you as a consumer.

The fifth indicator is price. Sustainable coffee is definitely not the cheapest coffee you can find, because in order to be sustainable, plantations are less productive per acre and it costs more in general to produce. Small distinct coffees that are sustainable are both better for the environment and better tasting than large corporation coffee productions.

Bananas part 2

2008-05-29T10:48:00.010-04:00

So after doing a little more research on bananas, and after Glenn's powerpoint yesterday, I finally have more stuff to say about bananas. First off, there were some outside of our hotel at Manuel Antonio beach, and we took one off the branch even though it was very green and opened it. It smelled weird and we definitely did not consume it. I also read the recent news that Dole has declared that it will purchase carbon credits in order to offset their emissions from transporting bananas and pineapples in Costa Rica. This is a leading move in the industry, and although not related to costa rica, Dole also began converting their some of their farming and harvesting equipment to run on biodiesel fuel in America.

On a different note, I researched a little about the Rainforest Alliance and their relationship with Chiquita in Costa Rica. Rainforest Alliance began their "Better Banana Project," an effort to "reduce the negative environmental impacts of banana cultivation and improve working conditions on farms". Bananas are the world's #1 consumed fruit so trying to improve the processes needed to grow and harvest bananas is very important for ecosystem health. Banana plantations got a bad rap back in the day when they treated their workers terribly, cut down forests to make more room for growing, and used tons of toxic chemicals. Slowly, this is changing. Chiquita's plantation in Costa Rica is Rainforest Alliance certified, denoting it as a much more sustainable type of banana plantation. Instead of just chopping all the trees down and farming completely flat areas, Chiquita began planting trees and bushes to border their fields to help prevent runoff and other things from spreading too far into the surrounding areas. They also tried to eliminate the use of poisonous chemicals that had been used and changed to better pesticides. Chiquita also increased safety regulations about how workers could come in contact with the fields that had been recently sprayed with pesticides. They also began recycling plastic bags, twine, and wood each year that have saved Chiquita a lot of money and have saved the environment from a lot of unnecessary waste.

http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/agriculture.cfm?id=fruits

The weekend

2008-05-29T10:46:00.013-04:00

Arenal

friday after class we drove to Arenal, a volcano north of San Jose. It was about a 4 hour drive, and after we checked in to our hotel (Rossi something), we went to the Baldi hot springs. These hot springs are heated by the volcano, and the hottest one is 152 degrees, which all of us got in. It was scalding to say the least. They had this ridiculous water slide that was definitly unsafe and caused a few headaches and pains in our entire bodies, but it was so much fun. It could never have existed in America. There weren´t a whole lot of people there, which was nice, and it was very relaxing. At first, I thought the hot springs would be in the mountainside and wouldn´t be touristy so I didnt bring my camera bc i didnt want it to get wet, but they were like pools and it was obvious it was a tourist destination. I was mad that I didn´t bring my camera because it was really cool. After we got out of the springs, we had a delicious dinner with some really good pasta that hit the spot after eating rice and beans for such a long time. After returning to the hotel a few of us were exhausted and fell asleep watching tv.

Saturday morning we were up early, and we visited a hydroelectric powerplant. We got to see the dam, and then we drove to the powerplant part of it and we able to go inside and see the turbines and other mechanical things like that. It was pretty neat, and I took some pictures for grandpa. It is over 2 miles from the dam to the powerplant itself, so all the water has to travel to and from the dam in order to go through the turbines. A lot of people didn´t find the powerplant very interesting but I liked it. After that, we changed clothes and for those of us that wanted to went horseback riding to the La Fortuna waterfall. The horseback riding was one of my favorite parts of the weekend. We had about 25 people who rode, which was really fun, and it was the first time that I was able to ride on a horse while it was galloping. It was really hot, and a few people got bad sunburns from it. After 30 minutes of riding, we got to the path to walk down to the waterfall. It was an extremely steep pathway, and there were other American tourists there. The waterfall was beautiful and amazing, crashing down into a pool that we were allowed to swim in. Once again, something that would never be legal in America. The water was cold but very refreshing, and I drank a few gulps of it hoping that I wouldn´t get sick. After playing in the waterfall, we went back to the hotel and quickly ate bologna sandwiches for lunch. Then, we drove to this hike to see the lava rocks from the 1968 volcanic eruption. It was really cool and had a nice view of Arenal lake, which was created after the volcano exploded and covered a nearby town in lava. After the hike, we returned to the hotel, but there was a power outage so we went to the grocery store which must have had a generator and got ice cream. We all hung out outside of our rooms with candles provided by the hotel and could see the top of the volcano because molten lava. It was extremely faint, but it was definitly red at the top. Pretty scary stuff.

Monteverde

We got up early Sunday morning and got in vans to drive to this boat that took us across Arenal lake because it would supposedly have taken us hours to drive around it. We then took different vans up some awful road to monteverde but had beautiful views. There were many points at which I thought I was going to die. The roads are pretty much the worst thing ever, and we might as well have been driving on a grenade filled battlefield that curves around like a snake up a mountainside that has no guardrails. We got to our hotel, in the national park, ate lunch, changed clothes, and went to go on a rainy zip-line canopy tour. It was really fun, especially in the rain, but I didn't take many pictures because of that. Our clothes got soaked and really dirty from the grease or something on the ziplines, and we went back to the hotel to change. We got pizza for dinner which was AMAZING because we hadn't had American food in forever and we also got ice cream b/c it was Rob's birthday. After, we were all exhausted but it was only 7pm, and we had a night walk in the rainforest. We all wore our wet clothes, which was miserable, and we only saw a couple of animals but one was a tarantula and a tree frog which was neat. Slept soundly.

Early morning monday we had another nature walk. We saw the famous Quetzal bird, supposedly some famous bird people come from around the world to see, and we saw the male and the female so I guess we were lucky. We had a long drive back to San Jose, and in the afternoon it didn´t rain and we went to downtown sketch marketplac and made some deals with local sketchy people for their stuff. Hit the sack at about 9pm monday and it felt great.

Manuel Antonio

Tuesday we had another early morning to leave for the beach at Manuel Antonio. We had a long ride on a Jetsons-esque bus and it rained the whole time. It was not anything like the paradise I hoped it would be. It was a sketchy and there were weird people there, and there weren't any resort-type hotels or anything. The beach was clean which was nice. But we still had fun playing in the ocean with some of the biggest waves I have ever seen, considering I almost never go to the beach.

It rained again Wednesday but we made it to the national park at Manuel Antonio, almost got killed by this huge falling tree branch which caused howler monkeys to scream and at that point we realized they were all around us but we could barely find any of them. There were some pretty views, but that was offset by the fact that it was still raining. We also saw a whiteface monkey and some weird rodent animals. We had a super long drive back to San Jose due to traffic.

Today (thursday) we had about 9 hours of class, including a very tough midterm.

Currently experiencing a tropical depression. I need to see the sun soon.

Todos mis fotos

2008-05-26T19:33:00.009-04:00

one of the many many many one lane bridges that our giant bus crosses.

clean river meets dirty river

across the street from my house

out the bathroom window

dogs and cats on the way to school

glenn in class

cafe britt

best hot chocolate ever

tourist central

actors and emily

most ridiculous history of coffee show ever

cafe britt coffee roaster, old tourist floridians in the front row taking pictures

dogs on the way to school

cafe britt

the actors at cafe britt

actors at cafe britt

stephanie taking in the scenery

looking for a toucan that Ronald heard
toucan search
coffee fields
relaxing in a hammock

dog
dog

large flying ant

chase and I with a dog
chase and I with a dog
dog and drying rack things

hammock
flying ant
flying ant

Our profs Saul and Glenn
Huge bug

where they process coffee

blue ant but came out a little blurry

matching roommates haha

Eco-Tourism

2008-05-22T11:34:00.005-04:00

We are going to Monteverde this weekend and to the beach at Manuel Antonio on tuesday and wednesday. Ecotourism is a type of tourism that focuses specifically on ecological things and nature, and most of the tourism in Costa Rica is ecotourism. Ecotourism also focuses on the learning aspect of a vacation, where many times people volunteer or learn how to help the environment and the planet. Ecotourism also attempts to not harm the environment as much as normal tourism does, so sometimes more energy efficient buses are used and things of that nature. Ecotourism and responsible and sustainable development started making strides in the 1980's, and has since seen lots of growth especially with the recent concerns about global climate change and stuff like that.

The tourism that we have done so far has not been ecotourism really. We had a tour of the city of San Jose a couple of times, but I guess that going to the coffee plantations was a type of ecotourism. I would say that Del Cafe... Tal was much more of an ecotourism farm compared to Cafe Britt which was much more commercial.

Bananas

2008-05-22T11:33:00.002-04:00

I like bananas and there are some banana trees on my walk to school next to this house that has a security guard. I know that we are going to visit 2 different banana plantations, one that is sustainable and one that is not and probably uses way too many chemicals to be good for the environment. Bananas are a big part of Costa Rica´s exports as well, just like coffee.Bananas!

They are actually the number one foreign currency earning industry for Costa Rica. The United Fruit company was one of the first companies to start growing bananas in Costa Rica, and they helped develop a train system throughout the country to transport their crops which also assisted with the helped grow the interior structure of the country.

There are 2 major companies that have been involved with bananas in the past, them being United Fruit and Standard Fruit Co. which is the newer of the two. Both grow bananas near the atlantic coast because the climate is more appropriate there.

Evidently, there has been some violence surrounding the banana crop in Costa Rica. Violence in Costa Rica you say? Que ridiculo! (How ridiculous! especially for a country that doesn´t have an army!) There have also been numerous strikes organized by the workers, a major one being the 72-day strike in 1985. After this very long strike, United Fruit had to close down because of the lost profits and frustrations with the workers.

Coffee (Cafe)

2008-05-22T11:27:00.020-04:00

(Sorry beforehand for the crazy layout of this post with this pictures. Also, you can click on each picture for a huge version of it)

Coffee is a major crop that is exported from Costa Rica, along with bananas. There are different types of plantations here, some in the mountains at high elevations and some are lower down. Yesterday we went to Del Cafe... Tal, a small plantation located North of San Jose in Alejuela, owned by Daisy Rodriguez. She is an entreprenurial woman who started her venture into the coffee business 10 years ago. She first started off with normal coffee (not organic), then she made the switch to organic which wastes about 2 years trying to get certified for that. She grew organic coffee for 3 or 4 years and then switched back to regular non-organic because of the low profit from organic. Switching from normal to organic growing reduced her amount of coffee produced from somewhere around 100 bushels to 30 per year, and the price increase is not anywhere close enough to make up that difference.

HUUUGE bug from the Lion King that was present at the plantation.

She was also an extremely down to earth woman and was intelligent about her business practices. The cost of growing coffee add up to more than 50% of the price, and a lot of money from small farmers who sell to big companies end up in the hands of intermediaries. Her coffee used to sell for around $1.50 per pound, but a few days ago her farm won an award for having the best coffee in Costa Rica, which increased demand for her coffee greatly and now she sells it for $15.00 per pound.

Giant Flying Ant

She told us that winning the award not only increased her profits and recognition but it also raised the morale of her employees because they were part of growing award winning coffee. She has 7 full time employees, many of whom we saw, and she hires more than 70 people to come work when it is time to harvest the coffee once a year. Coffee is an interesting crop because not all the beans can be picked at the same time because the beans ripen at different times even though they could be 1 inch apart on a coffee plant. The workers have to hand pick each bean which is amazing considering the amount of acres that each plantation is on. They also had many dogs on the farm.Because she is an intelligent woman, she decided to take all the parts of the coffee production process, from the growing all the way to the packaging, and do it at her own farm to elimate intermediaries and collect all the cash she can.
Her farm sun dries the coffee beans, as seen in this picture. It takes longer for her beans to dry because of the altitude and the fact that it isn´t as sunny where her plantation is. She grows a type of coffee that does well in high altitudes and in the shade. They also have their own machine that squeezes the coffee bean out of its brown outer shell. I dont have a picture of it out of the shell but here is a picture of it inside the shell-ish type thing.

We also got a free sample of piping hot coffee, and me not being a coffee drinker, I had a sip and gave it to one of the other students who would appreciate it.

Lots of coffee producers claim they have organic coffee or fair trade and they dont. Fair trade coffee is a distinction that means that suppliers and consumers both get what they want; the best deal. It is basically a way for more profit to reach the smaller producers and farmers instead of going into the pockets of the intermediaries. This is a very good thing because in the past few years the price of coffee has dropped and many small farmers weren´t making enough profit to want to stay in business. Some bigger producers bought out small farms, and some small farms group together and sell their products to a single intermediary which earns them more money. The name of the major coop thing in Costa Rica is COOCAFÉ, the Consortium of Coffee Cooperatives of Guanacaste & Montes de Oro. It began in 1988 to try to get fair trade prices for coffee for smaller scale producers. A little random background on Costa Rican coffee is that they were the first Central American country to register coffee as an export in 1840. Coffee currently brings in 11% of Costa Rica´s export revenues and account for 2.4% of the worlds coffee (http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/fairtrade/coffee/cooperatives.html). That may not seem like very much (2.4%), but you have to consider the size of the country. Costa Rica is about the size of West Virginia.

Another random thought about coffee is that it originated in Africa, and the type grown in Costa Rica is Arabica. There are different levels of quality of Arabica, 1 through 5, so people from all walks of life can drink coffee.

Today, we went to Cafe Britt, a plantation of a much larger scale. It is like a big commercial coffee producer, unlike Daisy´s more homestyle feel. We were in the city and then we just stopped randomly and we were at their touristy location, not where they grow the majority of their coffee. Right when we got off the bus we were given iced coffee which was very sugary and decent to my taste buds but I don´t like coffee anyway so it was different. This whole place was extremely commercial and bizarre because Del Cafe.... Tal was so incredibly different. It was like going to a circus. There were 3 tour guides, who were more like actors and actresses, who helped explain the entire process of growing coffee. It takes 3 years for a coffee plant to produce a bean, and then they pick it, dry then, get the real coffee out of the shell, roast it, do other things that I can´t remember, and package it. Also, 80% of the weight of a coffee bean (pictured above in the part about Daisy´s farm) is just the covering around the bean. So a bushel weighing 25 lbs would yield only a few pounds of coffee which seems pretty crazy. This was a much much much larger scale production, even though it was a fake Disneyworld of a coffee plantation. They even had a theater with lights, sound, a stage, etc. It was just ridiculous. It was the place that tourists go, and that just isn´t my style. There were old white people from Florida there, and that just was a slap in the face about how touristy Cafe Britt was. I really wish I´d bought coffee from Daisy because I would much rather support her operation compared to the big corporate commercial place but I didn´t have enough money yesterday to do so unfortunately. They served us a very good lunch in a pretty nice looking restaurant which was a total 180 from yesterdays set up. Yesterday was in the mountains, under an open air shed type of things with 2 long tables and today was this resorty-feeling place with nice carved wooden chairs and gourmet food. It was just so different it blew my mind. They did have some delicious hot chocolate that I bought. I will try to remember to add more pictures later, but its time for bed.

Dia Dos.

2008-05-20T14:36:00.007-04:00

We went to the bank to exchange dollars for Colones, the costa rican currency. It was probably the largest bank ive ever seen in my whole life and we even each had to get a number to get waited on. There were probably about 20 different tellers and a huge lobby and we stood out like crazy because of our huge group. It was kind of tricky to exchange the money, but it went pretty smoothly and everyone got some Colones.

After we got back to school we ate lunch which was very crowded, similar to Bell Tower at noon during the school year at miami. We also had a meeting about what we need to do in order to pass this class, so Ill have some more intellectual based posts in the future specifically about bananas, coffee, and tourism. After lunch we went to CINDE, a nonprofit company that focuses on getting foreign investors to consider expanding their current companies into costa rica. CINDE doesnt do monetary investment because they want to improve Costa Rica as much as possible so its more like a group that tries to get US companies to put call centers and other places of work in Costa Rica. Their 3 main sectors are medical, (i have them written down somewhere ill fix this later). The company is a very good idea and ought to be very successful because Costa Rica is one of the most stable countries in Latin America and they have a wealth of relatively cheap labor. But being a small company with about 30 employees, including one in the US in New York, they are still working on getting their name out there and spreading the word about the good economic conditions of Costa Rica. Their website is www.cinde.org if you want to check it out.

Hola from Costa Rica

2008-05-19T18:13:00.015-04:00

I´ve been here for a few days now, and my life is coming to an end. Without being fed for the past 3 days, i feel like im starving and it is awful.

Solo bromeando! (Just kidding for you non spanish speakers)

After a 4 hour layover in Atlanta, and walking the length of the airport which is about 3 to 4 miles, we got on our plane for the short 4 hour plane ride to Costa Rica. We arrived in San Jose late friday evening, and while getting our luggage the conveyor belt broke and we waited for tico time workers to fix it. After getting through customs, we were met by a large hoard of local people holding signs and yelling names. We got on our bus and met our host families at the university, Universidad Veritas, an art and architecture school with a very modern design.

Jon (my roommate) and I were driven by Maria Joaquina Rojas, our host mother, and her husband to their house in a neighboring town. They have a 24 year old son, Juan Jose, and a 19 year old daughter who wants to be a school teacher. They are extremely nice, and Mrs. Maria knows a little spanish but in case I can´t figure something out her kids know english very well and can translate. Their house is nice, and Jon and I live in a bonus house that had 4 bedrooms and a small bathroom with ¨agua caliente!¨ (hot water) as Mrs. Maria was excited to tell us. As I had kind of figured out from using google maps, our home is the farthest from the University and a 30 minute walk, but it is worth it to live with such nice people.

This is the view out of our window in the hallway from the second floor of our little bonus house

Jon's lovely bedroom

My bedroom with the wall which doesnt reach the ceiling and has a plastic window in it in order to provide sunlight

Homeless man on the street

Downtown San Jose

In the morning jon got in the shower first and says that the water really isnt that hot, so i hop in the shower and discover that the water in the shower, is in fact, cold. I guess it is a good way to limit water usage because my showers have been about 2 minutes long every morning. Mrs. Maria makes us a good breakfast that so far has consisted of gallo pinto (rice and beans), fruit, this extremely sugary fruit juice, and bread. She is one of the nicest people I have ever met and is just like a mom to us. She asks us to not help with the dishes, and even requested that she be able to clean our rooms during the day. Now thats my kind of living!

The first day we went on a bus tour around San Jose, and stopped downtown to walk around for a little bit. We were supposed to visit Galeria Namu, famous for its high quality local crafts and things like that, but evidently they forgot about us and were closed. In their downtown they have cow statues that are painted by local artists, just like cincinnati had pigs. The city isnt really that different from a city in America with the exception that people are out walking around and there is always activity. They even have ice cream guys on bicycles that ride around the parks and sell refreshments. There just seems to be a little more traffic both on foot and in car tha tin america. We ate lunch downtown at a restaurant that served us local grub and it was very good. I am lucky that I like everyone on this trip from Miami. There has been a lot of bonding and so far everyone is relaxed and gets along really well. Being around each other all day isnt exactly beneficial to my spanish speaking skills, so it is nice to talk to our host family in spanish and try to talk to people in stores in spanish.

After a long day yesterday, Jon and I both took naps during the first real rain of the spring. Costa Rica has been in a drought recently (probably due to global warming or something), but yesterday it poured. and poured. and then poured some more. After we woke up, our host mom served us dinner with the 2 other american guys who are living with her, both studying at the same university as us but through Montana State. We played some cards with her son and one of the other american kids on the back porch in the downpour and just hung out. we met up with a bunch of other miami students later, and had trouble getting back to our house by taxi because the address that we were given is 1 of 2 possible locations in town, but we made it safely home.

pictures

2008-03-27T14:35:00.006-04:00

just seeing how adding pictures works w/ some that ive taken in colorado

Blogs are for flakes?

2008-03-25T17:16:00.002-04:00

I've never made a blog, so here goes. This blog will be full of my adventures in the land of pura vida and my reflections on things. Yay poison dart frogs and venomous snakes