Rafting, Chocolate & Coffee

Interestingly, today’s excursions made me want to visit Guyana. Today was a nice mix of extreme sports and cultural education, which is definitely my speed. I haven’t learned much about the people of Costa Rica while in Quepos and only learned a little bit about it while in San Jose via the Jade museum. For the most part the focus has been on adventure activities, volunteering, eating food and talking about food, restaurants, and places we’ve visited (a universal and favorite topic for many especially on these kinds of trips). But all of that gets old in my opinion. After white water rafting, which was really fun especially because no one fell out of the boat and the last few minutes the water was quite calm, I was able to go home and shower. Then one of the other volunteers and I visited a small coffee and cacao farm. This was where the history lesson began. 

First we took focused on the cacao plant. Then we took a toor of the land which included several cacao, coffee, herbs, pineapple, banana, vanilla and other plants. Did you know that vanilla has to be pollinated by humans? That’s part of the reason it’s so expensive. Plus there’s a long drying period required. Also found it interesting that cocao is actually pollinated by mosquitoes and not beans!

Our guide personally planted many of the crops and as an ecologist was very interested in biodiversity and the importance of not over planting one particular crop. The farm itself is very small and supported financially by the tours and not the production of cacao or coffee. Coffee which came from Ethiopia originally grows in the mountains so the conditions here in Quepos are not ideal. coffee in Costa Rica is grown in the mountainous region and harvested mostly by immigrants from Nicaragua. 

And a walkthrough of the garden we had a chance to taste! I’m personally trying to break my sugar addiction to get out of prediabetic status and also reset my palate. I could also stand to lose the little kangaroo pouch I have.  I know in the age of Lizzo and body positivity maybe I shouldn’t care, but hey I do! 

That said, our guide gave us cacao beans to taste after removing the husk. They are not sweet at all and I wasn’t bothered by that. I still enjoyed the flavor so I’ve come a long way! I used thrive on candy, chewy gummy candy or chocolate: snickers or Cadbury especially! 

Then he prepared chocolate the traditional way with cayenne pepper, hot water and pure cacao paste (ground cocao beans), honey and cinnamon. No milk! The addition of milk and removal of habanero or cayenne pepper was a European thing. When chocolate was brought back to Europe from the Americas they also added sugar. I really enjoyed the drink though. Makes me want to make a Mexican hot chocolate when I get home! 

After that, we had a delicious mix of 70% chocolate sauce (a melted mixture of cacao paste and cacao butter) with fruit for sweetness. I believe our guide said that the Dutch invented this process is the 1800s using a Dutch Press. I loved my banana, chocolate sauce, orange essence, cinnamon mix! Maybe that’ll be my new go-to dessert (instead of icecream) as I continue to ween myself off sugar. 

After the chocolate discussion we moved on to coffee. Our guide was not a coffee snob, and repeatedly insisted that the best coffee is whatever coffee you like. There is no “best” coffee. Instead you have brands insisting that their particular roast is best so that the masses become conditioned to like it and are ultimately addicted. Good ole marketing and biological tendencies at work I suppose. Similarly, our addiction to sugar as a society is also fueled by this. Can you tell I’m really on a mission to minimize my sugar intake and start tasting food again? 

That said the coffee he brewed was rather strong and not my ideal way of consuming coffee. I definitely need sugar and some flavoring from vanilla or caramel. 

Lastly, we had a lemon drink made with fresh lemons and sugar cane juice which was extracted in the traditional way using a large press which would have traditionally been powered by two oxen yoked together. 

Our guide explained that this drink came from the eastern coast of Costa Rica along the Caribbean sea, where Jamaicans and Chinese came bringing their foods like rice and beans w/ coconut milk, ginger and sugar cane. If I make it to Costa Rica again, I will have to visit the Caribbean side. I could tell our guide had a real interest in history as he explained that “gallo pinto” in western Costa Rica is not the same as “rice and beans” in the Caribbean side. He said that black people in Costa Rica often have English names as they descend from Jamaicans who came as laborers in the 1800s. It definitely made me interested in learning more about the connections between Central America, the Caribbean, and South America.

By the end of the tour, I asked my guide if he knew anything about Guyana and its agricultural and cultural influences. He said Guyana and Trinidad are places he would like to visit. And he also recommended that I read a book called Papillion. I’ve never heard of it but it’s a novel about someone from French Guyana in the mid 1900s  who travelled the Caribbean and recorded his experiences. So now I’ve come full circle. A culmination of all my activities here plus this tour have me really excited to plan my next trip to Guyana! 

And from the rafting experience, a beautiful view of a calm part of the Nanranjo river. 

On another note, totally unrelated. I’m in a multigenerational home of Americans and Costa Ricans. I’ve always found it interesting when people don’t speak. Is speaking and greeting people when you come in a house a cultural thing/ more of a black or African heritage thing? Maybe I’ll ask some other volunteers tomorrow. When I come in the house, I literally look to see who is home so I can say “Buenos Tardes.” Right now I’m sitting in a rocking chair on a patio and seeing people come in right in front of me and they are just walking by like I’m not here. Well the Americans are… Could also be that the Costa Rican family is used to having non-speaking Americans around and they have learned to keep it moving and look right past them too. Who knows?!  I guess it’s whatever… I leave in two days.