Coffee, Cocoa and Sugar Cane Tour

We love coffee, so we had to go on a coffee tour when we visited the Santa Elena/Monteverde region of Costa Rica. The tour was actually a 3 in 1 deal because not only do you learn about the coffee plantation but you also learn a bit about how chocolate is harvested and the uses of cacoa. Lastly, you get to participate in making sugar cane juice and sampling its sweet, refreshing taste. We booked the coffee tour through out hotel in Santa Elena. It was $30 per person for the two and a half hour tour. This included the shuttle to and from our hotel. The tourist infrastructure is a well oiled machine here in Costa Rica.  

The drive to Santa Elena, Costa Rica

We stayed at Las Lagos Resort our second night in Costa Rica. It cost $145 USD for a Standard Room which included a queen-sized bed, bathroom, TV, AC and a small patio. It reminded me a lot of standard resort rooms in Mexico or Cuba, with that humid, slightly mouldy smell that tends to allows linger.However, the charm of the resort lie not in the bedrooms but in the 15 different thermal pools, one of which had a swim-up bar. Unlike the Mexican and Cuban resorts the pool with the swim-up bar stayed open until 10:00 pm and was heated like our hot tub back in Grande Prairie, Alberta. It was truly glorious. We didn’t realize how genius the design truly was until Chris had to use the restroom. He left the pool and started the climb up the many stairs. After a while I heard a splash that sounded…Continue Reading

A jungle hike around Arenal, Costa Rica

We don’t have much time to talk today. We have to hit the pool and then hit the road. But here are some photos from our very cool jungle hike at the Sky Trek place near El Castillo, Arenal. It was totally worth the $22USD price of admission. The trails were very well maintained, and we saw howler monkeys in the wild! – Chris and Laura  

Arenal, Costa Rica

What a week. From a whirlwind of wrapping up (or at least catching up) work projects, to a tearful family get together, to the jungles of Costa Rica. Never mind the weather shock of going from cold, dry Canadian spring (still winter) to the muggy, humid scorching sun of Central America. Never mind the culture shock of going from neat and tidy chain-store North America to ramshackle Pura Vida Costa Rica. Forgetting all that, the sheer distance we’ve come in the last 24 hours has left us a little shell-shocked. The red-eye flights. The uncomfortable sleeps on the planes. It’s so easy to get consumed by the day to day stresses of life (and work) at home, and yet so easy to arrive in a new place and to remember that there is a whole wide world out there. Grande Prairie seems very far away indeed. Upon landing at the…Continue Reading