So, here’s the deal: I have experienced the very unfortunate mini-crisis that is having your laptop break in the middle of a foreign country. With that said, I haven’t been able to use this blog as much as I want to! The issue is not yet diagnosed and hopefully I will be able to recover my files. Until then, I will be trying to catch up here with whatever pictures I can salvage through a laptop ACM is letting me borrow.
Onto the happier subjects that are coffee and dogs, which both fit somewhere into… at least my top 20 favorite things of all time.
The other weekend was so packed with activities that I forget to recall the memory of that time span as just a weekend. On Friday morning, the 14 of us and a couple of our program coordinators from ACM took a bus to from San José to Monteverde. Our first stop was Life Monteverde, an association that specializes in educating people about sustainability and nature conservation. We took a tour of the enormous farm, played games that taught us about sustainability in our own day-to-day activities, and even planted our own trees!
While of course their dedication to the practice of sustainability is incredibly important and admirable, my favorite part of the tour started when we reached all of the coffee plants.
COFFEE!
The coffee tour included a beautiful walk through the acres and acres of coffee plants and learning about all of the different stages of coffee farming and processing, including its environmentally friendly agricultural practices. We by some luck reached the coffee lab and roastery building as soon as the daily rain started pouring. We were able to watch how the different types of coffee beans are processed and take part in a much-needed “coffee taste” of some of the absolute best coffee you could ever taste in the world. I was definitely a little overcaffeinated after the whole ordeal because I couldn’t help but keep refilling my mini mug with more.
Like wine tasting, but arguably better.
We spent the majority of the next day hiking through La Reserva Biológica Bosque Nuboso Monteverde, one of the more popular cloud forest reserves in Monteverde, Costa Rica, and the whole world! The reserve, which is known for its extremely high biodiversity, was absolutely gorgeous. Also, walking through a cloud pretty much never gets old. Pretty magical stuff.
Later in the day, some of us decided to get reaaal tourist-y and tried out a canopy tour which consisted of several ziplines, free falls, and a “tarzan swing.” It was absolutely terrifying in the best way possible. Would definitely recommend it to any adrenaline junkies wanting to fly mile-long ziplines over 200 feet above the trees superman-style.
Attempting to hide pre-zipline nerves.
On one of the “warmup” lines
My month-long community practicum is actually in Monteverde as well, so I will be sure to make a post about that when I complete it!
We returned to San José that evening, but I already had plans to wake up bright and early the next morning on Sunday with two of my friends. We traveled a little under 2 hours to the mountains of Santa Bárbara to visit the place I had been dying to go to since well before even stepping foot in Costa Rica: Territorio de Zaguates, or “Land of the Strays.” What kind of strays, you might ask? OK, you probably aren’t asking because it’s straight up in the blog title, but DOGS. So. Many. Dogs.
My friends and I were first at the gate where already a couple dozen canine cuties came to greet us. Once it opened, we hiked through the hills for hours with swarms of pups following. Over 900 dogs inhabit the volunteer-run, free-range stray dog sanctuary. Believe it or not, every single dog has its own nickname. Also, all of them are available for adoption… and of course I wanted to adopt them all!
I was absolutely exhausted when I got home Sunday evening, but ready for class the next morning. Time here has been flying by, so I’ll never complain about a jam-packed weekend!
Word of the day: Tuanis
Basically Costa Rican slang for “cool” or “awesome.”
“Qué tuanis su carro!”
Fun fact of the day:
The roads in Monteverde are supposedly the most challenging in the country… and all the roads here seem to be PRETTY challenging. I may or may not prepare myself for the end every time I enter a vehicle here. No wonder it’s grounds for expulsion from the program if any of us are caught operating a motor vehicle!
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