Good-Bye Costa Rica, Hello Belize

A rough start to the day, our flight was at 6 30 in the morning, and we needed to be at the airport early. Getting up at 3am is hard, especially if you don't get to sleep until around midnight (that was Chris). The boys really did well, but I think it had to do with the fact that I made them go to sleep about 7pm. We had 3 different planes to get to Belize. One to El Salvador, another to Belize City, and then a small 8 person plane to Placencia. One thing I didn't know was that I booked us into business class. A nice treat! We ended up having a small snack like meal on every trip, and had nice big chairs to snuggle in. The longest flight we had was 1 hour and 20 minutes.

The view from each plane was fantastic, I really wanted to sleep, but how can you in 50 minutes? I wanted to take picutres, but I just didn't.

The boys had the best time on the tiny airplane, and I think I did too.

So, we are here, and we are in love again. This is so so very very different from Costa Rica. It feels like Island Life. There are a mix of people here, and most speak with a caribbean accent. All English. We are staying in an apartment along the longest narrowest sidewalk in the world. There are restaurants, stores, hotels and more all along here. One thing that Callym and I love is that there is sand and palm trees everywhere!

We were given a few pointers for our stay. One, Watch out for Scorpions. They aren't poisonous, but hurt a lot, and like to hide in shoes and clothes, and anywhere else dark. We haven't found any yet, but there were about 10 creepy millapedes around our floors last night before bed......

Today we have spent the entire day at the beach. The boys have tried using their goggles, and Chris found 2 star-fish and a jelly fish!

Pictures aren't working on this site again, and Skype is going in and out of service. Here are some pix, and if skype starts up again, we'll call..... (sorry we missed you last night Baba and Chocha Halia!)

Who's really in charge of this family ???

Trick question....

I'd like to think that the answer to this questions is undoubtedly Chris and I, but deep down I think most parents will agree with me that somehow, someway, the kids always have a pull in the decisions made. When the four of us are in the middle of something grand down here in Central America, and you ask the boys if they are having fun, they will tell you with a smile from ear to ear YES. They are doing so many new and amazing things here, everyday is truly something new. Today as we were walking around town on our last day in Costa Rica I asked Callym if he was excited to see Belize and if he wanted to come back here soon. He said he wanted to see Belize, but if we could please go back to Canada after that, he misses Baba, Gido, Baba, Twinkle and .......... the snow. SNOW? What I said, I thought we were happy to leave the cold snow behind? No, Callym said, I want to make a snowman and throw snowballs at Dad. Oh, I say. So where would we move, someone else is living in our house now.....

Edmonton or Winnipeg was his answer. And this is when Oscar chimmed in. I want to play in the snow........

I'm so confused. I miss the snow too, but the cold..... NO THANKS. We've only been here 7 weeks (Yes I know last time I made that seem like a long time), but really, only 7 weeks. I wonder if they can get over this. Will Belize change their minds about living somewhere exotic? Will Chris and I put 'our foot down' and say we're living here get use to it? Sometimes it both scares me and makes me wonder who really is in charge of this family............

Doka Estates Coffee Tour Pictures

Pictures

Dreaming of a Green Christmas?

We have recently downloaded some Christmas music and enjoy listening to it in our little apartment. So strange to be sitting here in over 28 degrees, with no hint of a single falling snowflake. How are we going to do it this year? It's exotic to be here, but very very strange at the same time. I've never noticed that EVERY single xmas song talks about snow in one way or another..... The homes and stores here are all decked out in lights, and santa's and mangers. We also bought a small strand of twinkle lights that we plan to put up in Belize. Chris is determined to get us a tree too! Not sure if it will be a real looking xmas tree or a palm.... But something, and we'll have to decorate it somehow. Maybe pop-corn strands and paper links.... We've even seen some of those huge snowglobes with santa standing in the snow. Snow. Hmm. I really really don't miss the cold, but it will sure be different without the snow. Does anyone want to send us some, just a small little snow ball would do. Nothing big.... We'll try to send out some of our sun! Well, I'm sure the lack of snow will be easier to deal with than the lack of close family. (tear in my eye), We will miss you all so much. Please expect our skype calls not only Christmas day, but on it's eve as well...............

Doka Estates Coffee Tour

Doka Estates was a fantastic tour. Our ride was here a half an hour early (who says Costa Rican's are always late?) and the hour drive up the mountain was beautiful. I was a little worried that Oscar and Callym would find this tour dull and boring, after all it was a walking tour all about coffee.... They always seem to surprise us though. The moment we arrived a wonderful lady named Cindy introduced herself and we were on our way. We came at a great time, the four of us were the only ones on the tour, we felt special.

Cindy first brought us to the samples and tasting area, espresso, french roast, pea-berry, house blend (french and mixed), breakfast blend (french, pea-berry and mixed), and decaffeinated. Seeing as we were on a coffee tour, and we wanted the boys to have fun, we let them try some coffee (decaf, don't worry!). They loved it, and I was starting to think that this tour would be ok for them. I have to put in here as well, Cindy loved our kids. From the time we arrived, to the last second she was with us, she was playing with the boys, teasing them, tickling them, asking them questions, and more. She has 3 kids of her own, and you could tell she loved kids. Everyone also commented on Callym's hair. It's gotten so light here in the sun, and people just come up to him and touch it, it's pretty cute.

So, we're off now walking through Doka estates. This place is 450 acres big, and the oldest plantation in Costa Rica. It was started by a German man. There are over 1500 pickers in the harvesting season, and they average about 20 baskets a day (1$ per basket). All of the pickers are Nicaraguan, they come with there families, and all but the youngest children help with the picking. Doka Estates gives the pickers little homes to stay in for free that way all the money they make can be saved for their families.

We saw how the coffee plants start out, and how big they get when they are 6 months, 1 and 3 years. You can't plant them into the earth until they are 3 years old, and the plants will only produce for around 20 years. Here they prune them every 3 years so that the beans stay fresh and healthy. Cindy showed us the green and yellow and red beans. You only pick the red beans, and she asked the boys if they wanted to try to fill a basket with red ripe coffee beans. In a flash they were searching the bushes for anything red. Is this red, what about this one? The were grabbing handfuls of red beans and throwing them in the bucket. How much fun can you have picking beans? We may just have an idea of how to stay in Costa Rica and make money..... pick coffee beans....

Inside the ripe red beans the actual bean is covered in a gel like substance, this is the sugar. Doka estates takes this and uses it to make it's coffee liquor. Did you know that the coffee bean is actually a fruit?

Cindy then took us to the fermenting, sorting drying and packaging areas. Station 1 is where the pickers bring in their baskets for the day and they are weigh, then they are dumped into water and the sorting begins. All the 1st class beans sink to the bottom, and the 3rd class beans float. Here is a sad little fact. Costa Rica exports 100% of their first class coffee crop. Wanna know who gets to drink the best coffee beans made in C.R? Well, 75% goes straight to Starbucks!!! 20% goes to Germany, and 5% (the 3rd class coffee) stay here in Costa Rica for the people. Sad, but Cindy says that here people can't afford 5$ for a bag of coffee. The first class is sold for around 5$ a bag, and the 3rd class is sold for 1$ a bag. Kinda makes you wonder why Starbucks charges over 10 for their coffee?!?

After the beans are sorted they are run through a machine that takes the outer layer of skin off (or the shell). This shell is saved for later. You will see that Doka doesn't waste anything here. This machine also extracts the sugar for using later in liquor's. From there they are put out to ferment. So far all of these processes are done either by hand (the picking) or by water (the machines and sorting are all powered by the streams near by. This is how they did it over a 100 years ago, and it is the way it is still done. Fermenting takes around 20 hours, and is done without chemicals. From there the beans are put out in the sun to dry. Actually, the first class are put out to dry naturally in the sun, the 3rd class is put in a heavy machine and dried that way. This machine isn't powered by water, but heated using the husk and tree clipping of the coffee plant. See, no waste.

The drying process is really cool. Just huge areas of cement covered in beans. The workers need to come every 15 minutes to rake the beans in order to have a complete and even dry. This is where the boys had even more fun. Cindy handed them both a rake and let them go at it.

Cindy took us to the storage area where, after they are dried, the coffee beans are put in burlap sacks. They are stored with the protective husks still on for protection, and stay here for 3 months. Kind of like letting them age, like wine. After 3 months, the husks are taken off, brought to the drying machine for burning, and the beans are either packaged for export roasted or not. (starbucks roasts their own, so for them it's not done here).

Cindy also showed us where they use the shells of the beans. They have there own compost area where they use worms (imported from California - seems the worms in C.R. are lazy). She said that California worms compost the dirt 3 times faster than the worms here. No waste.

Cindy loved our kids so much that she brought us by the children's area here at Doka. They have sort of a day care here for all the young kids to stay safe and fed while their parents, grandparents, and older siblings are out picking beans. The kids had a little fun playing with the other kids, and then we left for lunch. A great lunch, and then we hit the gift shop. Hmm, what did we buy. Well, 4 bags of coffee, some chocolate covered beans, a really cool grinder, some liquors, and coffee soap. Yumm.

The boys were smiling ear to ear the entire day, and both Chris and I were pleasantly surprised. How could 2 little boys have so much fun with coffee. Not sure, but they said it was one of their favorite parts of Costa Rica.

Lucky Lukies Strike Again....

I thought I would check in on a couple we met through the internet back in September. They are a family of 4 moving to Belize for a different life. We were hoping to all meet up and let our kids play, etc. Well, to our surprise this is what I found when got to their blog . Such a sad story, only 4 days in Belize and now what?


One more thing, please don't worry about us going to Belize, these things can happen anywhere in the world, (and we actually had the Jeep broken into twice in Edmonton), but as the title says, we are LUCKY LUKIES!!!!!

Slowly catching up to today....

To get from La Fortuna back to Heredia we decided to re-hire a fantastic driver named Arnold. He was the driver that took us from Heredia to Puntarenas, and he is amazing. He told us where we were driving through, interesting things along the way and drove so nicely over the enormous bumps.
So, Arnold picked us up right on time at noon on Monday from Los Lagos and we were on our way. The drive was beautiful (but we have come to almost expect that here). We drove straight up to a rain forest, different from a cloud forest. Here is rains all the time, there are clouds but in a cloud forest it doesn't always rain. Here it was unbelievable. The quiet and freshness in the air was magical, I was sure there were fairies hiding somewhere around us. I wish I could tell you what the view was from the top, but we were so engulfed in a cloud that you could only see about 10 feet in front of you. I should mention, on our way up the land was covered in greenhousees. Here is where they grow fabulous flowers and plants for export to N. America and Europe. On our way down the land was taken over by coffee plantations. Oh yes, and a cigar factory, we actually passed by a plant where you could come in a roll your own (I thought of you Ron!).

So, we passed through San Ramon, a gorgeous city that we decided we must see more of. Who knows, we may be back here after Belize.....

So, we are now in Heredia. Being homesick a bit still can you guess what the first thing is that we did????


McDonalds

Ugh.

We felt that afterwards! But it was nice, the boys got their happy meals and a toy, and we felt a little better (after a walk). Afterwards we unpacked, and just chilled. Here we have 2 seperate bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room with a tv, a washroom (but no sink?) and a cute little balcony. It feels like a home, something that we have really been craving. It's nice to be in a seperate room than the boys, and last night we watched a movie while the boys were in the next room sleeping. It's been 7 weeks since we've been able to do that!

Today we headed off the the mall, we were looking for the market, but that didn't pan out. The mall was cute, but 90% shoe stores. (ironically Chris needs new shoes, but we didn't find any for him!)

The most exciting thing that happened today was that we made ourselfs dinner for the first time in 7 weeks. It was so cool. I went to the veggie guy across the street and bought 3 large fresh carrots, an onion, 3 banana's and a huge tomato all for 40 cents. Then I went next door to the butcher and bought 2 handfuls of ground beef for 2.40$. Spaghetti was 60 cents, sauce was 75 cents and the cheese was about 1 dollar. It was so yummy, and the boys actually finished their dinner, quite a feat since they haven't done that for a while.

So, we are here. We are happy again, and we feel like we're home somehow. This is where we started our trip, and if you remember, we didn't like it then, but it feels so good to be back. It also feels like our trip here is over, maybe because we've done a complete circle. Not sure.

We're going to go on a coffee tour on Thursday, and we're off to Belize early Saturday morning. Till then, we love you all.

The Lukies......

La Fortuna

Well, we have spent 3 days and nights here in La Fortuna. It's a wonderful place, but not somewhere where we would consider trying to look for a home. I'm not really sure why, it just doesn't feel right. If we needed to choose today I think we would go straight back to Monteverde and Santa Elena, that was by far our favourite place as a family so far.

Anyways, here in La Fortuna, the main attraction is the Arenal Volcano. Everywhere has a spa to pamper you, they use products made with mud from near the volcano, etc. There are many many zip lines and canopy tours, and of course the Gondola up to the look-out tower for the spurts of Lava. This is what we did a few days ago. It was fantastic. You could see Lake Arenal from one side of the platform, and the Volcano from the other. A year ago the Volcano changed it's Lava flow direction, and it now faces directly towards the look-out platform. Lucky us, But Unlucky us, the best time to see the Lava (obviously) is late at night. Being the slow season (we seem to always catch up with both the slow season and the rain.... humm), there were no night tours yet. But we did get to see the 'white' lava during the day, and it was absolutly incredible. We stayed at the top for as long as we could to take in this beautiful site. I hope you like the pictures.

Once we were done, we headed back to the hotel. We spent some time in the actual city of La Fortuna, looking around at the shops and tried a few of the restaurants. I wish I could tell you something really really exciting, but this place just didn't do it for us.

I've tried to get the photo's on here, but it's not working. You can find them here.