This is the ninth in a series of posts, one for each day, of an incredible 2-week volunteer & adventure trip to Costa Rica I took in December 2022. I wasn’t sure this trip would happen, but luckily it did.
Today was a jam-packed day. After a delicious breakfast, we met a local organic coffee farm owner who was dropping off our order of coffee. Normally we would have toured his farm, but COVID shut down tours and they haven’t started back up. Totally understandable and very kind of him to drop off the coffee.
Then we had a lovely, informative morning stroll with Jana, our group leader. During our walk, she shared her knowledge about the local flora. She was able to identify various plants, such as coffee, and explained the difference between bananas and plantains. Additionally, she pointed out a variety of flowers and trees in the area. A cute, friendly local dog would accompany us everywhere we were in Costa Rica.
After our stroll, we got into the van that transported us to a boat, which would take us to La Fortuna. A lovely and quicker way to get to our next destination. It’s 66 miles of driving, which can take up to 5+ hours, but by boat, it only takes 2.5 to get from Monteverde and La Fortuna, the town nearest to the Arenal Volcano.
During a delicious lunch, Jana passed out prizes for the bingo winners. I won first place! Here is my beautiful prize. A small, colorful wooden mask with butterflies. The perfect souvenir.
After lunch, we could choose between a couple of options: a chocolate tour or a sloth tour. A no-brainer for the chocoholics in the group! It was a wonderful tour with an amazing tour guide and this was the only time it rained on the whole trip. It came down pretty hard for about 10 minutes, but we were prepared with umbrellas. The sun soon came back out.
She showed us around Eden Chocolate Tour‘s lush, beautiful grounds and explained the process from the cacao pod to the final product. We made a rich, delicious chocolate drink (Drink of the Gods) and decadent truffles, to which we added a variety of interesting ingredients like chili, turmeric, and pepper. Both were so delicious!
Time to get some rest. Tomorrow we head to a hanging bridges park & some hot springs!
Thanks again to my travel mates for letting me use their photos & videos to supplement mine.
I hope you enjoyed my volunteer & adventure trip to Costa Rica, day 8, Monteverde. If you missed day 8, click here. To catch up from the beginning, day 1, click here.
Pura Vida ❤️
Until the next adventure, my friend!