Organic Coffee, Creatures and the Sea
Posted by Adam Sax on Tue, Feb 14, 2012 @ 01:18 PM
By: Michelle Hopkins, The Calgary Herald
When I was a teenager, I was fearless astride a horse. My best girlfriend and I would gallop for hours. But after a nasty fall in my 20s, in which I skinned my face pretty badly, you couldn’t get me back on a horse.
Yet, here I am in my 50s, saddled up on a horse high in the foothills of Costa Rica’s town of Santa Barbara, Heredia. I’m following my guide, Perez, who doesn’t speak a word of English.
However, the allure of riding through rows upon rows of coffee beans up on the hillside was too good to pass up. I decided to face my fears.
The trails through the coffee fields climbed and descended, but were never uncomfortably steep. At one point, Perez stopped to give me time to take in the central valley – home to the Poas and Barva volcanoes, about 2,000 metres above the city. I was struck by what seemed to be an endless valley of deep emerald-green pastures below.
My partner Dennis and I had arrived a week earlier to our home for the week, Finca Rosa Blanca Coffee Plantation and Inn, an organic coffee plantation run by an American couple who years earlier fell in love with the country and its people.
Although Finca Rosa is a relative newcomer in the coffee industry, coffee beans in Costa Rica date back more than 200 years in these volcanic rich fertile valleys. This booming industry is blessed with a cool moist climate, the perfect place for growing excellent coffee.
We arrived late at night. Through the large iron gates we drove in, breathing in the pungent scent of the inn’s many coloured blooms. We were given keys to our room and I was taken aback by the beauty of the adobe-style room, decorated with wall murals of coffee plantation scenes.
The next morning, we looked at a map of the region and noticed that 
Finca Rosa was only a short walk from the cloud forest-covered Poas and Barva volcanoes.
We met with our guide Leo, an Italian who moved here in his 20s. He gave us a tour of Heredia, which was founded around 1706.
Leo took us to Central Park, in the heart of the old city. It’s an elegant tree shaded square, with cobblestones and a century-old fountain. The fountain’s graceful design was reminiscent of Old Spanish colonial elegance.
You could almost picture Heredia’s wealthy coffee growers sitting in the shade on sunny afternoon’s playing cards. Dozens of mango trees provided relief for the townsfolk who were sitting and enjoying a cigar or a coffee. It wasn’t hard to believe when Leo told us this park was considered one of the nicest in the country.
He pointed to three of Costa Rica’s best examples of colonial architecture from the park: The Immaculate Conception Church, the Casa de la Cultura Museum and the Fortin (the Fort).
In the last few years, the church’s bare stone exterior was restored and repainted. The beautiful stain glass windows, ornamental vaulted ceilings and altar were left to decay for centuries.
Meanwhile, the Fortin was a small circular brick and stone building – it was the only structure that remained of a late 18th century Spanish fortress.
The city’s residents take great pride in the Casa de la Cultura – the city’s culture house, now a museum that showcases Costa Rica’s rich and diverse history.
Off to the sea
After four days at Finca Rosa, we headed for the Pacific coast on a 25-minute flight to Tambor.
Our destination was Latitude 10, on the west side of the Nicoya Peninsula at Santa Teresa on the Pacific Ocean. It’s a spectacular private beach retreat and an award-winning eco-tourism lodge with seamless transitions between the property and its natural surroundings.
We were handed a mango smoothie from a beautiful, shy Costa Rican girl when we arrived. After dropping our bags in our private beach house, we headed to the pristine white sand beach, a few steps from our temporary home. Seaside hammocks lulled us into relaxation for the afternoon.
Latitude 10 is located on a fairly secluded beach with natural tidal pools that expose an array of creatures with each low tide.
Our open-air hacienda took a little getting used to. Our first night was a little unsettling as the room filled with the screams of howler monkeys and iguanas on the roof. With the roar of each wave, we half expected the ocean to come through the front door.
Off to Montezuma
The beach town of Montezuma for a 50-minute boat ride south to the island of Tortuga. Montezuma was unlike any town
I’ve seen. It’s a people-watcher’s paradise – populated with global backpackers, permanent ex-pats, hippy artists and surfers.
The beach at Tortuga was our first stop – for a game of volleyball and to lounge under the blue skies and an umbrella. Our three guides cooked up local fare on the beach, as a wild pig sniffed around hoping to snag a crumb or two.
On our snorkelling adventure we were greeted by angelfish, needle-fish and many other tropical beauties. When our guide threw some bread in the water, the sea around us became instantly alive with tropical fish of all hues and stripes.
At the end of a magical day, we rode back to our hotel, watching the sunset.
Back to Finca Rosa
We had the pleasure of a couple more nights at Finca Rosa Blanca. This time, we did a day of hiking and headed to the Lapaz Waterfall Gardens Nature Park. We looked into the eyes of a jaguar, watched newly hatched butterflies take their first flight and a toucan land on the arm of someone in our group. There are few places in the world where you can see vipers up close and poisonous frogs under leaves and still feel safe.
On our hike to the 90-metre waterfall, our guide couldn’t wait to treat us to a unique optical illusion. He had us focus on the waterfall for 15 seconds and then told us to shift our gaze to the land on the right. It made us feel as if the land was moving as if an earthquake was happening in front of our eyes.
Just another reason to marvel at this country’s natural paradise.