Coffee

We spent our entire day among coffee plants! We visited two very different coffee farms: the first was Hacienda Aquiares, the largest coffee plantation in all of Costa Rica, and the other was a small family-run organic farm that grows bananas, some citrus, and many vegetables in addition to coffee. Our guide for the day was Dr. Reinhold Muschler, a professor and agriculture research scientist at CATIE.

Christina’s musings on the lessons of today:

In our lecture on the history of coffee production, Dr. Muschler discussed the role of military research in the creation of many agricultural chemicals (herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers etc.) Chemical agents like nitrogen fertilizer, DDT, 24D and 245T that were widely adopted in agriculture were actually directly or indirectly children of military technological development (the last two chemicals were major components of agent orange). These chemicals were used to wage a whole new war, but this time against insects and weeds. When did bugs become the enemies anyway? And when did it become acceptable to indiscriminately kill all life except the one species we deem “good”? Ring any bells? To me, it is a sickening reminder of all that went wrong in our own human wars, but industrial agriculture has decided to use them against nature. Thankfully, with new research and the diligent work by people like Dr. Muschler, Edger (the owner of the small organic farm) and many others we are beginning to realize the incredibly harmful effects of these chemicals on both humans and the environment.

Sorry to be depressing… Aly will now save the mood:

Hope. Beauty. So much admiration. We visited the farm of Edgar and Florybel, learning about how his family had been modeling their farming practices after those of Edgar’s grandparents. After a delicious, home-grown lunch of yucca pie, aguachate (a traditional root vegetable), seasoned rice, and homemade salsa made with green bananas, we toured the farm, from the mountainsides where coffee bushes and banana plants grew in symbiosis to the compost shed, where rich, organic fertilizer is made, to the vegetable gardens, where most of our lunch came from. Edgar’s care and concern for the health of the land was evident in his story and holistic farming practices, and as a person who is passionate about sustainable agriculture, it was life-changing to actually meet a man who worked toward making his farm the sort of vibrant, self-sufficient polyculture that his grandparents once had. He said that his family would love to have student researchers conduct further study on the farm, and I’m seriously considering taking him up on that. Seriously, today was so good I got chills.

And in the evening it got even better after a run through CATIE’s trails with a pack of my classmates. On the way back, I was walking along the road when I saw a three-toed sloth eating in a tree! Whoa. Nature.

And finally…on a post-dinner quest to the pond, several of us found a caiman lurking in the shallow water. They’re pretty cute.

Good night—my soft bed is calling.

Aly and Christina

(pictures provided by Aly and Dr. Shea)

Our adventure begins...

Hola from Costa Rica!

We made it to San Jose with little difficulty, except that upon arrival we discovered that Professor Shea’s bag had been sucked into the airline black hole (thankfully it reappeared at midnight the next night!) We were met by our CATIE guide for the month Vanessa and driver Carlos. After a late night dinner and a diversion to our hotel because one of the roads was mysteriously closed, we all fell into bed exhausted.

We awoke the next morning to another busy day. We spent the morning at INBio, a non-profit organization dedicated to education, research and protection of Costa Rica’s rich biodiversity. The most memorable and unusual organisms we observed on our tour at INBio included a sloth, a giant praying mantis, Dutchman’s pipe, many iguanas sunning themselves in trees, and two white tailed deer! (Oddly to us Midwesterners, they are endangered here in Costa Rica).

In the afternoon we went to the Associated Colleges of the Midwest office on the other side of San Jose. We were pleasantly surprised to meet the St. Olaf Spanish class students who are taking classes there. Chris Vaughan, the director of the ACM Costa Rica program, gave us a lecture about Scarlet Macaw conservation. We are now eager to see the birds in the wild!

On the 7^th we started out for Turrialba, where the CATIE headquarters is located. On the way we stopped at the largest Catholic Cathedral in Costa Rica, located in Cartago, as well as a bank to exchange our dollars to colones (the Costa Rican currency). Upon arrival at CATIE we had lunch and then listened to a talk by Elena Florian on the National Program of Biological Corridors. Afterward we went on a tour of the CATIE Botanical Gardens, which was fascinating. Marco introduced us to many new types of fruit- some sour, some sweet, some that smelled like decaying flesh, and some that were extremely

toxic!

After a discussion of a paper on agriculture (we will be visiting a coffee plantation tomorrow) we are all once again exhausted. Hopefully the weather stays warm tomorrow!

Hasta luego!

Christina and Aly

(pictures provided by Aly and Dr. Shea)

Getting Ready to Leave

Ctenosaur

We are leaving in a few days and looking forward to the warm colorful world of the tropics with its wide array of plants and animals These photos are a sample of things we look forward to seeing soon.

Coffee Fruits

Poison Dart Frog