Costa Rica

Click on any photo to see a larger version or click here for the menu
Not much of a view at our berth in Puerto Caldera, Costa Rica Disembarking Tour buses are lined up Farm with cloth barriers on the ground A roadside fruit market Look at the size of that avocado We are heading up into the mountains An old bridge for what used to be a coast-to-coast railroad We enter San Isidro, the land of coffee An old guy with two oxen and a real ox cart We arrive at Starbuck's only coffee farm Visitor center Kitty The coffee farm Linda June and Pete Startbuck's Hacienda Alsacia coffee production facilities Lots of coffee growing There is even a waterfall Starbucks logo in flowers Baby coffee bushes Hummingbird mural Coffee beans drying in the sun A nice place to taste coffee Coffee comes in varietals just like wine and this one is Obata Amarillo Alto The coffee bushes are flowering Recently picked coffee cherries These are the baskets the coffee pickers use Mural of a coffee picker emptyuing a basket Our guide explains how the coffee gets sorted Close-up of dried coffee beans Linda next to dried coffee beans Sacks of dried coffee Coffee roaster on premises Coffee samples Another view of the coffee farm It says 'Our first and only coffee farm in the world' Hacienda Alsacia 1970 A house at the top of a hillside of coffee bushes An old Hacienda Alscacia truck Freshly made strawberry desserts The kitchen for our lunch stop Feshly pureed strawberries to drink Lunch Dessert The power of simplicity June's extra dessert Pretty little garden at the restaurant An interesting fence Fields covered with netting Sugar cane A row of palm trees We pass a giant decorated ox cart as we arrive in Sarchi Iglesia de Sarchi We stop at the Eloy Alfaro cart factory Pete One of the fancy oxcarts A huge ox cart wheel A water powered band saw from 1928 An ox cart wheel in progress Tools How the ox carts get painted Another fancy ox cart Wood scraps June is shopping Souvenir ox carts Linda waits for the bus Elaborate ox cart Natural jiuce for sale Palm trees A view of the mountains We see some capuchin monkeys on our way back Another monkey Back to our ship