...and Even More Chocolate!

The next part of our weekend adventure took us to the Tirimbina Biological Reserve, which is a really cool place.  It’s a private wildlife refuge run by Costa Ricans that uses ecotourism to fund rainforest conservation, environmental education and scientific research.  I’d recommend the site to anyone visiting Costa Rica; the location was beautiful, our rooms were very comfortable, and the guides were incredibly knowledgeable.

We got settled into our rooms (with air conditioning!) before heading to a buffet dinner at the restaurant.  After dinner, we heard a talk about bats.  It was interesting to hear more about these often-misunderstood animals which make up a vital portion of Costa Rica’s biodiversity.  The 113 species of bats in Costa Rica represent about 50% of the mammals in the entire country!  We also got to see the snare nets that researchers on Tirimbina use to catch bats for their studies.  Even though bats can use echolocation to “see” at night, the process is energetically costly so unless they are actively searching for food they don’t use echolocation, instead flying by memory.  This allows researchers to easily capture bats in simple nets, just by moving the location of the nets every few days.  Our guide caught a bat in one of the nets so we could get a closer look.

The next morning, I woke up early to go for a run in the rainforest with a couple of friends.  The terrain was a little rough, so we didn’t run that fast, but it was still beautiful to be out early in the morning.  I swear I could feel the extra oxygen from all the green plants surrounding me.  We got back in time for a delicious breakfast of gallo pinto, eggs, fried plantains and fruit, and then it was time for our guided rainforest tour!

Breakfast at Tirimbina

Crossing the suspension bridge through the rainforest

The tour started by crossing a 200-meter long suspension bridge over a river… good thing I’m not afraid of heights!  The bridge was a great point of view to see the rainforest as well, allowing us to see the taller trees and animals that are harder to make out from down on the ground.  We wandered along the rainforest trails, seeing walking palms (palm plants that can move toward sunlight by selectively killing off the roots on one side of the plant and growing new roots on the other side); a huge ceibu tree, toucans and other tropical birds; the oily seed of a plant (I can’t remember the name) that spits out flames when held up to a lighter; leaf cutter ants (zompopas) and bullet ants (hormigas balas) which are about an inch long and can give you a nasty bite that will hurt for 24 hours.

View of the river from the bridge

Standing by the giant ceibu tree

Our guide found this seed on the ground and lit it on fire to show us its oil content

We finished our rainforest walk at the site of an old cacao plantation.  The cocoa here was abandoned after it became affected by Monilia, a disease that has drastically affected the productivity of cacao farms in Central America.  Currently, the majority of the world’s cocoa is produced in Africa, a place to which the Monilia disease has yet to spread. 

At this site, we were treated to a lesson about the history of chocolate, with many taste tests along the way :)  We learned that the Aztecs in Mexico were the only native Americans to discover the process of making chocolate; the other indigenous tribes simply ate the pulp of the fruit that covers the seeds.  To make their chocolate drink, the Aztecs would remove the seeds from the cacao fruit, spit into them to add bacteria for the fermentation process, and ferment them, dry them, and toast them.  They would then grind the cacao seeds with rocks to form a paste, which they dissolved in hot water.  Before the arrival of Europeans, they didn’t have access to sugar, so they drank their chocolate bitter, flavored with finely ground corn, vanilla, and chili pepper.  When Spaniards came to Central America and tried the drink, they found it distasteful.  It didn’t help that the name for the chocolate drink was “Cacahuatl,” and “caca” means feces in Spanish.  To better suit their taste-buds, Europeans brought cinnamon and sugar to add to their chocolate.  

Cacao seeds at various stages of fermentation, from day 1 (bottom right) counterclockwise to day 6 (bottom left)

As part of the demonstration, we got to help grind freshly-roasted cacao beans with sugar and cinnamon, which we then dissolved in hot water to make an absolutely delicious cup of hot chocolate.  We could add corn starch (for texture), vanilla, chili powder, or pepper to our hot chocolate as well; I especially liked the extra kick of the chili powder!

Fresh hot cocoa!

We then went through the rest of the process of making chocolate, which I described in the last post so I won’t bore you with again… suffice it to say it included many more samples of delicious fresh-made chocolate, so we all left the presentation in good spirits.

After lunch at Tirimbina, we piled back onto the bus to head back to San José.  Many of us went out to experience San José night life on Saturday night, and we put our salsa dancing classes from earlier in the week to good use.  Sunday was a relaxing day of doing homework and watching a soccer game with my host family (reminded me so much of Sunday night football in the US!).  

What a fun weekend!