Happy Thanksgiving!
It’s Thanksgiving back in the states and I’m a little bummed about not being with family today, but we are still celebrating here in Costa Rica! Last night a few of us made pecan and pumpkin pies, oreo balls, and chocolate covered pecans and we’re having a Thanksgiving feast later on in the day. Lets hope the meal we’re making is half as good as the meals we’ve been getting here at the campus…
It’s our last day at the UGA campus in San Luis and I don’t want to leave. The campus is more amazing than what you see in pictures. The people here are so friendly and the atmosphere is so lively. Everyone here, the locals, the campus staff, the naturalists, they put everything they do into consideration of the environment and it’s contagious. I always try to recycle and waste less, but I realized I’m more wasteful than I ever thought I was before I came here. And it’s not even the wastefulness that gets me, it’s how the people here are considerate to every little creature. We visited a farmer named Oldemar and during the tour of his farm, a bug flew onto him. Usually, if a bug flew on me, I would freak out, swat it off, and try to kill it. Oldemar just gently picked it up and put it on a leaf. I don’t know why this amazed me so much, but it made me think about my actions and what I could do to make a better impact on this earth.
Other than the amazing people here and the sustainability of this campus, the coffee here is absolutely fantastic. Hands down the most amazing coffee I have ever had. I’ve bought about ten bags of coffee to bring home and I want to be stingy and keep it all to myself. I’m definitely going to become a coffee snob when I get back to the states #sorrynotsorry.
I’ve just had the best time on this trip. Our group is a good group and we get along really well. We’ve been able to visit different coffee farmers and it’s neat to see the different ways they grow and process their coffee. I never imagined the lengthy process of producing coffee beans and how much hard work goes into it. We’ve visited organic coffee farms versus more larger scale ones. We’ve gone to coffee tastings and visited a chocolate tour. We’ve been zip lining through the Monteverde cloud forest (which was one of the most exhilarating moments in my life) and got to hang in the shops of Santa Elena. I’ve woken up to coati’s, agouti’s, and cows just hanging outside my bungalow. I’ve gotten to see bats, toucans, insects, and tarantula’s in their natural habitat. I’ve gotten to milk a cow and drink the same milk in my hot chocolate the same morning.
All in all, this has been the best trip. I’m sad that it’s our last day in San Luis, but I’m looking forward to getting to spend a few days in San Jose before heading back to the states.
