Costa Rica Days 1-3

We started our adventure by spending New Years' celebrations with Adriana, Paul and Adriana's family at the home she grew up in and most of her family still lives in. Bars on doors and windows are standard issue in  Costa Rica both in San Jose and across the landscape. 

 

 Their home has a patio in the interior of their house, which is also a common feature as most homes in San Jose don't have yards.  This is their private outdoor space.

 Adriana's niece rivaled Madelyn for dramatically demanding attention and had a truly unlimited amount of energy.  She tried to teach Jason to salsa dance and "taught" me words in spanish.  She thought she was being pretty sneaky teaching me the wrong words intentionally. For example, she would push down the light switch and say "Baja...Baaa-Haaa." (Should be bajo). The next time she would say "Vaja...Vaaa..Caa" which means cow. 

Looking past the coffee plants across the valley to steep, hand picked coffee farms.

  On New Year's Day we visited Carlos's farm. Carlos was at ISU with Jason.  His farm was beautiful and quite different than the farms we are used to.  Jason could blog more effectively than I could about these comparisons.  I enjoyed holding their parrot, watching them milk their 200 dairy cows, and feasting on more delicious carne (meat) and torillas.

Cattle waiting to be milked.  They are breeded at 30% native species to tolerate heat and drought and 70% holstien for milk production.

In the foreground, sorghum is being irrigated by the river running through their property. They also own acres of rain forest.

After the cattle is milked, they make their way across the river to where they graze.

At the border of their property, a family of howler monkeys made their presence known.
Look carefully at the branch in the middle back of the picture.