Home Sweet Homestay

February 15, 2022

  Today we boarded our longboat at 7:30 am 

and said good-bye to one of the most astoundingly beautiful areas in the world, the remote Tortuguero National Park. While we barely scratched the surface of the 190,115 acres in this protected, extraordinary biosphere,  it is thanks to our amazing guides that we left with a wealth of knowledge enabling us to view the world through new eyes.

 As our boat motored on the La Suerte River we saw more wildlife along the shoreline than we had when we arrived two days ago for now our eyes could "see" the beautifully camouflaged birds.

After reaching shore and retrieving our bags, we headed to the van and were on our way to our homestay in Santa Rosa de Pocosol. 

Along the way, we stopped at a delicious fruit stand 

where we were treated to a tasting of an array of Costa Rican fruits some of which were quite exotic. It was a feast for the eyes and stomach.

By 2 in the afternoon we were nearing Santa Rosa de Pocosol. We turned off the main thoroughfare onto a dirt road and traveled through a rural area for the next 4 miles. We were excited to be here to experience a homestay, to explore this rural area, and to learn about the lives of those who live here. 

     The Juanilama community resides in a typical Tico village. It is a beautiful group of people committed to preserving cultural traditions and conserving the land that they prize through a rural tourism initiative that they run themselves. This initiative has been running since 2000, and the community has managed to keep the groups that they host small, and the impact of these groups minimal, during the past 22 years. Though this eco-tourism program brings in some supplemental income for the community, any member will quickly tell you it's not about the money but rather facilitating a truly authentic travel experience for their guests and sharing their love for beloved Costa Rica. It is run by independent women who have an entrepreneurial approach to their livelihoods. The initiative was set up by the women of seven local families to immerse tourists in local culture and tradition, learning about everyday life in their corner of Costa Rica. Their goal is to help tourists discover what rural life is like, what plants and vegetables are grown here, and what the families' lives are like while staying overnight at their home which they make into our "home" away from home.

We were greeted by the lovely ladies in whose homes we all would be staying. They were preparing us quite a luncheon!  

   

 One of the lovely homestay ladies, Julia, was our guide and walked us through part of her farm. We were amazed at what she had growing... pineapples, coffee plants, bananas, mangoes, avocados, turmeric,  taro, and sugar cane.

 All of the coffee plants were huge! This coffee plant was well over 8 feet tall.  Julia's face is partially hidden behind it.

Here Pedro is holding both green and red coffee beans.

Julia took us into the covered outside area where they dried the green and red coffee beans and also the cocoa seeds.

Julia's banana trees were impressive. Each banana tree produces a single "bunch" of bananas. One bunch can weigh close to 99 lbs!  Once a banana tree flowers and its fruit has been harvested, the tree is cut to the ground to make room for new more productive trees to grow up from the creeping underground stem.

Each individual banana tree will only flower and bear fruit once.

We learned a lot about pineapples as well. I never knew that pineapples are part of the bromeliad family. Pineapples grow like small shrubs. After harvested, the top shoot of the pineapple is used to grow another plant, and also a side shoot of the plant will produce in another year.

The cocoa bean plants were fascinating. In reality, cocoa beans are seeds.

Pedro is holding a yellow cocoa pod.

We all had some of the white "flesh" or pulp surrounding the beans, which was delicious.  We were told not to eat these seeds.

Here are the three stages of the cocoa bean:

in the slimy pulp, in the skin, and in the kernel.

Once the cocoa pod matures the adventure into the world of chocolate begins!

Just as a point of reference, 300-600 beans are needed to be processed in order to make a mere 2 pounds of chocolate!  

Once harvested, the cocoa beans are roasted. Next, they are cracked and then deshelled by a "winnower". The resulting pieces of beans are called nibs.

The nibs are ground into a thick creamy paste. This paste is called chocolate liquor or cocoa paste. 

In the photo below, Julia is beating (winnowing) the roasted cocoa beans with a rock in an ancestral three-legged rock bowl. This rock bowl was discovered when they were digging in their field years ago. Julia has used it ever since.

It's hard work. 

Here 6-year-old Maripas takes over to finish smashing the last of the nibs with her favorite rock.

Jeff then used the manual grinder to smash the nibs and make the cocoa paste. I wish you could have been there to smell the aroma! 

The wonderful ladies made an outstanding meal for us. The food was delicious and plentiful. Jeff's cocoa grinding created a superb cocoa paste and the ladies made divine hot chocolate for dessert! mmmmm good!

After our feast, we loaded up our luggage into a small open-air pickup truck. Sara, Chris, and I were sandwiched in the back of it as we bounced down the dirt road to our homestay home.

     We stayed in Sandra's home. She is the leader of this exceptional group of entrepreneurial women. Sandra's youngest daughter, Maripas, is 6 years old and her other daughter, Alexandra, is 16. While Sandra and Maripas knew virtually no English, Alexandra spoke some English and was anxious to test her skills. She is interested in going to the university after she graduates from high school next year. She wants to study nutrition for her father has diabetes and she wants to help the family.

Here's the outside area of our homestay and you can see the pickup truck.

 To get to Jeff's and my homestay room, we exited the house through the kitchen and laundry room and walked down the outside hallway.

Our room was cozy. Even though it didn't have any windows, it had a fan which kept the air circulating. We appreciated the mosquito netting. Everything was very clean and tidy.

My only concern was that I wasn't too sure about the electrical wiring in the shower head.

Soon it was time for dinner and we helped prep the vegetables for the meal.

We were taught the proper way to make corn tortillas  while Sandra made dinner.

Dinner was absolutely delicious. We had fruit, tortillas, bean empanadas, and sopa negra with avocado, farmers' cheese, and hardboiled eggs.  It was divine! 

Dinner conversations were a combination of Spanish, English, and guessing. It was delightful. We fell in love with Maripas, Alexandra and Sandra. We briefly saw Sandra's husband and son both of whom seemed very kind. We loved every moment of our time together with Sandra and her family. 

In the morning, Sandra made a delicious breakfast. We had rice and beans, fried ripe plantains, and fruit. It was lovely. We all sat around the table laughing and  "talking" until it was time to go. It was hard to say good-bye to our new friends.

I think the act of sharing a meal brings us closer together. It's truly a symbol of goodwill and friendship. We consider ourselves fortunate to have had this rural homestay opportunity, to encounter a  side of Costa Rican culture that tourists who stay in large resort hotels never experience. We would definitely return again to be with these kind, gentle people of the Juanilama community in Santa Rosa de Pocasol and experience life in rural Costa Rica at our home away from home.