David: Costa Rica is well known throughout the world for the excellent quality of the coffee beans that they grow. The seed inside a native berry from the highlands of Ethopia discovered in the 9th century has become one of the most popular beverages in the world. Here in Costa Rica Coffea arabica has historically been the number one export.QERC is located just a little too high in elevation to be suitable for coffee farming but a little lower altitude in this region is one of the best places on earth for growing a high quality bean. Awhile back Sarah and I thought it would be interesting to find the coffee farm in the closest proximity to QERC in an attempt to buy coffee from the most local farmer possible. That search led us to Albergue Armonia Ambiental.
Albergue Armonia Ambiental is located in the small agricutural community of La Piedra, which is about ten minutes past the town of Providencia. If the Talamanca Mountain Range, which we live in, is the spine of southern Costa Rica, then all of the valleys that run off of the spine created by different watersheds are the dips between all the rips. Providencia is simply after the rib just northwest of the upper Savegre river valley. As the crow flies the town is actually pretty close but there are no roads that go directly there. To get there from QERC we drive 30 minutes out of our valley, 1 mile north on the highway, and then 45 minutes down into the adjacent valley. The drive is beautiful but the road isn't always in good shape. This last trip down, after significant damage from a heavy rainy season, we were confronted with option A, a bridge in very bad shape, or a option B, a swift running creek. The creek wasn't too bad so we chose the creek.
In English, Albergue Armonia Ambiental would translate into something like Harmonious and Environmental Mountain Lodge. It really isn't a mountain lodge as much as it is a working organic family farm that offers educational experiences for individual and student groups. On our recent visit we were impressed more than ever with how hospitable and generous this family of four is. Orlando and Noire and their two children Nelson and Dailey run their subsistent organic farm to produce 32 fruits, vegetables, and grains.
What they are doing on their farm, and combined with an amazingly beautiful location, makes an experience at their albergue a great teaching tool for student groups. In their remote valley of the Costa Rican highlands they are choosing a sustainable approach to farming because of their desire to protect the health of the land that they live on. In the meantime they live extremely active, healthy, and fulfilling lives while working on the land and being stewards of the environement. As was started by a group of students from NNU this last March, led by Dr. John Cossell, QERC will continue to promote this family farm as a learning tool for student groups visiting our location. Albergue Armonia Ambiental is within hiking distance from QERC and therefore can be made into a very interesting 3 day hiking trip fully accomplished by burning a little unwanted body fat and
not fossil fuels. Groups can leave QERC and hike about four hours while dropping 2,000 ft elevation before arriving at the farm. It is a gorgeous hike that follows the Savegre River and showcases a change in forest and biodiverisity. Groups will then spend 2 nights at the farm to take part in a complete coffee growing, harvesting, drying, grinding, and packaging demonstration. A similiar demonstration for sugar production also is made. Students get their hands dirty while learning what it takes to run an organic farm but they also get to enjoy the beauties of a remote location and the simplicity of the campesino (small farmer) life in Costa Rica. Needless to say, Sarah and I are really excited about the expereience this will be for QERC semester students and other groups that choose to have an adventure like this. Our semester students will be visiting the albergue in April and a group from Point Loma Nazarene University will be taking a similiar hiking trip there in May. To top it all off, we found the freshest and most local coffee to serve at QERC while supporting a small organic farm who's caretakers have hearts made of pure generosity.
And for your viewing pleasure we added a photo of a quetzal that Sarah recently took. It would be a shame not to have a certain quota of quetzal pictures in our blog so hopefully this will help us meet that.
