The Coffee Farm
Between Liberia (a.k.a the Sahara desert) and the Cloud Forest, we found the adorable Finca Lluvias de Gloria de Ermida (Gloria of Ermida’s Cloudfarm) on AirBNB. We could stay a few days, explore the farm filled with coffee plants and all kinds of edible goodies, and learn how to cook a few Costa Rican dishes from Abuelita Ermida. What a cool experience, right!?
Ermida’s granddaughter spoke English, handling the booking and any questions we had in advance, but once we arrived at the farm, it was attempt-to-remember-Spanish-vocab-time with Grandma. She kindly endured my butchering of her native tongue, then showed us the guest house where we would stay. She explained that there were fresh plantains and oil on the countertop that we could cook for breakfast, and she invited us to explore! We wandered around the hills of the farm admiring the views and sampling whatever we could recognize along the way. Bananas are so much tastier right off the tree!
Not quite tied over from our scavenged snacks, we eventually made our way back to the house hoping that Grandma would be around for some cooking lessons. She was nowhere in sight, and it appeared her car was gone as well, so we ventured into town looking for supper.
In Costa Rica, the sun sets at 5:30pm and then you’re in complete darkness. No streetlights, dirt roads, and lots of mysterious creatures (also) looking for dinner. Sensing the sun starting to drop, we stopped at the first restaurant we could find: a very wild-west feeling place with friendly staff. With darkness approaching and not knowing what the next day would hold, we went into “apocalypse mode” and ordered massive amounts of food to bring with us back to the house. It was pretty basic, but delicious, as is all of the Costa Rica food we’d had to date.
Sunburned, tummies full and exhausted from hill-scrambling, we fell asleep to the sound of crickets (and other insects I cannot name) buzzing in the night.
