CATIE

For the next few days we would be staying at CATIE, which to my embarrassment was not a lady that we were going to visit but an actual institute for masters and post doctoral studies for solutions for sustainable rural development. Coming here and learning about what the institute does really opened my eyes and made me obtain a great understanding of what sustainable development was about. The mission of the institute is: to contribute to rural poverty by promoting competitive and sustainable agriculture and natural resources management through higher education, research and technical cooperation. 

During our stay there we visited commercial scale and sustainable low scale sugar cane plantations. The difference is quite simple, one priorities quantity whilst the other prioritizes quality. When we were at the sustainable plantation the farmer offered us fresh sugar cane juice that he made right there in the terrepiche it was exactly what u would expect sugarcane juice to taste like... SWEET!!!!!…I think I got a little too excited with the idea of drinking sugar cane, as I experienced a little sugar rush afterwards… I don’t know why but the farmer also had vinegar made from banana and I don’t know why again I tried itand it was exactly as gross as it sounds! On the brighter side we had delicious pineapple at the pineapple plantation the next day. In the meantime we learnt a lot about agriculture, agro-buiness, and agro-tourism within those few days we were at CATIE, it was a bit too much information to absorb in. But I was starting to get really excited about what that classes were going to be like when we were finally about to start.  We were all ready to go to Montverde and settle down and finally unpack. 

El grupo en la fábrica de la caña

Jugo de la caña.... ¡que rico!

Piña