Cafe Brit Tour

Well, the rain has finally stopped.

I took the opportunity to go on a Cafe Brit tour.

They offer a few different tour options. I chose the Coffee Lovers tour. It included a pick-up at my hotel, a tour of their nursery and their roasting area, as well as a tour of a nearby wet mill operation.

The guides are great. They bring a bit of humour to things. Some of it's a bit campy, but that seems to be what they're going for. Overall I loved the tour. Two of the guides are in the picture below.


Some Ripe Coffee.


The Coffee Roaster (think of how many cups that would make me :) )


Quality Control is important. Have to check out the beans.


Here's Andrew learning to make Espresso.


And here's a very artistic Cappuccino.

All the tour participants were great. We had a couple of other Canadians (Vancouverites, but what can you do?) There was a couple from Belgium, Russell and his wife who were from Orlando (great people). We also met Claudia from Switzerland and Monica from Italy.

I spent a bit too much at the gift shop, but hey, it's coffee. It was a really great day.

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Yet more Costa Rica Pictures

Andrew (being braver than I) decided to go ziplining. I figured there was a perfectly good sky tram as a way to get down, but he took the 'fast' route.

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More Pictures from Costa Rica

Some shots from the rest of the trip.

We visited a Butterfly sanctuary.

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Resurrection Time

Well, I'm resurrecting the blog to allow me to post some of my pictures from Costa Rica. Andrew Lindeman and I went to the Arenal Volcano over the weekend. It was a fascinating trip, although I must confess to some anxiety as we negotiated the treacherous curving roads from San Jose to La Fortuna.

We stayed at the Arenal Paraiso Hotel. Not bad for the money, but it's not a high end hotel by any means. Good for 1 night when you really just need a bed.

The restaurant wasn't bad, and the view from the room was great (looking out at the volcano)

Andrew went off to use the Hot Springs at the hotel (which he didn't really think a great deal of. If you're looking for hot springs, you probably would do better to stay at the Baldi Resort.) I took some shots of the area, and went to check out the souvenir shop (overpriced and kitschy). I then decompressed for a bit. We went out to dinner at one of the restaurants. Good live music and okay food.

Sunday we got up early and drove to one of the viewing areas for the Volcano. 3 kilometres away from an active volcano is a really cool place to visit, but I don't know if I'd want to live there.




That's all for now. I'll post some of the Sky Tram shots next

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