Banana #4- Six Most Popular Bananas

After traveling around Costa Rica and learning all about the different types of bananas and how they differ, I decided that I will be talking about the six most popular bananas today and some of their potential health benefits.  Just to give you some background information about what a banana contains, in a banana you will find three natural sugars: sucrose, fructose, and glucose.  You will also find that bananas are a good source of potassium, fiber, 6 vitamins, 11 minerals, and each only have around 110 calories.  The six different bananas that I will be talking about are: Manzano, Nino, Burro, Red, Plantain, and Cavendish.  

According to healthmad.com, the Manzona banana is a short and chubby that has a mild strawberry-apple flavor.  This particular banana's appearance is chunkier and heavier than the traditional banana, and you will most likely find this banana in Asia, South America, Mexico, Caribbean, and Africa.  The Nino banana is about three inches long, and when ripe they are bright yellow with a rich and sweet flavor to them.  In this banana you will find a very important vitamin that is good for the heart and that is B6. The Burro banana is round and has squared off ends that is smaller and stubbier than the Cavendish banana, which I will be talking about in a minute.  When the Burro banana is ripe it is yellow with black spot, and the flesh is creamy white.  The taste of this banana is a tangy and lemony flavor.  Next, the Red banana is usually sweeter than the traditional banana, and when ripe they have a purple skin that is almost black and the flesh is pinkish.  This banana contains beta carotene and vitamin C.  The fifth banana is the Plantain banana.  This banana has a high level of starch and contain a lower amount of sugar.  When eating the Plantain you should cook it, and you know when it is ripe when it is almost black.  Also, the flesh of this banana is creamy and yellowish or light pink.  Finally the sixth banana which is the Cavendish banana.  This banana is the most popular in the States, and this banana is also known as the Chiquita banana.  This banana is ripe with it is bright yellow.     

Coffee #4- How to make a great cup of Coffee

After research for the past three weeks about coffee I thought that I might try something new with my coffee blog. I am going to be describing how to make a perfect pot of coffee. This might seem like an easy process, but in order to make a good pot you need to take several things into consideratoin. You are going to first want to buy the coffee bean, and you might be thinking well of course you want to buy the beans because that is how you make coffee. You are not just buying a bean, you are going to buy a "good" bean. When I say "good" that could mean a millions of things, but no matter if you like a dark and heavy bean or a medium roasted bean; you should make sure that you are buying a quality bean from a reputable supplier. When you are in the store looking for that "good" bean you should make sure that the bean was kept airtight because as soon as beans are exposed to air they begin to lose their flavors. Since you know that little fact you should now know not to open the beans until you plan on using them. This next part of the process depends on the type of coffee maker you have because the next step is to grind the bean. I say it depends on what kind of coffee maker you have because each coffee maker has a certain courseness that will make the most enjoyable taste for you. Next, you should make sure that you are using good water because coffee is 98% of water so if you pollute that water then it will not taste as good as it would if it was not polluted. Some ways that you can make sure that you have good water is by filtering it or of course use bottled water to ensure that you have good water. After you have choosen the right bean, the right grind, and the right water you then just have to wait while the machine does its magic and that can take around five minutes for a good cup.

Ecotourism #3- La Selva

Well this is my second round for doing this blog because I just got kicked out of my last computer room, and I thought that it had saved but it didn't for some reason so I just lost the three paragraphs that I had been working on for the past forty minutes. Sorry to say that this introduction is not going to be as long as the last one because that happend. If you want me to be completely honest right now I really feel like not doing this because that happened, but I have to and I am not going to quit. Oh things that happen to me.

Anyway, last Thursday my classmates and I went to the La Selva Research Reserve and stayed there for the night, and to tell you the truth I did not know what to expect because by this point in time we had been to so many rainforest and I thought that I had already seen everything. When we first got to the reserve we of course unload and went to our room, and this time all twenty seven of us were staying in the same lodge. This was actually really nice because at night all of us just hung out and relax; which was really nice to because we really had not had much time to relax before this. After everyone was settled into their room and changed, we had to meet back at the main building so that we could go on our first walk of the day. I thought that we would just see the same old stuff that we had before, but to my pleasure I was wrong. We saw three spider monkeys, a poison dart frog, and boars. After we were done with the walk we had dinner waiting for us as we got back, and after dinner some of us decided to go back out for a night walk. There was about ten of us that went out, and with out failure I was in the front of the line. We had no idea where we were going at all and it was pitch black, but I think that is what added to the excitement of the walk. While we were out, we saw a ton of spiders and sometype of bird nesting at the base of a tree. We were on the walk for about an hour and a half, and when we got back we just stayed up until about 12 or so playing cards and talking. The next morning, we went on another walk and after the walk we had breakfast and left to go to our next destination. Enough about me talking about what we did while we were there. The reason that I am writing this is to tell you why I think that La Selva is a great example of ecotourism.

Since 1968 La Selva Biological Research Reserve has been one of the premier sites in the world for research on tropical rainforest. La Selva is not only a rainforest that has over 50 KM of trails, but it is also a place for learning and tourism. According to costa-rica-guide.com La Selva offers classes such as bird watching 101, nature photography, and scientist for a day. With all of these trails and human actions going on in the reserve you would think that there would not be a lot of old growth, but La Selva is actually covered with some of the most pristine old growth that can be found in Costa Rica. The guides at La Selva are working scientist that are research at La Selva, and have been for a long time. In short, I believe that La Selva does a wonderful job of keeping it a ecotourist environment for several reasons. Some of the reasons that I believe this is because they are able to comtinue to keep the wildlife around La Selva around at the same time as they can bring tourist in to help maintain the forest with the revenue made off of the tourism. Another reason I believe that La Selva does a great job of this is because even though there are thousands upon thousands of visiters a year they still make it environmental friendly by keeping certain areas that are blocked off from the tourist, so that the animals can miagrate easier and are not kept in one region. Overall, I believe that if La Selva continues to do what they are then other organizations will begin to follow La Selvas model of ecotourism.

Banana #3- Chiquita Bananas

Last week I had to privilage to visit one of the Chiquita Banana plantation and see how they ran their operation and see how they were trying to be more sustainable then their competitors. Chiquita is a certified Rainforest Alliance company and since 2000 the company has been a 100% Rainforest Alliance certified. When we visited the plantation we got to see a video on how Chiquita is trying to make a difference in the community around its plantations, walked through their reserve, walked through the banana plantation itself, saw a show about the history about Chiquita, and also got to see the packaging house for Chiquita bananas.

It was really interesting to see how Chiquita is trying to make a difference by being apart of the Rainforest Alliance. They are not only apart of that, but they are also trying to educate the community around them, employee them, and protect them through social and environmental responsibilities. Chiquita is giving the community an extra opportunity to make extra ncome by being part of the Nogua group which has workshops in theatre, tourism, basic administration and human relations. Chiquita is doing their part through the social responsibilit

ies by having a code of conduct which requires the Social Accountability 8000. The Social Accountability 8000 is a comprehensive labor rights standard based off of the United Nations and the Internations Labor Organization. Some requirements of this are no child labor, safe working conditions, no harsh or disrespectful treatment, working hours are a maximun of 48 hours a week, and 

compensation. They are not only are doing their part in the social respondsibilties but also in the environmental responsibilities. Some of the environmental actions that they are taking are minimal pesticide use, protection of wildlife, consercation of water and soil, environmental education, fair pay, and a zero tolerance for deforestation. The company has planted at least one million trees along the rivers, lakes, and roads.

Just to give you a quick history of the Chiquita company, I will talk about the past 100 years. In 1870 Captain Lorenzo Dow Baker imported the first bananas to the United States, and by 1871 Minor C. Keith planted bananas alongside the railroad that he was constructing in Costa Rica. Twenty-eight years later Baker's Boston Fruit Company and Keith's railroad companies merged to create the United Fruit Company in 1899. A way that you knew that the bananas were the United Fruit Companies is because also in 1899 they painted their ships white to reflect the tropical sun and became known as the Great White Fleet. 1903 was a huge year for the company because they had two very important things happen to them, and they were that they created their first refrigerated ships and the company was first listed on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1944 the name Chiquita came to be known and the Miss Chiquita character come into existance. In 1957 the first shipment of bananas were made in cardboard boxes instead of shipping them on the stems. Finally in 1966 one of the biggest events for Chiquita bananas occurred and that was the first shipment to Europe.

Just some fun facts that I learn about bananas while I was at the plantation are that bananas grow about 10 degrees above and below the equator and get an average of 78-98 inches of rain a year with an average temperature of 80 degrees F. Also, Chitquita owns about 15,000 hectares or about 37,000 acres of banana farms in Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Guatemala. Two very impressive facts about the Chiquita company is that in 2004 they shipped 136 million boxes of bananas to the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and now they employee more then 25,000.

As I mentioned earlier we were able to go see the packaging house whie we were visiting the plantation. While being there I got to see the process in which they packed the bananas.  The workers would first bring the banana stems into the house by trivias, which is a cable system that carries the bananas in from the fields.  Next they would count and weigh the banana stems, and about ten percent of the stem would be randomly inspected to ensure that the grade met Chiquita standards.  After the bananas are inspect, they are then put into an area called the dehanding area where they are cut from the stem and placed into water tanks to be cleaned.  The bananas are cut into clusters of 4 to 10 bananas, and they are washed for approximately ten minutes to make sure that the latex layer does not stain the banana.  After the bananas have been washed they then are put on to a tray for packing where the workers will label the banana and have a final wash to ensure that the cut is sealed and to prevent the crown to rot.  Finally, the bananas are put into the box where they are stanped with a code and the date so that they can be traceable if needed.  Of the bananas that are not accepted by Chiquita standards they are either sold as another label or sent to a processing plant for puree.

Shipping for Chiquita is a whole other challenage for the company.  The process of Chiquita shipping their bananas is not just putting them on a ship and shipping them to their destination, but rather is a long and carefully thought out process.  They first transport the bananas to the ports within usually 24 hours of harvesting the bananas; where they will be shipped to the United States and Europe on the famous Great White Fleet.  While traveling on the Great White Fleet the bananas are help in low temperatured refrigerated containers so the ripening process is slowed down.  It could take the bananas up to 11 days to arrive at their destination, but when they arrive there they are carefully inspected by Chiquita officials.  They will check the weight, size, quality, and any damage that might have occurred during the trip. After this inspection they are then sent to their final destination which is the market.

I was only at the Chiquita plantation for an afternoon, and I learned this much.  Just imagen what I could have learned if I had stayed there longer, and was able to ask more questions.  Overall, my experience at the Chiquita plantation was very enjoyable, and I felt like I learned a lot about the banana industry.  

Coffee #3- Latin American Coffee

Today, I am going to be discussing the different types of coffee in the Latin American region.  More specifically I will be talking about Costa Rican, Honduran, and Guatemalan coffee.  All of these coffees differ in some way, which make them unique in their own way. 

Coffee in Costa Rica for example “has set the standard for fine wet-processed coffee for the rest of Central and South America” quoted by coffeeresearch.org.  Also, coffee in Costa Rica are usually characterized as a “full bodied coffee” and can be found in several regions around Costa Rica such as the Tarrazu, Tres Rios, Heredia, and Alajuela regions.  Not only are the most famous coffee beans found in these regions, but also the best coffee beans in Costa Rica are grown above 3,900 feet, these coffee beans are known as the “strictly hard bean.”   Just to give you an idea on how diverse these regions are I will tell you where two of the different regions are found in Costa Rica and how they differ in my opinion.  The first region that I will be describing is the Tres Rios region, which is found near the pacific coast.  This region is known for growing a mild, sweet, and bright bean.  The second region that I will describe to you is the Tarrazu region, which is located in the interior mountains of Costa Rica.  This region is known for producing a heavier coffee compared to the Tres Rios.  The two regions differ obviously because of the location in Costa Rica, but after visiting both areas I can personally see how they differ.  When I was out on the pacific coast, there was a cool breeze the whole time with some rain and what seemed to be not as fertile land because of the sand that was everywhere you went.  On the other hand, when I was driving through the Tarrazu region is was very easy to see the difference between the two.  The Tarrazu region is very foggy, rainy, and a lot more moist then the pacific coast. 

Honduran coffee is usually not seen in the United States, but some say that this will change in the future.  According to sweetmarias.com “Honduran coffee has been absent from the top ranks of the Specialty market, but that is all changing.”  Due to this there is not much to be found about Honduran coffee, but I can quote coffeeresearch.org and say that the coffee is “wet processed, typically unremarkable in quality, and is a good base for blending.” 

Unlike Honduran coffee there is a lot of information on Guatemalan coffee.  Even though Guatemala is a small country, its diverse regions allow for a very prosperous growth in coffee.  With its soil, rainfall, temperature, and altitude Guatemala is able to grow several distinct different types of coffees in its seven different regions.  The seven different regions that you can find in Guatemala are as followed: Antigua, Fraiganes Plateau, Rainforest Coban, Highland Huehuetenango, Atitlan, Volcan San Marcos, and Oriente.  Each different region is the breeding ground for several different types of coffee.  In the Antigua region you are mostly to find coffee that is described as “having a full and velvety body, a rich and lively aroma, and a fine acidity.”  The three most common coffee beans that you will find in this region are Bourbon, Caturra, and Catuai.  In the Fraijanes Plateau, you are going to find the highest-ranking coffee bean in Guatemala and that is the “strictly hard Guatemala coffee bean.” These beans can be described as having a full body, weak aroma, and an obvious acidity.  The third region that you will find coffee growing in is the Rainforest Coban.  As you can imagine the coffee grown here differs a lot from the past two regions that I have described.  This is due to the “microclimate” because of the Atlantic Ocean.  The coffee that is found here is a medium body, light acidity, and fruit like flavors, and the different types of beans that you will find here are the Bourbon, Maragogype, Catuai, Caturra, and Pache beans, which are harvested from December to March.  The fourth type of region in Guatemala is the Highland Huehuetenango.  The climate that is found in this region is a subtropical and humid one that allows for the coffee beans to have a beautiful appearance and uniformed maturation.  The different types of coffee beans that will be found in this region are the Huehue, Bourbon, Caturra, and Catuai.  The next region that you will find in Guatemala is the Atitlan region.  This region is known for its high altitude (4,000-5,900 feet), and the affects that are caused by this.  Some affects that this causes is that there are very few pests and diseases, humidity is around 70-80%, and the drying is almost completely done by the sun.  The Atitlan region gives the beans a profound acidity and a full body.  The beans that you will find here are mainly Bourbon, but you will also find Typica, Caturra, and Catuai.  The second to last region that you will find in Guatemala is the Volcan San Marcos.  This region is the warmest and also has the highest rainfall, with around 4,000-5,000 mm of rain a year.  Due to its “microclimate” from the Pacific Ocean, you will find beans such as the Bourbon, Caturra, and Catuai coffee beans.  Finally, the last region that you will find coffee beans growing in is the Oriente region.  This region is a lot like the Coban region with little rainfall and with its rock and clay foundation.  The beans here are aromatic, acidity, and have a good body.  Like most of the other regions you will find Bourbon, Catuai, Caturra, and Pache coffee beans.

I hope that by reading this you are able to see the several different types of coffee beans that are produced in Latin America and what type of climate they are grown in. 

       

Personal #3-Its been awhile

Oh where do I begin, it has been awhile since I have blogged about my personal experience here in Costa Rica.  I think it has been around two weeks, and in those two weeks I have experience more then the usual person would in a year I feel like.  About a week and a half ago, my group and myself started off our travels by going white water rafting on Saturday May 3.  We woke up at 5:30 and headed for the river.  It took us about three hours to get there, and as soon as we got there they had breakfast waiting for us.  After breakfast, which was really really good, we had to take about another hour bus ride to the entrance of the river.  In my raft there were six people including myself and one guide.  We traveled down 18 miles of the river through class 3 and 4 rapids.  In total it took us about six or seven hours to raft the whole trip.  I can't count the number of people that fell out, but I can count the number of people that fell out of my raft because I was the only person to fall out.  I don't really remember how I fell out, but all I remember was that the raft somehow turn sideways and I fell out after trying to hold on for a good ten seconds.  Now thinking back on it, I really wish that I had have held on tighter because where I fell out at was in the middle of probably one of the rougher rapids of the day, and it was not that much fun at all to have to swim down it.  I remembered the position that you were suppose to take if you fell out, and I took it but the water kept pulling me under and my butt would hit all of the high rocks and one rock hit my thigh and bruised it.  I really do not bruise easily and believe me when I say that it hurt when I hit that rock.  I remember water kept flowing over my head and it was hard to catch my breath.  This might sound like it took me ten minutes to go through this rapid, but it really only took about thirty seconds if that.  Other then that one incident while rafting I had a great time.  Lunch was great, the rapids were awesome, and the views were amazing.  I really wish that I had a water proof camera, so that I could have taken pictures to post on this blog.  We got back from the rafting trip around six at night and for the rest of the night I just went back home to relax because the next morning we were going to be leaving for the Osa at 6:00 am. 

 

Sunday morning I woke up at 5:30 again to leave for the Osa.  They had told us before that it was going to be a long ride there, but I really didn't know how long they really meant.  It took us 11 hours to get there.  I think that might be one of the longest times I have spent traveling on the road.  Just as a side comment right now, that is one thing that I thought about while traveling and that is about the road conditions that the majority of the roads are in.  I thought about how much would it really cost Costa Rica 

to repair all of their roads.  Not even paving all the roads, but just fix the pot holes and just 

evening them out.  Speaking of fixing the roads...haha.  One part of our trip we all had to get out of the bus and let me bus cross probably one of the most unstable brides, I don't think you can really call it a bridge, I have ever seen because there was a huge hole in the main road that we could not get around.  It was somewhat entertaining to watch this because where the bridge was located there was a bar right beside it, and there was an interesting character that came out to try and help us who was unbelievably drunk.  When he tried to talk he didn't speak English or even Spanish, it was more like gibberish talk.  Of the 11 hours of traveling, around an hour and a half or so was spent on a boat which was a lot of fun.  We road through some water trails that looked like we were in the Amazon instead of Costa Rica, but that is one really cool thing about Costa Rica and that is that there are so many different types of environments.  Finally, we got to the beach were we had to unpack the boats and head to the place where we were going to be staying for the next three days.  

When arriving at the place that we were going to be staying, I found that we would be staying in tents with three beds in them that overlooked a beautiful view of the coast line.  I am not 

complaining at all that we had to stay there because it was actually really nice for where we were.  We were the first people to stay at this newly opened "resort", and I am sure that the staff enjoyed having us as the first guest.  There was a main building that actually was really nice which was about a hundred yards away from where I slept.  The building had the bar, dinner tables, reading area, TV area, and just an unbelievable view of the coast line.  The first day that we were there we just got to relax which was just what I needed after a full day of traveling.  The next day, which was Monday June 2, we went to the Osa National Park for the full day where we walked through the forest, swam in the ocean, and got to hike up to the base of a waterfall.  While walking through the forest we saw the usual birds, lizards, and insects. The real cool part about that day though was being able to swim at the mouth of a river and the ocean and hiking up to the base of a waterfall.  Without failure though I had to hurt myself while swimming by jumping off a rock and cutting my little toe wide open and then jumping into the salt water.  Believe me it felt great.  The waterfall, I think was a lot better then the swimming though, because there was only about six or seven of us that made it up to the base of the waterfall.  We actually got to hike up the waterfall and feel the force of it.  At one point I almost lost my swimsuit because of the force of the water coming down.  For the rest of the day we went back to the "resort" and relaxed for the rest of the night.  

The next day, we all went snorkeling off the coast of one of the islands there in the Osa.  I don't really have that much to say about the snorkeling except that I saw a lot of different fish and that we saw dolphins swimming along side of our boat.  The reason I say this is because I scuba-dive and you really cannot compare the two.  If that had been my first time snorkeling without scuba-diving before I probably would have thought that it was a really good experience.  That night though was a very very interesting night because of the night life we had there.  The group that I am with went to the main building and had dinner like usual and then went to the bar, but this night differed from other nights because of a couple of guys that showed up.  There was a guy that came there from Miami, FL who had moved down here a couple of years back and heard that we were in town and decided that he would come over with some friends.  All I am going to say is that I was somewhat afraid for my life, and I think that I am speaking on the behalf of about half the group.  These guys tried to sell us everything, I mean everything.  

The next morning we got up and headed back for San Jose.  Overall, the weekend trip and white water rafting was a blast.  I definitely learned a lot about how blessed we all are back in the States.  

Ecotourism #2- Traveling All Over

After being in Costa Rica for two weeks, I have realized exactly how much they depend on tourism as a source of income. I also understand the need for tourism in Costa Rica, but because of the amount of tourism I can also see problems that might evolue from it at the same time. Some problems that I could see coming from tourism are serious damages to the local environment and culture of Costa Rica. If tourism continues to grow like it shows it will in Costa Rica then, the country could experience an problem with mass tourism which would lead to several problems. Some of these problems could include; damage to coral reefs, polluted beaches, destruction of wildlife habitats, loss of rainforest, strain on water resources, just to name a few.

Another problem that could be seen with tourism is the possiblity of tourism effecting the overall culture of Costa Rica. In part, the culture is one of the main reasons that people come to Costa Rica in the first place. If tourism grew to the point where massive corporations wanted to invest in buildings and land, then Costa Rica would loss its traditional feel for the land.