Viaje a Limón: Friday Jan. 28th

This past weekend we got to go to Limón on a study trip. Limón is a province and city on the Atlantic coast of Costa Rica about a 3 hour drive from San Jose. This was an educational and relaxing trip, in that we got to go to the beach but also have to turn in a paper Tuesday about themes investigated and discussed on the trip. We started our trip to Limón with a charla from  Epsy Campbell,  a Afro-Costa Rican congresswoman, part of the Partida Acción Demócratica. She is very well known here and is thinking about running for president. Last election I think she ran as vice president (although I could be wrong). They said she is comparable to how well known Sarah Palin is in the U.S. (except not like her politically at all hahahah). She came and talked to us about the province of Limón- its history, problems, culture. Limón has the majority of  Costa Rica’s black community and has a very distinct culture. It has also received a lot of separation and discrimination from the Costa Rica government. It is said to have been abandoned by the government in recent years. It used to have high education standards and was growing. Now its illiteracy rates are among the highest in the country, as well as poverty levels. The interesting contrast is that I think like 75% of the countries exports go through this port, but that wealth is not trickling down to the people. 

          Anways, after that charla we loaded onto two little tour buses and began the trek to Limón. We stopped at a large coffee farm(finca) where Javier (one of the LASP professors) talked to us about the history of coffee in Costa Rica and its environmental and economic effect on the country. We also stopped at a pineapple farm. Pineapples grow in the ground. And each pineapple plant can only grow one per year!!! Also we stupid American should let companies sell us pineapples without the tops! If they could sell them without the tops they could use less pesticides bc they wouldn’t have to kill the bugs that live in the tops of the pineapples, they could just cut the tops off. Thus saving the environment from more chemical runoff, which is a huge problem when growing pineapples. After that we stopped at banana farm. We got to see how the bananas were sorted and processed and loaded onto buses. One of the most interesting things was that the bananas that were going to San Jose were the ones that didn’t meet US or Europe requirements. The other fascinating thing was there were two different brands that the same crop of bananas were being packaged into to be sold! After the processing part, we went out to the actual banana fields where don Antonio (another LASP prof) talked to us about the banana industry. Bananas are the tallest plants, they are not trees. Banana harvesting is lots of hard work! And each plant only grows one ginat bunch then its “child” grows up and grows another bunch and so on and son. None of the farms we saw were organic farms and thus grew only one type of crop, which we are told drains the soil of nutrients and causes the farmers to have to use more fertilizer and chemicals in order to make the plants grow as big as they need them to be.  

Coffee Beans

Coffee Plants 

San Jose scenery on the bus

pineapple farm

baby pineapple!! soo cute!!

banana processing

banana harvesting

downtown Limón at night

                 We ate lunch at Restaurante Ellis, a typical Costa Rican lunch: rice, beans, meat, platanos, etc. It was pretty good. We then continued our journey to Limón. Once there we checked into our hotel, Hotel Miami located in downtown Limón.  Everyone was given 7000 colones to buy dinner and the next 2 breakfasts. We were then set free to conduct our interviews in the city within our small groups. (We had had to conduct the same interview in San Jose prior to going on the trip) The interviews were about poverty in Costa Rica, inequality in Costa Rica (ie in Limón, among indigenous people,women, blacks, immigrants etc) and solutions to poverty. We then have to integrate the interviews, readings, and charlas in a paper about poverty and inequality in Costa Rica.  It was really interesting. We met one woman who was like the sweetest woman on the planet! She wanted to practice her English(bc the black people of Limon have history of speaking English but it is dying out and is trying to be revived now) , which was btw perfect! Yeesh. She talked to us for about 20 minutes about poverty and the solution and how people need to give their lives to God and how God promises to feed his people. Basically she had a lot to say and was the nicest person we talked to. After that we got to choose our dinner, and we ate at Buger King! Hahaha We were craving some American food and that was what we found. It actually was rather good. After that we hung out at our hotel for the remainder of the night, talking and sharing life stories. It was such a nice break. And that was Friday! Saturday to come hopefully later tonight! hahaha