Recently i returned to Costa Rica for the first couple weeks of March. The main focus of the trip was to help bring to completion a book on the Plants and Healers of Costa Rica which was started over a decade ago by Tenasi Rama, Frank Cook and Tin Contreras.
However, first i headed north from San Jose to meet up with United Plant Savers executive director Susan Leopold and the American Herbalists Guild executive director Mimi Hernandez and her partner. We stayed at one of my favorite Hot Springs ever the Termales del Bosque before heading the next day to Finca Luna Nueva. At Finca Luna Nueva we 
happened to bump into Alan Muskat and his partner Greer. Alan is fellow forager and my boss through No Taste Like Home back un north in Asheville, NC! We had a great walk around the property 
with the owner Tom Newmark and his compatriot and farm manager Stephen Ferrell among others. We headed back later that day to post up in San Jose for Susan to be close to the airport to catch her flight in the morning and for me to be able to conversely scoop up dear friend Dr. Jim Veteto.
Jim accompanied me as it was his spring break from Western Carolina University and his birthday to boot. Jim is a great writer as well as ecological anthropologist and has agreed to help consult on our book project. We initially travelled with Tenasi and his family and stayed in a friend’s home outside Dominical. We started the morning the next day with an awesome fruit tasting including fresh Cashew (Anacardium occidentale), Star Apple (Chrysophyllum cainito), Sapodilla (Manilkara zapota) and various Passion Fruits (Passiflora spp.). One must be VERY CAREFUL with fresh Cashew as it is related to Poison Ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) and some parts can be similarly irritating!
Later that day we travelled up to the Diamante Verde Sanctuary which features numerous caves and waterfalls including the largest waterfall in Costa Rica at over 600 ft.
The hike to the sanctuary 10 years ago was one of the hardest hikes i have ever done. Granted it was rather wet and i was carrying over 60 pounds of gear straight up hill. The hike this time was a much easier experience as it was the dry season and we had a horse to carry a lot of our stuff. This is truly one of the most magical places i have ever been in my life and i am ever so grateful for the chance to return. The sanctuary features a garden with lots of different fruit trees such as Bananas (Musa sp.),
Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus), Durian (Durio zebethinus), Sapotes, and Star Apples as well as lots of cool vegetables and ornamentals as well. Tenasi and his partner Danita named their little baby girl after Durian! The family that stewards the land at Diamante still facilitate tours up there through their company Pacific Journeys if you are interested. The following day we headed back down to the house in Dominical.
From our perch in Dominical we headed up to Manuel Antonio National Park. i have never seen so many exotic animals in a wild setting in such a small area and space of time. We witnessed various lizards, sloths, peccaries, deer, and monkeys.
Unfortunately, it was hard to get good pictures of many of these critters. After we finished with the park experience we had dinner and then headed to the community where our friend Matthew Human lives outside Orotina.
The name of Human’s community is Tacotal and we were pleased to discover that friends from Celo, NC also have a space there. La Ecovilla is another more high end community directly below with lovely houses and incredible plantings of fruit trees. Stephen Brooks who helped found the legendary Permaculture farm Punta Mona and the music festival Envision also helped establish both these communities as well.
We took plant walks throughout both Tacotal and La Ecovilla as well as a nice dip at their gorgeous community swimming hole.
They are looking for more members in both communities if you’re interested!
Jim and i headed out from Tacotal back down to the coast and Playa Uvita. After a cab to Orotina, a bus to Uvita and another cab we arrived to stay at the marvelous Flutterby House. This lodging place is home to live music, good food, and great local beer! It is also a short walk from the very nice beach at the National Park Marino Ballena. The next day we headed to Finca Carolina and the Uvita Tropical Studies Institute
which is owned by some old friends of ours. This destination was a goal to visit for both of us for over a decade so it felt great to have that mission accomplished. We took an awesome walk with farm manager Carlos
down to an epic swimming hole below a couple of small waterfalls. On the way up we saw a constrictor snake by the trail which gave pause. Afterwards we feasted on the pulp of the fancifully named Ice Cream bean (Inga sp.) before taking a short siesta.
After our break we headed over to Selva Armonia and walked around with their head gardener Chris before witnessing another epic sunset above the iconic whale tail land formation jutting into the Pacific ocean.
From Finca Carolina we set our sites on the Las Vueltas lodge near the Cerro de la Muerte. First we got a ride from Carlos to take a bus from Uvita to Dominical. There we had a couple hour layover where we enjoyed checking out the awesome little natural foods grocery store Mama Toucans and the nice little restaurant Café Mono Congo as well as catching up on internet. From Dominical we took another bus up to San Isidro de General and then from there a taxi ride up the mountain to finally reach our destination at over 9,000 ft elevation just before dark. At this elevation the plant life is a lot like my home in southern Appalachia. The flora features Blueberries, Chickweed, Dandelions, Dogwoods, Hollies, Jewelweed, Magnolias, Oaks, Violets, Watercress and many other plants that folks may be familiar with from way father north. Many plants grow in this eco-type that don’t grow further north as well. The 4,000 plus year old Prunopitys trees from the Podocarpaceae family might be my favorite if i had to pick one.
However, lots of other great plants like Zapatillas (Calceolaria spp.),
Papa de Vendado (Bomarea spp.) and Pico de Lora (Centropogon spp.) are examples of some other great showy plants as well. At Las Vueltas we met up with Augustin (Tin) Contreras who is my greatest teacher of Costa Rica botany to date. Tin has been studying the plants of CR for many years and counts as one of his main mentors Luis Poveda the native dean of Costa Rican forestry. Tin also has a couple children with one of the Seeyle’s. The Seeyle’s own and run Las Vueltas and cater to folks from all over the world looking to study the special ecosystem at the top of their property called the Paramo. They are an expat family from Michigan. The parents moved to Costa Rica about 40 years ago and had a bunch of children along the way. These folks are hardworking, nature loving spirits that i was very excited to reunite with for a bit. A number of them were also teachers of mine from my first visit to CR ten years ago. Tin took us for a walk up to the Paramo that i hope to never forget. He is a profound teacher both of plants but also of life philosophy in general and really inspired both Jim and i in various ways that day.
From Las Vueltas we headed with Tin back toward San Jose. i helped Tin lead a plant walk for university students from New York at the Ark Herb farm.
After that, all of us being bibliophiles, we headed out to a local book store called Goodlight. Then it was off to celebrate Jim’s 43rd birthday with some local beers at the Costa Rica Beer factory and yummy food at Ceverchera Nemo. We stayed that night and through the next day with Tin’s gracious parents. Definitely feeling super grateful for the hospitality and place to review notes and decompress before flying back into a cold snap up north. It was hard to adjust at first, but now that things are warming up i am beginning to embrace the coming of spring.
PHI is planning another trip to Costa Rica next year in late February/March. This will follow a different route than the one described above. If you are interested check the page for our trip in 2016. The 2018 trip will be just about the same except the Medicine’s from the Edge conference will probably not be happening at that time next year so we will insert a little more time near the legendary La Selva Biological Station en route to the Caribbean. More information about that future trip will be up on our website in the next month. Feel free to contact me with your interest and/or questions in the meantime…As they say constantly in Costa Rica, Pura Vida (Pure Life) marc