Qerc and Mora farm

Group portrait at the top of Cerro de la Muerte (photo by Ben Earwicker)

Here in Costa Rica and especially at Qerc, they are very environmentally aware, so we hung our laundry to dry, which sometimes takes 2 or 3 days to dry in the rain forest!


Some of our group (Alina King and Krysta Boyer) crossing the Savegre River on our way to the Mora farm. It was a suspension bridge!


At our lunch stop at the River Savegre, Professor Earwicker decided to see if he could cross it, and he did! This is him mid-air on the way back to the other side.

We hiked in about 5 hours from Qerc to the Mora farm, and were met by Nelson Mora and his father Orlando to give us a ride around the ravine to their home at Armonia Ambiental. They are coffee farmers and we were able to see their farm, coffee trees, grind coffee and best of all drink tons of coffee!

coffee beans just plucked from the plant, the beans are inside the red berry like skin.

hot peppers just picked at the Mora farm

Passion fruit, the seeds inside are the edible part. They are sweet and crunchy.

playing cards after dark at Mora farm (Allie Hanson, Kasi Farley top right)

Our group has played lots of card games since we've been together, including Nerts, Kings on the Corner, Idiot, and I taught some of them a midwest game, Euchre.

Noire separating the good beans from the bad ones.

While at Mora farm, we hiked to the to the lookout, but could see only fog, learned the process of how sugar cane is broken down to sugar, learned about the medicinal plants that Noire Mora uses for her remedies and hiked to several waterfalls and a rock house that Orlando lived in until he was five.

Our group on one of our walks around Mora farm & Providencia (photo by Matt Larson)

Everyone at the waterfall taking pics (Jared Cates in front)

Allea Meza and I (Jamie Tucker) at one of the waterfalls

Dario, the Mora's youngest son ran after Ben and Jered when we were walking to the bus, he didn't want to say goodbye! The Mora family were all very sweet to us and we felt blessed that we were able to meet them and see they farm and spend time with them.

Jessica Weaver, Kasi Farley and Allie Hanson on the bus.

Most of us were sad to say our farewells to the Mora family, but we headed back on the bus with our amazing driver, Moma to return to San Gerardo de Dota on a grueling two hour climb out of the Providencia valley. We had some adventures on the way up the mountain, a fallen tree, and some cows that were hanging out on the side of the road.

It really did look like our bus could slide off the mountain! But we had a fantastic bus driver who got us around the tree and back on the road.