Imagine with me, you're lying in a hammock on the beach, you feel the soft sand running through your fingers, you look up to see a pair of scarlet macaws flying through the blue cloudless sky, you smell the fresh clean air with the scent of newly bloomed flowers and you can hear the waves rolling in and crashing down. Now you peel your yummy, sweet banana and take a bite...you bring it to your mouth for another bite, but a monkey swoops down and takes it! Honourable judges, teachers, fellow students and guests today I will be talking about a place where all your senses come alive, Costa Rica.

Costa Rica is a beautiful place and last summer I had the privilege to visit it. Let me tell you about my travel to get there. My mom, brother, dad and I started off our journey on a big plane, and when we got to San Jose we switched over to a small plane, it was small and only seated six people. At first I thought, there is no way I am getting on that plane, but I had to. After it took off it wasn't that bad, it was actually fun. When we landed in a town called Puerto Jimenez, about one hour later we switched again to an open jeep. We sat in the back under a canopy for about two hours, while it drove us on a dirt road through the rainforest and rivers to our destination, a jungle eco-lodge.

When we got to the eco-lodge we just sat back and admired how beautiful it was. It was nestled in pure rainforest overlooking the warm Pacific Ocean. It's truly where the rainforest meets the ocean. I learned all about the eco part of the lodge, environmentally friendly is what comes to mind. The lodge was solar powered with a limited impact on nature's playground. There's a quote, "take only pictures and leave only footprints."

The lodge is on the Osa Peninsula which national geographic calls "the most biologically intense place on earth."

I went with Stepout Experience, which happens to be my uncles company. Stepout really allows you to open your eyes, remove yourself from everyday life and experience new things in this exotic adventure.

When I was in Costa Rica I attended a kids eco camp with kids from all over the world. We would go off to camp in the morning and meet up with our parents at lunch. At camp we did all kinds of activities, we went to a farm up the road called Finca Exotica. At Finca they grow all sorts of cool fruits, plants and animals. We also went to help built the turtle hatchery for the endangered sea turtles. We even got a see a sea turtle lay its eggs. Boogie boarding was also something we did quite regularly. I learned a lot from the other kids at camp and the leader. I even learned some Spanish & Dutch!

I have many memories to last a lifetime, but I can only share a few. One very interesting experience was when I went to an animal sanctuary. I got to see monkeys, sloths, and many other animals that had been mistreated, but were being nursed back to health and re-introduced into the wild. Another exciting experience was when I went on a hike into Corcovado National Park. When I entered, I remember looking all around me and seeing green, lush rainforest. On my hike, I saw monkeys and many other plants and animals that lived in this habitat. Corcovado has more plant and animal life than in North and Central America combined.

I had an amazing trip and learned so much in Costa Rica. I wish I could have stayed longer.

Can you imagine now that you are lying in a hammock on the beach and all your senses are coming alive.

I really did stepout and experience Costa Rica.

By: Kayley Wynne, age 11 years old

Labels: green and sustainable vacationing

Finca Exotica: An Off-the-Grid
Garden of Delights on the Osa Peninsula

By Dorothy MacKinnon
Special to The Tico Times | editorial@ticotimes.net

Finca Exotica is one garden paradise that lives up to the promise of its name. At the very end of the bumpy road from Puerto Jimenez to Carate on southwestern Costa Rica's Osa Peninsula, this combination organic farm, botanical garden and eco-lodge is notable not only for its focus on sustainable living, but also for the delightful contrast between its remote setting and its sophisticated hospitality.

A quintessentially tropical cabin at Finca Exotic.

The finca, on about 90 hectares, is the creation of Markus Wehrmeister, a German architect turned caterer turned organic gardener, who had a quasi-Utopian vision seven years ago of transforming a worn-out subsistence farm into a model of organic farming, sustainable living and hospitality and natural beauty.

Wehrmeister sums up the guiding principle behind his vision with this aphorism: "In China, they say, 'If you want to be happy for a day, kill a pig and share it with friends. If you want to be happy for a year, get married. If you want to be happy for a lifetime, plant a garden.'"

And plant a garden he did. Over the last seven years, aided by employees and volunteers, Wehrmeister has planted more than 125 species of tropical fruits, a thousand trees, including more than a dozen different species of palms, 15 species of bananas and plantains, seven species of bamboo and countless flowering ornamentals and edible plants.

But Wehrmeister didn't stop at plants. With the goal of being as self-sufficient as possible, he also built a duck house, a henhouse and a pig enclosure. An architect, Wehrmeister couldn't help but infuse even these farmyard structures with elegant design elements. The realities of jungle farming made some adjustments necessary, however. During a heavy rain period last year, a hungry ocelot broke into the poultry houses, ate the ducks and killed most of the chicks and hens. The pig survived with just a chicharron bitten off one flank. Now each of the livestock enclosures is totally enclosed and, Wehrmeister hopes, ocelot-proof.

The blue Pacific is steps away.

A tour of the organic farm and gorgeous garden includes tastes of edible plants along the way. Wehrmeister introduced me to katuk, a spicy salad green reminiscent of spinach. Just rip the dark green leaves off the stem and pop them into your mouth. Another tasty leaf comes from the limon criollo tree - a handful will wake up your taste buds in the morning. Along with the garden tour, the main activities here are boogie boarding and beachcombing on Playa Carate and hiking into Corcovado National Park, just a 45-minute beach walk away.

The lodging here is as exotic as the garden and just as carefully designed. Five quintessentially tropical cabins are built of bamboo, thatch and unobtrusive screening, affording privacy while remaining as open to the garden as possible. The feeling is more tiki than tico : Each cabin looks as though it belongs on a South Seas island, a feeling reinforced by the steady sound of the surf, just steps away. Bathrooms have elegant ceramic sinks, flush toilets and an open window to the garden. Showers are in separate bamboo and cane enclosures in private gardens. Stunning flower arrangements, beautiful batik fabrics and woven-palm hangings add a touch of sophistication. They're the handiwork of Costa Rican artist, potter and teacher Gabriela Madriz, who makes her home here with Wehrmeister.

For the more adventurous - and budget-minded - six platform tents are scattered around two garden areas, sharing open-to-the-sky showers and bathrooms. These are not your standard camping tents. Wehrmeister's innovative design uses translucent nylon that lets in lots of light, with interestingly shaped, zippered windows screened with aphid-proof netting to allow for maximum air flow and privacy.

With his eye for aesthetics, Wehrmeister set his tents on light, portable bamboo frames, topped with thatch roofs. Bamboo decks and entries pebbled with washed-up beach stones complete the idyllic, castaway-island look. Inside, though, these thatched huts have comfortable queen-size or single mattresses, draped in fresh linens.

Staying true to his Chinese aphorism, Wehrmeister also practices what he preaches when it comes to food. The first time I dropped by, a visiting chef from the U.S. state of Wisconsin had just butchered and cooked up the farm pig. I joined other guests in the garden to feast on tender, barbecued pork ribs.

My next, longer visit was a culinary extravaganza. The first night, guests gathered in Wehrmeister and Madriz's handsome house, perched high atop what Wehrmeister calls "Edible Hill," with 360-degree views of ocean and coastline. Designed and built by Wehrmeister, the wooden house is built on horizontal planes reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, with built-in cabinetry and cushioned seating.

Wehrmeister and Madriz worked in the open kitchen to produce a truly exotic meal, starting with appetizers of fresh tuna sashimi and seared tuna chunks, followed by red snapper cooked in a spicy Indian paste, accompanied by a medley of spinach and kale braised in a sake, sesame oil and mirin sauce, atop jasmine rice. Dessert was a spicy fruit compote of banana, pineapple and caramelized carambola (star fruit). All the raw ingredients were grown on the finca, except for the fish, courtesy of a local fisherman.

The next night's dinner was down in the garden, a cooperative effort by Madriz, Wehrmeister and his brother Wieland, a chef visiting from Germany, as well as U.S. volunteer Amory Tarr, an experienced organic farmer. The meal was proof that organic doesn't mean boring.

We started with a hot and sour Mexican soup, a favorite of Wehrmeister, who was born in Mexico and lived on a farm there until he was 11. Next came a savory coconut curry chicken padang, flavored with lemongrass, turmeric and ginger, topped with tender curry-plant leaves. Every dinner features a truly tropical salad concocted by Madriz and served on a huge wooden platter decorated with flowers. This night, the salad included colorful chunks of watermelon, avocado, tomato and carrot atop a bed of cabbage and crispy katuk leaves, dressed in a balsamic and honey vinaigrette. Dessert was caramelized carambola and bananas in red wine and coconut milk.

Breakfasts here include excellent coffee, fresh farm eggs, home-baked raisin bread, pancakes, gallo pinto, yogurt-and-fruit smoothies and, of course, fresh fruit. Even the picnic lunch we took on a day hike into Corcovado was out of the ordinary, with chunks of spicy tuna and sauteed onions wedged between grilled slices of dense homemade bread.

Wehrmeister's ultimate dream for Finca Exotica is to create not only a model of sustainable living, but also an educational environment for both locals and visitors, offering seminars on bridge building and organic farming, for example, as well as English lessons. The finca's reception area has a wide-ranging Spanish-language library and a huge pool table, which has been a real draw for locals, helping to turn Finca Exotica into Carate's de facto community center.

The key concept, Wehrmeister says, is to provide a place where people can expand their horizons. For tourists, that can be as simple as taking time to listen to the surf, soak up the natural beauty, sleep well and eat exotically.

Labels: A StepOut Experience Vacation, green and sustainable vacationing, organic

The StepOut Experience

Labels: green and sustainable vacationing