Coffee Picking in Costa Rica

Maybe I should try my hand at picking coffee while I'm in Costa Rica.

I could make almost $2.00 an hour, but as slow as I would be, they probably wouldn't even pay me that much. I don't think I could stand up on the side of some of the steep mountainsides.

The picture at the top of the page shows coffee beans ready to pick. At least the red beans are ready to pick.

Below is a picture of a coffee plant full of blooms that I took last year.

If you look closely at the picture below, you can see a guy walking down the mountain with a bag of coffee beans on his shoulders.

At the 4,500-foot elevation where I'm staying, coffee grows all over the sides of the mountains. At lower elevations, they grow sugar cane and pineapples. Mangoes grow everywhere.

Interest facts about coffee in Costa Rica

• Even though I see coffee growing in every direction I look, when I'm drinking coffee in a little soda (the Spanish name for a little restaurant), there are no free coffee refills. If you want another cup of coffee, you pay for another cup of coffee.

• I can call a local coffee farmer and tell him that I want a bag of coffee, and within a few minutes, he will show up on a motorbike with my bag of coffee. Ordering a bog of coffee is like calling to get a pizza delivered.

• The coffee plants start having little white blooms in late January, and then the coffee beans are ready to pick in late December and early to mid-January.

Since I now spend six months a year in Costa Rica and six months in the US in my motorhome, I don't know if I live in the US and visit Costa Rica or if I live in Costa Rica and visit the US.

This past summer, Costa Rica changed their laws so visitors can stay for 180 days instead of 90 days. Now, I won't have to do a border run to Nicaragua to walk across the border to get my passport stamped and then walk back.

I am getting a lot of writing done. This is a great place to have uninterrupted time to write. And the Internet is way faster and more reliable than in campgrounds. That helps a lot.

I'm sure I told you more about coffee growing in Costa Rica than you wanted to know. I enjoy hiking through the coffee fields, but not the fields on the side of the steep mountains.

Bottom line: Every year when I return to Costa Rica, I learn and experience more different things. Not better or worse, just different. Now, if I could learn to speak and understand Spanish better, I could learn even more.