A dizzy day!!! Seriously!! Today we went to the mountains, through narrow winding steep roads thad constantly had me on the edge of my seat, to visit the Maricao State Forest and after that see a coffee and banana plantation. Throughout the trip I had a constant headache due to all the turns. The picture of above gives you an idea of how I felt!
Our first visit was to the Maricao State Forest where we were given information about the place by one of the state parks workers. The forest is the largest forest managed by the state of Puerto Rico. The elevation ranges from 500-3000 feet above sea level with a sub humid tropical climate. In the video below you can see the whole talk. While it was really nice to visit the place I was kind of disappointed because we weren't able to walk around and go on the hikes to see the flora and fauna. I was even more disappointed when I learned that the place contains the most orchid species(31 different species, more than anywhere else on the island). The main purpose of our trip was to visit the coffee and banana plantations so they didn't want us to get tired before that. bummer.
Untitled from jbarbs on Vimeo.
After that we went to the top of the mountain to the official monument of the place. It was an old castle like tower. There we were able to see spectacular views of the island and even see the coastline. Very beautiful!
The main stop for the day was at coffee and banana plantation. The town of Maricao has some of the best coffee in the world. The owner of the farm we visited is . He and his wife do almost all the work with only help during harvest time. On his property he has 25 acres of bananas and 17 acres of coffee. At his farm we were given information about coffee production in Puerto Rico and then given a tour around the place. We were able to see the machines needed to process the coffee which included the coffee roasters and dryers and also the area for packaging.
After seeing the coffee part we were shown the banana ripening warehouse where bananas are stored to ripen and also to be picked up for distribution. One last thing we learned about his place is at his farm he diversifies his crops. While coffee and bananas are his main crops he also grows taro and some other crops. Once again we are seeing a repeating concept in agriculture. That is "you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket"! After the tour we headed back home and I decided to sleep the whole way. In the end I still had a headache from all the winding roads :P
Paulines souvenir for the way home
Tomorrow we visit the cattle farm in the town of Aguadilla and after that we are going to barbecue the sausages and try the ice cream and cheese we made on Tuesday!! Should be good :D
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