4
Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica
Positioned in the striking skirts of the Talamanca Mountain Range, the Bribri Indigenous Reserve is one of the few surviving communities that have kept their traditional ways up to our days.
There are only around 10,000 Bribri descendants! As the area has been historically remote and isolated, these groups have kept a lot of their traditions, language, food, and culture.
This indigenous reserve is structured in small villages, never forming large groups, and with the maxim of self-sufficiency while practicing an active fight to protect their environment.
Visiting these reserves is a necessary experience. There you will be part of the purest culture of the country; you will live directly the relationship that these people have felt for centuries with nature and what it gives them every day.
An experience that will make you genuinely learn what Costa Rican pre-Columbian culture was like and that will also help you understand how it has been and is influenced by everything that comes from outside these villages.
You will start the day with a visit to the Green Iguana Farm. At this distinct place, you will learn the importance of these fantastic reptiles as you arrive on the farm and start seeing the different stages in the lives of the green iguanas and learn about how transcending their presence is in the wild.
As in Central America, they have been hunted to eat (Their meat is supposed to be very soft and tasty); there is a need to give them a sanctuary where they can grow to be released in the wild later on. They have released thousands of iguanas to the nearby rainforests!
Later, you will get to the cocoa plantation where you will see the process of picking, sun drying, roasting with open fire, peeling, and grinding the beans with a stone to be converted into chocolate afterward.
You will learn about all the different ways that the indigenous mixed the cocoa to give different flavors.
If in harvest, you can also taste some other exotic fruits from the gardens.
Afterward, you will visit a medicinal herbal garden, to hear and see about plants that the indigenous community has utilized for centuries. You will also taste and touch some of the exotic species in this region.
Depending on the time of year, you may taste nutmeg, cinnamon, touch rubber right from the tree, and paint yourself with different dyes extracted from fruits, flowers, and trees.
You will also see some of the plants that the bribri people use to make fiber for clothing and other purposes.
The journey proceeds on to a majestic waterfall deemed as sacred by the tribes.
The region where the tour takes place is quite hot, and a swim in the pond under the cascading water is quite welcome.
To finish off, you will enjoy a typical lunch at a local restaurant before you go back to your hotel.
