Today we arrived at Monteverde (Gracias a Don Edgar) and its cloud forests to further our understanding of the coffee and banana industries in Costa Rica. Coming up here we saw almost nothing but forest. However it does seem like some small families/communities stay in the mountains. We also saw evidence of farming and animal ranches.

Closer to the hotel is where we saw any semblence of a city. Though it was themed for tourists it did have many stores and restuarants.

Compared to the urbanized Heredia, Montaverde seems almost untouched by humans outside a few places. However, due to prior knowledge we know that at one point only 23% of Costa Rica was natural. So the assumption can be made that alot of what we saw was regrown at some point.
In addition there are no shops here. The early American Quakers who settled here knew this, and had to make the trek(with oxcarts instead of automobiles) down to the central valley to sell or buy goods. The Quakers seem to have discovered the arable land in Monteverde back during the 1950’s. However the Costa Rican people seem slightly jealous of this as Don Ricardo Guindon stated.

It is interesting how much American influence has been imposed on Costa Rica. Costa Rica required help in its independence from Spain in 1851 and turned to the US. Since then Costa Rica has relied on the US to build out infrastructure and even abolished its military due to the reliance it had. The Quakers who settled were also American and have definitely influenced economies such as the cheese industry here in Costa Rica.