Unfortunately, the Wi-Fi was not good enough for me to upload/download pictures 🙁

Today, for about two hours, we saw rural, non-tourist Costa Rica. Far enough from the central valley, Costa Rica doesn’t really have highways, only main roads. Along those main roads, I saw many sodas, small, family operated restaurants where patrons can get homecooked meals. Leaving the urbanized central valley made me realize Costa Rica is more developed for tourists than I thought. The place we stopped at, El Jardin, is a rest stop perfectly designed for tourists. Strategically located halfway between the central valley and Monteverde, it has a restaurant, gift store, butterfly garden, and a hillside landscaped into a tourist phot spot.

Once we arrived at our hotel, we had a delicious lunch, then went to learn about the history of Quakers in Monteverde from Don Ricardo Guindon, a descendant of quakers who settled Monteverde after World War 2. His parents, like all Quakers, were pacifists and opposed the selective service act. His father had been imprisoned for openly defying the law and wished to leave the US as a result. His father, mother, and their friends moved to Costa Rica as they had abolished their military. The Quaker colony supported themselves by running a cheese factory. As their colony developed, biologists wishing to study wildlife took refuge with the Quakers as they conducted surveys. Changes documented by biologists over the decades led the Quakers to become more conscious of human caused climate change and a desire to become stewards of the Monteverde ecosystem.