Today we left the Central Valley (Heredia and San Jose region) to see the cloud forest of Monteverde. What stood out to me about the communities we drove through, the scenery, the street shops, and the people are that times are changing in Costa Rica. Times changing have good and bad effects for example medical device industry is expanding in Costa Rica which is good for the economy and employment of Costa Ricans; however, the growth is happening through the rural farmland of Costa Rica making Costa Ricans more dependent on imported food. How my perception of Costa Rica changed since you arrived on Saturday is that it is a beautiful country, but it has a rapidly expanding economy that has the potential to do harm to the beauty that Costa Rica is known.

Once we landed in Monteverde we listened to a lecture by Don Ricardo Guindon about how some Quakers from Alabama settled the Monteverde region and brought their own influence to the region. These foreigners brought diversity to the economy of the Costa Rican area of Monteverde by bringing something new: cheese. They also had a large hand in conservation efforts that helped to establish protected beautiful lands to this day.