Today we visited the Heart of Palm plantation in Alajuela. We were shown the whole process of how they harvest the palm, which is the center of the trunk of a palm tree. We also got to try a bunch of foods, all with heart of palm. The coffee process in comparison to the process to harvest heart of palm had a lot of differences between them. First off, it was different temperatures. Coffee needs high altitudes which is generally going to be cooler and it was very humid where the palm was growing. They also have to wait 3 years to harvest the coffee but the palm can be harvested anytime through out the year. The palm is a very specific part of the palm trees trunk that is edible, so once you hack the trunk down and arrive at the part you are all set. Coffee is different from this because the people that harvest coffee have to see whether they have the red shell and are ready. And then they also have to go through a whole other process for roasting.
As far as our topic goes, which is design and launch, it didn’t seem like they had many tourist come through, or if they did it was for the restaurant and not the tour. In comparison to the other plantations and farms that we visited, this one was the shortest, we didn’t see anything else but the one place, and I thought it was the least engaging. While the presentation on how to harvest was very interesting, I feel that the plantations main marketable avenue is the food. I think so many avid travels and tourist would love to come to a restaurant where basically everything is made with palm tree!! How cool is that. Though, I still think the tour isn’t a bad idea, it just shouldn’t be the main thing that is advertised in order to attract tourists.
To end off the night, we went to a soccer game back in Alajuela and it was so cool. I am not a big soccer person. I would go to Pitt soccer games last year and they just were not exciting to me, but this game proved me wrong. They were doing chants, people were on their feet, there was music, people were flying around flags the whole game. The energy in the stadium was awesome. We also were shown a lot of kindness from locals at the game. One lady came up to us and warned us about the possibility of being charged extra if we bought food because we are foreign. A few people even took a selfie with us, which I thought was so funny and wholesome.
