Finca El Cisne

Wow, oh wow. We have had the most perfect, spectacular, incredible, and amazing few days. Truly, words escape in an attempt to talk about how perfect our time on the farm was. We met Carlos at a local cafe at 8 a.m. on Friday morning. This finca, or plantation, has been in his family for 5 generations. He's now been running a small guest house and tour business to bring people out to his family's place. We boarded a minivan with an English couple, two English girls, an American couple and their daughter and her Honduran boyfriend. It was an hour's drive through bumpy, dusty, gravel roads out to the countryside.

Upon our arrival we dropped our bags at the bunkhouse and then headed out to the horses. I didn't really know how this was going to go with Soren. He's ridden at my dad's house before, but never on long rides. And being part of a group means that we aren't neccessarily at liberty to just stop whenever and wherever we want to. But, what a trouper he was! He absolutely loved the horse and the ride. All three hours!
We rode all throughout the plantation through some spectaular mountain scenery.

Carlos showed us the growing coffee and cardomom as well as all the other projects he had around. In many ways, he and Peter were kindred spirits in that regard. Only Carlos has about 500 times as much property as Peter! He showed us the small teak forest he planted as an experiment, as well as cattle, cashew trees and endless varieties of flowers, vegetables and fruits.
We went back to the main house of the plantation for a huge lunch of locally grown foods. It was really delicious. Soren took a huge liking to Carlos and pretty much followed him wherever he went. When Carlos went into the kitchen Soren asked if he could help too. And so he and Carlos spent some time handrolling tortillas for our lunch! Soren thought it was so much fun.
In the afternoon we went to see the processing facilities for for the coffee. Well, Peter and the rest of the group did. Soren and I snuggled up in a huge hammock for our afternoon siesta! And then we all ended the day with a dip in the local hot springs and went back to our bunkhouse for another fine meal of locally grown food.
Originally we thought we'd spend one night at the finca. But it was just too great to leave. So we signed up for another night and did it all again the next day! Soren loved that ride just as much. His grandpa will be very proud when finds out what a natural cowboy Soren is!

It really warms my heart to see how well he adapts to all this variety in terms of schedule, language, accomodations, and food. He just pretty much goes with the flow. But it even more than that really, he seems to LOVE all the adventures we've been having. Peter and I really were sent the pefect son for our family.

If you are interested in more information on the plantation we visited, you can go here http://www.fincaelcisne.com/eng2.htm

Kendell asked an interesting question in her comments on my last post. She asked how we find these places. How do we know where to go and what to do. Actually, the answer would differ if you asked me or if you asked Peter. Peter would say that we just kind of go with the flow and ask people along the way what they recommend. That is true to some degree, but there's also Amy's great love of planning that comes in handy! For all our trips, even those in the U.S., we always start with a guidebook. Since I do love to plan so much I usually check out a few of them from the libary. That way you can sort of get an overview of the country from a variety of perspectives. Different publishers have slightly different angles. Over the years, we've clearly identified the Lonely Planet guides are our favorites. So we usually buy a Lonely Planet guidebook to take along with us.

Before we left I read through the guidebooks and came up with a list of places that sounded interesting and then did some logistical planning to figure out what would make sense in the amount of time that we had, what places had reasonable transportation connections, etc. And then I got a bit more in depth once I had a general itinerary trying to figure out which hotels and which bus lines etc seemed the best. TripAdvisor.com and lonelyplanet.com's Thorntree are great for finding first hand accounts of what other people experienced. It can help you narrow the field a bit.

But still, even with all that research, we don't ususally book anything in advance. We get somewhere and then talk to some local people or other travelers and check things our ourselves. Most times even though I've laid out a general idea of what I think we'll do, we'll take some sort of major detour from the plan because we find out new information.

I absolutely love travel planning, so usually on our return trips I'm already grilling Peter about where we should go next so that I can start planning the next trip!

And, speaking of that planning...tomorrow morning we are heading out to a town on the coast. From there we can catch a ferry to the islands where we intend to spend at least a week. But it looks like we'll probably stop off for a few days at a jungle lodge in a national park for a bit of exploration there before heading to the beach. I'll let you know!