The next morning I woke up early to go on an excursion to the Caño Negro Reserve. It is in the north of Costa Rica along the Nicaragua border. It is the 3td most important wetland in the world. It is one of the first refuges to have managed a delicate balance between ecotourism and management of resources and is an area of extreme biological importance.
It took about 90 minutes to arrive and I was glad to see that it was not a paved road to get there. We boarded a boat to vote areas along the river.
We then had a tiny explanation of cacao and coffee and also how they extract the juice from sugar cane. We smoked raw cacao beans and then ground into a powder and mixed to make chocolate. They also shared moonshine made from sugar cane juice. To chase the shot, you suck on the sugar cane and bite the juice from it. We also sampled coffee.
I went to the hot springs again after the tour and one more time before leaving La Fortuna.