Yes, a ship’s tour. What can we say? All of Bill and Christy’s tours were repeats of what we had already done, so we decided to take a coffee plantation tour through Celebrity, gritting our teeth all the way. We are breakfasted and in the theater early, but they call our tour early, so we head out to the bus, get settled and wait for all the stragglers to join us. They had originally had 2 times for this tour, but apparently got just enough people to entirely fill one bus, so the combined the tours and we have 52 people on this thing. Yikes. Exactly 52 seats. Exactly 52 pax.The guide, Omar, is great, totally talkative and informative. During our hour and a half ride up into the mountains, he tells us about Costa Rica – there is no army, 96.7% of the population are literate, 65% speak English as well as Spanish, there are 130 volcanoes (only 8 are active), they get up to 21” of rain per year, the mountain range splits the country exactly in half, cacao was the first commercial crop, followed by coffee, bananas and pineapple. It is a very ecological country with 52% of the land protected and the forestland produces 6% of all the oxygen the world uses. There’s more, like the Social Democrat government, healthcare, education….hey it was an hour and a half of lecture (turns out Omar has a PHD in Ecology and he gives lectures all over the country, which explains his exuberance and knowledge).
Arriving at the the Espiritu Santo cooperative, we hit the restrooms then break into 2 groups for touring. First stop is the “coffee house,” a replication of the coffee pickers houses where we get lessons on coffee brewing and tasting, with samples of fresh roasted coffee. Then we wander down the main road to a little hut where we are shown how coffee is picked with baskets and bags, and given samples of chocolate covered coffee beans (which are delicious and I’m sure available in the gift shop). Then onto the drying area where we see all the different stages of beans drying, and finally to the roasting room where freshly roasted beans are processed and packaged. It’s a nice little tour with lots of information and a really entertaining guide. It is also nice that this is a small facility run by local families, as opposed to the huge commercial operations we’ve visited in the past. Our last stop, of course is the gift shop where there are the chocolate covered beans, which we eschew in favor of actual coffee beans to take home and make later.
Our next stop will be the town of Sarchi where we will see the culturally significant ox carts made and have lunch. Reboarding the bus, though, we find that another couple has taken our seats. We politely tell them that they are in our seats, but they refuse to move. They give the excuse that on the last tour they were separated and the wife just wants to sit with the husband. Well, ok, but that’s not our problem, you are in our seats. They steadfastly refuse to move, and we aren’t going to just oust someone else out of their seats, because that is just plain rude and bad bus etiquette. So we go to the back of the bus and sit separately during the 20 minute ride to Sarchi. When we arrive though, we realize we are totally screwed as Omar says we can leave what we don’t need on the bus – and of course the seat stealers have a huge bag of coffee. Crap. Well, we’re the last off anyway, so I just move their bag of coffee to their back of the bus seats and put our hat and water in our seats. Problem solved (maybe).
We go through the tour of the cart factory, listening the guide give explanations on the construction and traditional painting of the carts, and how they power the equipment with a water wheel (which is actually totally interesting and probably the best part off the tour!). We watch the actual artists paint, and then we are disbursed to our buffet lunch (where the seat stealers run to be in the front of the line).
The lunch is nice, a choice of different rice, beans and either chicken, fish or beef plus veggies and salad. We grab a couple beers (and pay extra which sets off consternation in the line when people think they have to pay for juice and water…sigh), then take our take our trays to a table for lunch. As we sit and discuss the seat stealer situation, we realize we probably need to talk to Omar about the situation. So, I tell him the story and he says he will give a little talk to the bus about seating, which we appreciate.
Of course the seat stealers have rushed through lunch, literally shoving food into their mouths to get done in like 5 minutes, and have now rushed downstairs to shop – and we just KNOW what’s going to happen. We leisurely finish our lunch, peruse the store, and then decide that we will simply tell the offending couple that we moved their coffee, but we will move it back so they can have the seats. A bunch of people, including them, head out to the bus with 45 minutes to go before we leave, and we go out there too, to explain the situation and graciously give over our seats. Suffice it to say, it doesn’t go well. The wife keeps screaming about wanting to sit with her husband, the husband gets aggressive and yells at me for touching their stuff. I get on the bus, retrieve our hat and water and return their coffee, then try to get off the bus. Their friend blocks my exit and then will not move out of the way for me to leave. I tell him I just want to get off the bus, to which the seat stealer says, “well, we WANT you off this bus.” Then he says, “you must be from California.” What? Right? I should have said, well you are DEFINITELY from Florida (which they are). I finally manage to get off the bus, relate the story to Omar so he knows he doesn’t have to say anything and spend the next 1/2 hour wandering about the store with Ed drinking coffee.
Of course, back on the bus, we take our seats way in the back and wait to leave. In the meantime, the husband seat stealer comes back to his aisle blocking buddy and says loud enough for me to hear him, “We are missing things from our bag and I think they stole them, so we are going to shipboard security when we return.” Yeah, right, try it buddy. But, honestly, is that anyway for decent human beings to act? Ok. Done.
We actually spend a pleasant bus ride back. My seat partner is a lovely man from Wisconsin and we chat a bit and then I read the entire way back to the ship, half listening to Omar explain the Costa Rican government and the services and the economy. At the ship, we are one of the last tours back, so we quickly board the ship and head up to the cabin dump our stuff and watch the sailaway from the balcony.
Of course, nothing ever comes of the seat stealers’ scare tactic. All is well aboard the Ecplise for the evening. Drinks, dinner and the show – which we leave early because it just didn’t ring our bell – then a late night snack of lavosh broken into chip size pieces for snacking. Then it’s bed time and another sea day to look forward to.
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