Day 11 Our last full day: permaculture, Fermentation, the journey back

     Today started off with another great morning at Rancho Mastatal. We all got up around 7A.M for a small fruit snack before starting the day with our first lesson on permaculture. Our teacher for this class was named Sam, a core member of the faculty at Rancho Mastatal living there for over a decade. His vast background in agricultural studies made for a very compelling and unique presentation on permaculture and its history over the last 10,000 years beginning with the agricultural revolution. After a detailed summary and explanation of key events and innovations, we moved on to gain a better understanding of how Rancho Mastatal was run and how it uses permaculture. Sam defined permaculture as "A design methodology to create human habitats", which was the foundation for the habitat that Rancho Mastatal is.

    We went on another small tour around the Rach learning about different sectors and Zones that contained various agricultural aspects of the Ranch, such as where they grow certain foods, how they generate their own power using cow manure, and their different forms of compost. After exploring more parts of the ranch and learning about the foundation of how it is sustained we all made our way back to the main hose for brunch. The brunch today was amazing, we had beans, rice, sunny-side-up eggs, fruit(as usual), and some of the best homemade biscuits I have ever had. After enjoying our last meal at Rancho Mastatal, which was absolutely delicious, we made our way to our last class. 

    The last class of our stay at Rancho Mastatal and the 2023 Costa Rica trip was a class on making fermentation. At Racnho Masatal they make all kinds of fermented foods and drinks, including their own homemade wines, made from a variety of fruits and homemade kimchi. Ambre was our teacher for this class, with her great understanding of the fermentation process we had a fun lesson learning about the different methods and processes of fermentation to make a variety of foods and drinks. After our lesson, we went into a hands-on process of making papaya kimchi completely from scratch. 

    We started off by preparing our papaya by peeling the skin, cutting it into fourths, and then removing the seeds. While some of us continued to prepare the papaya others worked on shredding the papaya down, weighing it out, mixing in salt, and squeezing the water our of the shreds. Once all the papaya was done being shredded we made sure it was squeezed out and added with salt in order to be put away for fermentation. The first step of this fermentation process required the papaya to sit without oxygen for a period of time meaning that once it was poured in a bucket to store, we placed a lid over the papaya and weight in order to squeeze any excess oxygen out of the bucket before putting it away for fermentation. After we completed the preparation process we had the opportunity to try some pre made kimchi which was delicious. Once our last class was completed we all headed back to our cabins to finish backing before departing to San Jose.

    After a brief packing period everyone was ready to load the buss and make our way back to San Jose. The bus ride was another great adventure through Costa Rica as we passed by beautiful mountain views, local community's, and other small towns. After a long singing filled journey through Costa Rica we arrived at Hotel Aeropuerto for dinner and a good sleep before our flight early the next morning. Along with having a great dinner provided by the hotel restaurant we also celebrated Eli's birthday with a delicious cake. SO after a long and incredible journey throughout Costa Rica exploring the terrain and the incredible community's that it has, we all ended our night in good spirts about the adventure we had and the story's we would tell when we returned. 



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