For those of you who are not yet aware, “Vecinos del Mundo” is the name of our community program in Hojancha. In English it means “World Neighbors.”
As part of our work here, we are now running the following programs in collaboration with several local town members:
- English language learning program during the afternoons and evenings a couple of times per week for residents of town.
- Distance learning program connecting children in Costa Rica via videoconference with other children from other countries to learn about the environment and wildlife.
- Movie Night twice a month to bring youth together for healthy and fun activities.
- Afternoon educational youth program at the library 3 days per week.
- Volunteering at the local botanical garden.
Even though those programs keep us quite busy, we are constantly looking for new ways to be of assistance, especially when it comes to empowering folks to make big, positive, and long-lasting changes for themselves, their families and their communities.
Through the initial idea and great help of Manffred Gamboa, we are now helping the community form a cooperative and collaborative group of town members to create a tour to show off life in rural Guanacaste and to bring in an extra source of income to many families. We had our trial run this past week with three volunteers and five staff members – and it was a huge success!
The idea is basically to lead and support those in town who wish to be part of the tour. We are training them how to design the tour, how to treat the customers, how to set pricing and to manage the entire process. Beyond that, our job will be to help market the tour through Tropical Adventures and to convince other agencies to send people to the tour as well.
We will be making adjustments and improvements to the tour. But as it stands right now, it consists of:
- Going to the Chon Zuñiga farm to milk cows, feed baby cows with a milk bottle, learn how to make cuajada (curd) cheese from the fresh milk they just extracted from the cow, learn about fresh fruits that grow in Costa Rica and to enjoy a delicious breakfast, which includes the cheese they just watched being made.
- Visiting the Jose Campos pig farm where they also have rodeo bulls, horses and hens for egg production as well as hens they grow to sell as poultry.
- Passing by a farm where honey is produced with a wide variety of bees.
- Enjoying a mouth-watering lunch at the house of Nila Venegas under the trees by the river as our guests listen to (and participate in) live, traditional marimba music by Manuel Venegas and his family members.
- Watching a presentation by one or more of the members of “Hojarte,” a group of women from Hojancha who have been making jewelry for nearly 10 years out of natural seeds they find in the area.
- The tour also includes riding horseback between certain parts of the tour and to see incredible views of the surrounding area and the Gulf of Nicoya.
Future plans include adding options for a bicycle-for-two history tour of the town, early morning bird watching hikes, coffee plantation production tour, hiking in Monte Alto National Park, collecting eggs from hen houses, afternoon coffee at the house of Ines Quesada who has a large nursery full of interesting and unique plants…and more!
We still don’t have a price set, nor do we have a name yet for the tour. For now we’re just calling it “Hojancha Campesino Tour.” If you have any great suggestions for a tour name, please let us know!
Here are some pictures of the Hojancha Campesino Tour trial run from last week.