THE BEST PART OF WAKING UP...

Calling all coffee lovers!  A few weeks ago my friend Nikki from St.Louis was here visiting and part of our sightseeing adventure was to take a tour of Volcano Mombacho.  That's the big volcano you can see from Granada and is featured in a lot of my blog pictures.

There's a lot of cool stuff you can do up there.  There are 3 craters to tour, a coffee plantation, and zip lining. And it's a really beautiful volcano--more rain forest than desert.   We got a VERY detailed tour of how coffee beans are cultivated and ultimately end up in your morning mug.  We even got to eat the ripe coffee beans.  There's a sweet fruit around it and then the bean itself tastes a lot like a peanut.

Mature coffee beans plain and with their fruit on the outside

Up close and personal with a Cafe Flores coffee plant.  When it's all red, it's ripe for picking.  We came just as the harvest started (November) and they told us it will end around February.

 All the short stubby plants are coffee plants.  They go as far as the eye can see.  They plant taller trees all around to block the wind so it doesn't blow the beans off the trees.

The best part of course came at the end where there's an on-site cafe giving Starbucks frappuccinos a run for their money.  Yes, I know I look like I'm auditioning for Rambo here but there was a lot of wind!