12th november

I suppose I must have dozed a little but I eventually gave up at about 6.30am and got up, had a shower and went to get some breakfast at the poolside breakfast bar outside. There was one lady already sitting there nibbling at a dish of something and I briefly considered asking if I could join her, until the waiter guy strode up to her and began talking to her and something put me off. Then he came over to me and politely asked me what I wanted to eat. I glanced at the billboard and ordered omelette and fruit. He then went back to the lady and said something and she got up, went into the cabin, presumably to cook my breakfast.
The cooking cabin was by the pool too and there were tables and chairs laid out alongside it. A very civilised way to break fast, I thought. It felt quite warm, t-shirt warm, and the sun had risen above the houses in the east by the time my food arrived. I had breakfast in warm sunshine. I rang the house later as Dave Jr had told me to do and spoke to his father who sounded very welcoming and pleased to speak to me. He told me he would come and collect me around lunchtime.
I could have had a wander around the streets of this ‘ere town, but I was content chilling in the welcome warmth of the morning sun. I was very happy to be reclining on my sun lounger in November, congratulating myself on my latest out-of-the box- venture whilst watching little boats of cotton wool sail across a clear blue overhead sea.
This was the wet season which ran between May and November so I reasoned that now would be on the cusp of the dry season. The temperatures don’t vary too much according to climate or time of year in this country but altitude can make a difference which is why the coasts are warmer than here in San Jose.
This spine of the country is called the ‘Meseta Central’ and it is best described as a high altitude plain, off which to either side slope the Caribbean slope and the Pacific slope. The majority of the country’s 3.5 million inhabitants live on this plain, although it is thought in country that there are so many illegal immigrants here, especially refugees from Nicaragua that the final count could be well over 4 million. Bit like Birmingham I suppose.
The climate in this area has been described as ‘eternal spring’ with its perpetual warmth and regular showers and some would say is the most ideal climate in the world. Coupled with this is the fertile volcanic soil. The geography of the country is varied with the country essentially split in two by the volcanic mountain chain that is the spine of Central America. Indeed, it is essentially the link between the Rockies in the North and the Andes in the south.
‘Do you know where the Andes are?’
‘That’s right. They are on the end of your arm-ies! Ha!’
Except Costa Rica has no army. Costa Rica’s armed forces were dismantled in 1949 in the same constitution that gave blacks and women the vote. I don’t know if these incidences are all related or not. The population is overwhelmingly of Spanish descent 96% and catholic, with 2% African and 1% indigenous. I was fascinated to find that the final 1% was allocated as being of Chinese origin and I wondered at the circumstances that would precipitate such immigration. Then I realised that 1% is only about 4,000 people, so I guess it is only one reasonably small, lost armada landing here and thinking they were in San Francisco.
Four ice-cool Fantas and a couple of good hours sun-bathing later, indeed around lunchtime, Dave Gardella Sr. came to pick me up, took me to his house in Alajuela, and deposited me in his guest room. At the hotel and later at his house, I could sense him checking me out and I guess I was checking him out too. He was warm and friendly and I was happy to finally meet someone who could tell me about what exactly we would be doing. It was happening on his land, the Rain Ranch, so he would inevitably know.
It was a big house, easily the biggest in the road and it stood a little imposingly on a hill. It was bright, airy, clean well furnished and maintained and the guy obviously had a little money, at least relative to the rest of the neighbourhood. I suppose western money goes a long way in less developed countries such as Costa Rica. There was some land with it too - not too much but enough to give him plenty of breathing space. He had room in the garden for a laboratory of sorts halfway down the hill, and a stream ran through the garden at the bottom. There were some cages with chickens and cockerels, pheasants and one or two other birds in and some empty cages that had previously held goats.
He introduced me to his wife, Cecilia, native Costa Rican, and we parked outside on his roofed balcony. It was a pleasant square bay with bars around the side in place of walls, which I later found out were more for security purposes than for any dubiously aesthetic statement. The floor was tiled and there were some potted plants all around the sides. I could see Dave was examining a cigar with a certain level disgust. The balcony faced west and overlooked a valley, from which emanated an annoying buzzing. Eventually I asked him what it was, assuming it was some kind of chainsaw racing contest. “Hey, it’s some karting circuit. Everybody objected but its there anyway. They’re going at it everyday and till quite late sometimes – they don’t care.” He muttered something about his cheap one-dollar cigars that he had been reduced to smoking since his regular supply had run out, spat something out of his mouth and asked, “How is your Spanish, Dave?”
“Not great,” I replied, with typical understatement. In truth, I could read it ok, but still hadn’t had enough practice to be able to converse anything like fluently, or even adequately.
“Ok. Your first test, then. Go and get some beers.”
“Piece of cake,” I said. “Where from?” expecting him to tell me where the fridge was.
“Go down the drive and out the gate and turn right. There’s a bar that sells beer. Its right outside the door.” He gave me some money and some empty bottles to return in a carrier bag. “Make sure you don’t let the dogs out.”
I headed down the drive to the road. I liked the drive. It had two strips of concrete for the wheels and between was a strip of soil with myriad small orange flowers all the way down to the gate. Much of the garden was similarly planted, nothing ostentatious, just small nice things. Something I noticed at the hotel was how thick and coarse the grass was. It’s the same here, not slim and soft as it is on the lawns and paying fields of England. I saw a moustachioed gardener, or workman, wearing dungarees and a wide brimmed hat, hacking away at something behind a tree. I went to get my beers.
One bumpy looking grey road, not very wide, ran perpendicularly across the end of the drive and one ran straight ahead going away. According to instructions, I turned right and walked down the road. In front of me, I could see the maid, Danielle who had evidently finished work for the day walking ahead in the same direction. There was no pavement so we walked in the road. After a few minutes, I was beginning to wonder where this bar was, but the American version and the British version of ‘right outside the door’ differ, I think. Its one of those imponderables. Something to do with the exchange rate. I’m still trying to work out where the Adlannic Ocean is. I think its part of the Cribbian Sea.
I was slowly gaining on Danielle and had been walking for about fifteen minutes through this Alajuela suburb. The houses were modest and some of them didn’t look to have glass in the windows, just mosquito netting. There was laundry hanging on lines and orange seemed to be a favoured colour on many lines. A couple of cars and a guy on a bicycle passed me. The road had curved and I was well out of site of the house. Where was the damn bar? I drew level with Daniella and asked her where the beer was? I didn’t understand her reply but she seemed unperturbed and pointed ahead of us. We came to a junction and she pointed one way and went the other. I saw the shop on the corner.
There were people milling around in the corners of the shop and in the aisles and at the counter as though it was some kind of youth club. As I entered the small shop, I stiffened my shoulders, girded my loins and put on a stern gaze as I strode purposefully up and down the aisles, parting the ways of onlookers while sniffing out the alcohol. Everything seems to spill into each other on the shelves and onto the floor as if there wasn’t enough room in the shop, or no one had time to put anything quite in its proper place. The people saw my stern gaze, or maybe my loins, and got out of my way and I found the beer down the third of the three short aisles. I grabbed my beers and headed for the checkout, presenting the swarthy fat cashier with my empties. The guy behind the counter pointed in Spanish to a faded blue crate of empties behind him and I dropped them unceremoniously in, trying to look hard.
“¿Cuantos cuestas?” I asked him. How much? The onlookers must have picked up my accent because I saw a couple of them turn toward me, their conversation halted for the moment.
‘Ees a local shop for local peepol,’ I half expected to hear, complete with Spanish accent. It wasn’t intimidating, just made me acutely aware that I was a novelty here. It didn’t bother me at all - whenever I returned to Grimsby, I felt like a novelty. Alajuela was Costa Rica’s second city, after San Jose, so it wasn’t a small place. In the town centre, they were probably used to gringos and used to the traditional level of overcharging that is true throughout the tourism world, but here we were off the beaten track.
The assistant growled some figure that I didn’t quite catch but it didn’t matter because I only had one note and I presented it to him. It was a trillion billion colones note I think, the exchange rate being around nine hundred colones to one-pound sterling. He gave me change and I left. Safely negotiated, and the Latinos watched me go curiously.
I almost had reached the house when I saw a big jeep type thing that took up three quarters of the road approach me and pull up in front of me. Out stepped Dave Jr, Dave Sr. was driving.
“There you are. We wondered what had happened to you,” he said in American.
“I went to get beers,” and waved my carrier bag at him, rattling the bottles. “Were you worried?”
“Gee, we expected you back ages ago. Did you go to the corner shop?”
“Yep. Was there somewhere else I should have gone?”
“The bar is closer.”
“I didn’t see it. Where is it?”
The jeep turned round and headed back the hundred yards or so back to the house. As we turned into the drive, Dave Sr. pointed to the road that ran straight ahead and said “its about thirty yards that way.” I could barely make out a faded red, yellow and black sign that read ‘Imperial’, which was the brand of beers I had bought.
Anyway, having acquired said beers, and Dave having readied his cheap Dominican Republic cigars, we spent the afternoon drinking and putting the world to rights on his balcony. This was to become a theme. As the emails had inferred, the two of them - Dave Gardella Snr and Jim Dinsmore - had discussed the possibility of setting up the sanctuary on Dave’s farm that holds the vanilla plantation and then including it as part of a tour. Beginning in San Jose or Alajuela or both, the tour would visit first the macaws (Frisius) and get the guided tour there, and then be taken to Dave’s farm, stopping for lunch somewhere on the way. At the farm, the Rain Ranch, they would check out the wildlife sanctuary and the vanilla plantation itself, another part of the guided tour, and if time, they would have a tour of the rain forest. The charge would be $100 for the day. The guests would then be returned from whence they came.
“The idea is to take them to the Frisius first,” he explained. “They have this macaw sanctuary. I think they have about two hundred birds. Then, we’ll take them to the farm and maybe take them through the forest. I’ve spoken a friend of mine who has a restaurant in Chilamate and he’ll do lunch for $5. We’ll charge $100 for the trip and pay for lunch and maybe stop at La Paz falls on the way too. We’ll make money but everything will be ploughed back in.”
I spoke to him about other things too and the possibility of getting abroad to other projects. He explained that the Haiti operation, whatever that was, was being aimed at women because they had turned out to be a lot more protective of things than the men. “The men just keep stealing everything. All the equipment, the roof, walls, even the concrete floors. Everything! The women are more level headed and responsible. We’re aiming it at the mothers.”
Dave himself had set up a company called the Vanilla Export Company. His aim was to provide vanilla to farmers and those living in the rain forest as a means of preserving the forest itself. He explained that the vanilla can grow in the rainforest without wholesale deforestation and it encourages farmers to preserve what they have and discourage them from pulling everything down and growing coffee, pineapples, sugar cane, bananas or bandannas. His aim was to provide an ’after sales’ service of sorts too, in research and development advice and capabilities. According to him, nobody does that at this time.
Vanilla was believed to have been cultivated in Mexico by the Totonaca people on the gulf coast and they introduced it to the Spanish when they landed on the Mexican shores in the early sixteenth century, with Cortes and his mates taking some back to Spain for use as a perfume and as a flavour. The Totonaca people thought vanilla was given to them by the Gods.

The Legend of Vanilla
In early times, in the Land of the Resplendent Moon, was the kingdom of Totonocopan, ruled by the Totonacas. The palm-studded sands, verdant valleys, and shimmering hills and sierra in what is now known as Vera Cruz, were overseen from several locations. One was Papantla, place of the papan birds. Another was El Tajin, the thunder bolt, an ancient Huaxtecan city built in honour of the deity, Hurakan, god of the storms. It was here in this dense, tropical rainforest that vanilla was first cultivated and cured. It was here that the fragrance from the vanilla was so exquisite, that Papantla later became known as, The City That Perfumed the World.
There was a time, however, before the reign of Tenitzli III, when there was no vanilla. In this city famous for its artists and sculptors, Tenitzli and his wife were blessed with a daughter so incredibly beautiful that they couldn't bear the thought of giving her away in marriage to a mere mortal. They dedicated her life as a pious offering to the cult of Tonoacayohua, the goddess of crops and subsistence, a powerful goddess who affected their very life and survival. Their daughter, Princess Tzacopontziza (Morning Star), devoted her time at the temple, bringing offerings of foods and flowers to the goddess.
It was during her trips from the forest, carrying flowers for the temple that the young prince Zkatan-Oxga (Young Deer), first caught sight of Morning Star and immediately fell under her spell. He knew that even allowing his eyes to remain upon her for a moment, gazing at her innocent beauty could bring him death by beheading, but he was obsessed to have her as his wife and companion. The love in his heart for Morning Star outweighed the dangers of being captured and killed. Each morning, before Morning Star went into the forest in search of flowers for the goddess, Young Deer would hide in the undergrowth and await the arrival of the beautiful princess.
One morning, when the low, dense clouds clung to the hills following the rain, Young Deer was so overcome with desire that he decided to capture Morning Star and flee with her to the sierra. As she passed close by, he leapt from the bushes, made his intentions known, then taking her by the arm, ran with her, deep into the rainforest. Although Morning Star was startled by Young Deer's abrupt arrival and ardent passion, she too came under the spell of their star-crossed destiny and willingly followed.
Just as they reached the first mountains, a terrifying monster emerged from a cave, spewing fire, and forced the young lovers to retreat to the road. As they did, the priests of Tonacayohua appeared and blocked their path. Before Young Deer could utter a word, the priests struck him down and beheaded him. Swiftly, Morning Star met with the same terrible fate. Their hearts were cut from their bodies, still beating, taken to the temple and were placed on the stone altar as an offering to the goddess. Their bodies were then thrown into a deep ravine.
Not long after, on the exact site of their murders, the grasses where their blood had spilled began to dry and shrivel away as if their death was an omen of change. A few months later a bush sprang forth so quickly and prodigiously, that within a few days it had grown several feet and was covered with thick foliage. Shortly after, an emerald-green vine sprouted from the earth, its tendrils intertwining with the trunk and branches of the bush in a manner at once delicate and strong, much like the embrace. The tendrils were fragile and elegant, the leaves full and sensual. Everyone watched in amazement as, one morning, delicate yellow-green orchids appeared all over the vine like a young woman in love in repose, dreaming of her lover. As the orchids died, slender green beans developed, and over time they released a perfume more splendid than the finest incense offered to the goddess.
It was then that priests and devotees of Tonacayohua realized that the blood of Young Deer and Morning Star was transformed into the strong bush and delicate orchid. The orchid and vine were designated as a sacred gift to the goddess and from this time on has been a divine offering from the Totonacas to their deity and to the world.
And so, this is how it came to pass that the blood of a young princess created the birth of xanat, or vanilla, the "nectar of the gods."

Vanilla is extracted from the seeds of a tropical orchid and there are different types of this species, as with all plants. Only two types of orchid are used commercially, one being bourbon (Vanilla Planifolia) which Dave harvests and the other being Tahitian. Although descended for the same original Mexican stock as the bourbon, the Tahitian strain mutated somewhere along the way and is considered to be a significantly different species now.
Vanilla is everywhere. It’s in everybody’s favourite ice cream (ignoring chocolate for a moment), in perfume and fragrances, in air fresheners and candles, everywhere. Its one of the most popular fragrances around, right? Can you believe that only 1400 tonnes of dried vanilla is produced worldwide each year? That’s all and it seems like nothing to me. 97% of all vanilla used as flavour or fragrance is synthetic.
Part of this is due to the cost of genuine article and partly due to shortages, and I guess the second is responsible for the first. It’s an expensive product and prone to fluctuations in the weather. It is grown 20º either side of the equator, with significant crops in Central and South America and the Caribbean which make it heavily reliant on the whims of the hurricane seasons and El Nino/La Nina years. It is also grown to varying degrees in India, China, the Philippines, and even Uganda. The majority of the world’s production however, emanates from Indonesia and Madagascar.
Dave admitted that he once flew to Madagascar, to one of these plantations with the simple intention of nicking a couple of these more virile plants to use for crossbreeding. They were more resistant it seems than the strain he was using. I don’t know if he managed it but I don’t think he did.
He was currently midway through a contract to provide farmers in Colombia with these vanilla plants through Aid agencies.
“We’re working in Colombia right now,” he told me. “We have a contract that’s a pain in the arse and I can’t wait to get out of it.”
“Colombia. Hmm, lots of fun. Is it as dangerous there as they say?”
“Yep, it is. A few weeks ago, I was in a hotel when there was a gun battle down the street. I stayed in that hotel let me tell you. There were guns and rocket launchers going off everywhere.” Ah, the guy from Jim’s email who had the firefight, I thought to myself.
“There was a German woman who had a antique shop. She’d been there for years and years. She once went to the council and complained about some noise. They found her dead. Sometimes Dave (Jr) goes across when I can’t make it and I fear for his safety. It’s pretty common for someone to get kidnapped and held for ransom if they think someone will pay to get them back.”
“Why do you have to go across there in person?”
“To make sure they know what they’re doing. It’s part of the deal. The after sales service.”
“How do you get the plants there?”
“We ship them across, about twenty thousand plantlets at a time. We have them in the lab here; we’ll show you what we do.”
Dave Snr was having problems getting paid and couldn’t wait to get out of the contract. He kept referring to some woman he dealt with there as ‘Miss Piggy’.
I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to go to Colombia as part of this deal. I wasn’t entirely sure I would want to. Oh, to hell with it. Don’t I wet my towel and slap the arse of trouble? I would go!
By this point in the afternoon’s proceedings, I was becoming a little the worse for wear. I remember Dave Jr entered and saw all the empty beer cans. “Oh, it’s started,” he said.
Dave Snr mentioned several things about construction and building and threw in quite a few industry terms. I had the impression I was supposed to understand. He had talked about his house and the wood used for this balcony roof. I knew he wasn’t a builder by trade and wondered why he was talking so much about construction. Then he had told me about the first house that he built here which is now the lab.
“It was a kinda kit,” he said. “It had a circular roof which was structured around all these struts that link together. The instructions said that the final strut would make it rigid. I started putting this thing together and it wasn’t sturdy at all. I was really worried. But sure enough, I fixed in the last strut and ‘hey presto’ it was rock solid. We use it as the lab now. It’s quite small to live in as a house and way too warm.”
I didn’t know why he was telling me these things in this way. “What exactly is it that you expect me to do here?” I asked.
“I expect you to be able to build a house,” he declared firmly.
Oops. There’s a lack of communication here somewhere. Then I thought ‘Sod it. If I can go to Colombia, I’m damn sure I can build a house!’