The perfect blend: how coffee farms in Costa Rica are mixing wildlife, agriculture and tourism

A new crop of farming co-ops are finding ways to safely open up untouched landscapes and exotic wildlife to visitors – and grow superb coffee

At the beginning I thought we were in a Bob Dylan song, one of his epic Latino ballads. We drove down gravel roads where the only other traffic was cowboys on horseback, across iron girder bridges covered in rust and the webs of giant spiders. A caracara falcon stood in the centre of the road pulling a dead iguana apart. But then we left cattle country and crossed a desert made of pineapples. Darkness fell. After the shop where a mule was tied up, there were no more lights and the track clambered into the jungled hills. Eventually we pulled up at a gateway marked by a weird metal sculpture. Jovino, the driver, shrugged: “This must be it.”

“You never brought anyone here before?”