La Iguana Chocolate
ReportLocation: San Jose , Costa Rica
WE ARE LOOKING FOR A TEAM OF LONG-TERM VOLUNTEERS!For more information on joining the La Iguana Family or to participate as a short-term volunteer please check out our website
www.laiguanachocolate.com or contact us at
and we will get back to you as soon as we can with some more information.
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This is a family owned and run farm that has been producing organic cocao for nearly 30 years. Nestled in the secluded village of Mastatal, Costa Rica, La Iguana Chocolate sits at about 1000 meters above sea level in the lush and rugged tropical environment that is ideal for cocao cultivation.
Juan and Lidiette have been running this place since 2005. Their four children have grown up in Mastatal, and continue to live and work with the family on their property.
The work of the farm fluctuates with the weather - the main cocao harvest taking place during the rainy season (roughly May through November)and the expansion of terrace gardens, bean harvesting, and various other work taking place during the hot, dry summer season (December through April).
Until recent years, the family sold its fermented, dried cocao beans to chocolate manufacturers. However, after the harvest of 2006, they decided to keep a few sacks of beans and experiment with the manufacturing of cocoa powder and chocolate. The result has been delicious, and gets better every day!
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Our volunteer program offers the unique opportunity to live with a Costa Rican family in a home stay environment, improve your Spanish, give back to the local community and live in this beautiful, rugged and tropical environment.
This is a working farm, so although we grow, process and make chocolate, it is not our sole focus. Work here is varied and very much depends on the season and the current needs of the family and farm. Each day we get closer to self-sufficiency, however this does not mean that we have any shortage of projects, ideas and things we want to improve here. Besides Cacao, we also grow avocados, beans, corn, oranges, mangos, lemons, pineapples, squash and have extensive gardens which aim to provide the majority of our vegetables, salad greens and medicinal plants.
We try to keep a good balance in the kind of work we do, at times it can be manual labour, which can be tiring and sometimes a little repetitive but we also spend lots of time in our gardens, making and of course eating chocolate, designing and planning larger more interesting projects, and there are often ongoing art projects and opportunities to be creative.
We follow permaculture principles here, with the aim to work with and to mimic nature where possible. A lot of time is spent experimenting and improving our soils and organic pesticides and fertilizers. We never stop learning and our aim is for your time here to be educational, interesting and hopefully inspiring, we are always looking for people who have particular skills or areas of expertise and wish to collaborate with us on realizing some of our more ambitious projects.
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Interested in Volunteering?
We ask our volunteers for 5 hours work each morning Monday to Saturday, with afternoons and Sundays free.
Under 1 week - 7500 colones per day ($15)
Under 3 weeks - 6000 colones per day ($12)
Under 3 months - 5000 colones per day ($10)
Over 3 months - 4000 colones per day ($8)
Prices include three delicious and filling meals a day plus accommodation and free chocolate everyday!
Why do we charge for our Volunteer Program?
Basic living costs in Costa Rica (food, water, electricity) are relatively high, so it is simply to cover these basic costs. The only profit the family makes from having volunteers is the 5 hours work they do during the mornings.
