My final blog post from Central America explores one other interesting thing we did, namely a visit to a farm growing sugar cane where we saw how it was crushed decades ago in Australia. This is the farm HQ, which has been turned into an interesting tourist experience.
Interestingly, the premises were also home to a cactus garden, something that interested me greatly as a cactus grower in my own home.
The farm must be a successful operation judging by the quality of the buildings and the display we were given below! The star performer was the enormous bull shown below. We saw it awaiting being harnessed to the crushing gear and then being attached to the wooden equipment by our guide also shown below.
Here she is about to commence her explanation of the process involved. Basically, the animal goes around in a large circle while freshly cut sugar can stems are slotted into the press. As the bull rotates, the machine crushes it to release a sugary / sweet liquid that can then be refined in various ways to produce sugar as we know it.
Here's the press equipment shown in greater detail
On the left you can see a green stem of cane being fed into the press equipment. Of course, these days the press equipment in Australia - and also I imagine Costa Rica - is powered electrically. I've been to several factories in North Queensland performing that task and just two weeks ago drove past several crushing plants on the NSW North Coast, not far from where I'm typing this.
Still it was an interesting re-enactment of past practice.
AS
Interestingly, the premises were also home to a cactus garden, something that interested me greatly as a cactus grower in my own home.
Here she is about to commence her explanation of the process involved. Basically, the animal goes around in a large circle while freshly cut sugar can stems are slotted into the press. As the bull rotates, the machine crushes it to release a sugary / sweet liquid that can then be refined in various ways to produce sugar as we know it.
Here's the press equipment shown in greater detail
On the left you can see a green stem of cane being fed into the press equipment. Of course, these days the press equipment in Australia - and also I imagine Costa Rica - is powered electrically. I've been to several factories in North Queensland performing that task and just two weeks ago drove past several crushing plants on the NSW North Coast, not far from where I'm typing this.
Still it was an interesting re-enactment of past practice.
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