la chinita

Jan 11: Trip to Depilto

Today we took another trip to Depilto, a nearby town with a famous restaurant called McDouglas (I think) and lots of coffee and sugar cane farms surrounding it.

We took public transportation buses from the Shell gas station, which I still had trouble finding. (In my defence, the streets here have no names, no signs, and all look the same!) It was super crowded, with every seat filled and people standing, squished in anywhere possible, and people riding on top of the bus! And I think it was just an old (somewhat converted) yellow school bus. That´s a whole lot of people. (Then again, it was also mad cheap — less than $0.50!)

When we got to our stop, we saw the “factory” where they do the wet process of making coffee. They shell the fruit, separate the shells from the beans, and ferment the beans for 12 hours to clean them better (not sure why fermentation cleans them though). Then, we made the long (40min to 1 hr) uphill climb to the center of a coffee making and growing cooperative, which Claudia and our guide and their family were a part of. They gave us the grand tour, equiping us with waist-baskets and showing us the entire process of coffee-making. We picked the (strangely juicy &  sweet) berries and brought them back to the farm. Our whole group only picked enough for one bucket (a “pila”, i think), which if we were workers would have earned us only 18 cordobas, or less than 1 USD! We then used a very simple hand-cranked chopper to remove and separate the shells. The next step was drying the beans in the sun for several hours,a fter which we used a large mortar and pestle made of wood to again shell the beans. These shells were very light, so you could pour the resulting mixture and separate the shells by blowing through the stream of beans (very cool, in my opinion! :)). The next step would have been toasting the beans, which we didn´t do, but this is what makes coffee beans black.

We sampled some of the coffee (yum!) and received our packages of coffee that we had preordered. They said that this was the first time they sold the finished coffee beans directly to customers (clientes en español), and they hoped to be able to do so more, so that they can receive (and pay their workers) a fair price for their work. And a 1 lb. bag was still less than $5 USD. It was amazing to see how much man-power and work goes into making just one bag of coffee, and the extent tow hich I have no idea where my food comes from. They said that the profits from the coffee (and the $8 we paid for the tours and stuff) would go towards a fund they were starting to help pay for a student to study agriculture. It felt good to know that I was supporting a great family and amazing, honest people that worked so hard every single day. I think this experience will make me at least consider where things — clothes and food, mostly — come from in the future.

After all the excitement at the farm, we walked (again, for a really long time!) backinto town to eat at the famous restaurant. At least we got to go downhill this time! The restaurant was pretty much in the middle of nowhere on the carreterra (highway). But, the place was absolutely gorgious! It reminded me of the hot springs I visited in Costa Rica with APO last year. It was beautiful, with lots of plants and trees and nature, with wooden pavillion gazebo like dining areas on the side of the hill. At the bottom was a beautiful waterfall, where we took a bunch of awesome photos. The food was also yummy.. and my dinner was only $5.50 USD! I think I love this place… just a little bit! :)