Royal.Coffee.Travel

My little journey to El Salvador really got rolling about the time I boarded the plane in Houston. I have never flown to Central America before, and I think I will not be alone in the observation that people want to bring a lot of stuff along with them when they travel there. As I made it back to my seat, I found a rather sturdy looking gentleman with five teardrops tattooed under his eye sitting in my spot. Since my Spanish and his English did not add up to much, and tattooed teardrops kind of freak me out, I decided I would go ahead and sit in the window seat, at least until someone else came to claim it.
(Later I asked our hosts if they knew anything about the tattooed teardrops, because I had a vague idea that this had something to do with being in a gang. They confirmed that there were many Salvadoran refugees who ended up in places like Los Angeles during the eighties and 90’s. They brought the problems associated with the conflict at home with them, founded expatriate Salvadoran gangs. Recently many of these guys have come back to live in San Salvador, some bringing their gang affiliation back with them. Google “Mara Salvatrucha” or “MS-13”, if you are interested.)
After an exhausting day of flying, we arrived at the San Salvador airport the evening of Sunday March 12, which happened to be the date of the congressional and mayoral elections in El Salvador. Our hosts were more than a little preoccupied with the election, as were most people in San Salvador: we were told everyone had stayed home to watch or listen for the outcome of the election. We encountered roads with almost no traffic all the way up to the mill where we were going to stay.
That night we slept at a house on the premises of one of the oldest coffee mills in El Salvador: Las Cruces. Actual milling had stopped for the day as everyone was focused on the election; however, the patios were filled with drying parchment from the day before.
The mill is adjoined by a 100-year-old house that we used as home base. The layout of the house was gorgeous; with bedrooms in the center surrounded by a living area more like a huge wrap around porch—all windows overlooking the patios and the mill. The mill and house are surrounded by coffee farms and shade trees, so the view in all directions is taken up by coffee in one form or another.
The next morning we were woken up by some extremely loud birds which were unfamiliar to me, but looked like a Magpie’s grey cousin.
Later that morning we took off to visit a couple of farms in the area. First we hiked around the Santa Rita farm to take a look at how the volcanic eruption back in October of last year had affected the trees. The effects were still obvious, lots of volcanic ash still lingering on the ground. These trees looked so sad, having lost most of their leaves from two disasters--after first getting covered with ash from the volcano, hurricane Stan came along a couple of weeks later and washed them off (a rare case of a hurricane having a positive effect.)
Just a few weeks later they were hit with an infestation of red spider mites. Apparently these mites found optimal conditions after the volcano. They caused the leaves that were still hanging in there to fall off, so most trees were basically stripped of foliage. Hard pruning has been necessary to save these trees; most are being pruned down to about a foot tall.

Later that afternoon we went up to see Cerro de las Ranas, a lovely mountaintop farm. The difference between Cerro de las Ranas and the Santa Rita farm was heartbreaking. It had not been damaged by the volcanic eruption. Riding steep trails on a four-wheeler, I got to see how terrifyingly steep a high altitude farm like this can be. It was amazing; I can’t imagine trying to pick coffee on those mountainsides.

We spent the next day driving around and looking at various farms in the area. It was beautiful, and I was astounded by how nice the roads in El Salvador are. I swear most of them were in better repair than the roads I drive on in California. The other thing I noticed was that gas and diesel fuel are approximately the same price they are in the states. Steep! In a country where the average person’s yearly income is around $5000, it is no wonder you see so many people hitching rides…

Tuesday night we drove back to San Salvador, into a possible riot situation as the Mayoral race for the city of San Salvador had been exactly even. A hand count was taking place and was due to be finished that evening. It was all happening in a hotel downtown (not ours) and by all accounts hundreds of people had gathered there to hear the result. As we drove to dinner the streets were eerily quiet, no traffic at all. At dinner we were literally the only table there. At about 9 p.m. there were suddenly some very loud fireworks, and our host got a call telling him that the FMLN candidate had won very narrowly. The FMLN is the most popular leftwing party, and I guess this caused the potential rioters to shoot off some fireworks and go home.

So almost before it had started my little trip to El Salvador was over. We got back on the plane around the time I started to wake up the next morning. Luckily this time I sat next to Bob, and his English is pretty good.---Jeri Idso