Visit to a coffee plantation. Learned so much! This guy was in love with his job and was so happy to present his knowledge to us in a wonderful and entertaining way. Much of Colombia’s coffee is used in their own country, so only 20% is shipped elsewhere.
In much bigger quantities than the photos, they plant coffee beans that eventually spout out of their shell and continue to grow for 18 months. The individual plants are then replanted by hand a specific distance apart and often under larger banana trees that provide shade for the new plants.
The plants are placed a distance from each other in order for pests not to be able to go from plant to plant. (However, I now believe it was the cacao plant that needed to distance to avoid pests, which we went to later this day.)
The Recuca Plantation grew coffee, but also was a big tourist destination with costumes, diaramas, buckets for picking and a gift shop. Before the tour, they poured coffee for everyone.
These flowers were grown on the property. They were exceptionally fertile and healthy. Coffee beans need an acid soil and Potassium, Phosphorus and Nitrogen.
Thankfully for Colombia’s soil, volcanic ash is abundant and it serves as an all-natural fertilizer to revitalize and improve it.
Sand, silt, and clay make up the soil surrounding volcanoes. This special soil contains enough sand to drain well and plenty of clay and silt to hold in necessary moisture. The different-sized particles also leave spaces in the soil for air and water to flow. The roots can then feed on the minerals in the suspended water and easily penetrate the soil. Coffee plants produce the best coffee in years 4 through 20.
Colombia does a lot of recycling. This painted garbage container is an old tire.
The ripe coffee beans are are called cherries because of their red color, and are picked by hand. During rain, which is often, women are given these waterproof ponchos and a bucket with a string for over their shoulder. Men are given waterproof pants. One of the men needed to have a very loud voice to call all the workers in from the fields at the end of the day.
The boss lady is usually the wife of the owner and I was given that task. She is the one to inspect the bucket of picked beans and she could accept and reject the batch. We were sent out into the small field to find cherries to pick. Of course, they were not in season and Jane found only two and no one else did. It was hot as hell, especially with those get-ups, so as the Boss Lady, I yelled at everyone to take the rest of the day off, and with double pay. Poor Patty didn’t hear the announcement and she was out there picking for another 20 minutes, poor thing.
We were paid for our work. But this was fake money and the word Chimbo means fake or disingenuous. As promised, I received TWO bills while the others got only one.
Fun times in the coffee fields!
I didn’t pick in this area. I’m smart enough to find some shade when it’s 85 degrees.
Jane helped do the grinding by hand. Of course, they have more modern machinery today.
I’m not quite sure why this was available; other than to have something for the tourists to do before they went to lunch. It was cute though.
The jeeps were doing wheelies.
We were forced into putting these crazy outfits on in the sweltering barn and doing a dance. Even I was hot!! Some fine school marms we made!!
Don and Scott were good sports about doing their dances.
We had a nice lunch. I got up to take this photo stating that I needed the pic in the event any one of them did something outrageous, I would be able to point to their picture and say “This was the person who did __________”. Several of them suggested I take my own photo, since I likely could be the crazy one.
Fun times.
These blue plastic bags are placed over the bananas so that they grow much larger than without them. Farmers get the bags from the government and if they don’t return the same number, they are fined for littering.
Good idea.
These beautiful flowers were also in Bhutan. They remind me of hand-painted wooden designs. Gorgeous!
More Colombia to come.
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Safe travels!