Day 7 – Coffee Plantation and Lake Atitlan

After a long day of walking yesterday, we are surprisingly up early and ready to go to the coffee plantation this morning.  We drive through Antigua in a smaller bus until we get to our destination.  Just outside the entrance to the coffee plantation, we see this woman trying her hardest to move a cart full of firewood; Oscar had to help her move the cart because it was blocking the entrance and she was having trouble getting the front end of the cart down. 

We drive into Centro Cultural La Azotea, the entrance to the coffee plantation.  One of the first things I see is this gorgeous flower. 

As we enter the main courtyard, the main arch leading to the grounds beyond is right there inviting us to come in. 

While we wait for our coffee plantation tour guide, these men serenade us.  I have to admit, the music did not sound like I had expected, and the music was good.

Our guide begins telling us about the coffee beans and the different processes.  The “berries”, the red berries in the center of the tray.  The green beans, of which there are two in each berry, is pressed out of the berry.  To the right are the dried beans, and then the roasted beans.  Finally, the roasted ground beans used to make the coffee.

We are walking around the grounds leading to coffee plants.  On the way, we pass many flowers, like these.

What a great looking Bird of Paradise; Latin name of Strelitza Reginae.  It’s interesting, but I found out the flower was named after Charlotte Mecklenburg-Strelitz queen of George III of England.  In addition, the flower is pollinated only by bird’s feet.  The Bird of Paradise is one of the best know decorative flowers and is the unofficial flower of Las Angeles, USA.  I usually do not get to see such nice Bird of Paradise flowers, mostly I see them after they are have reached their peak and are failing.

Besides coffee, they apparently have a number of banana trees here.  These need a little longer to grow and ripen before then are ready.  I feel like a Minion – ba-na-na.

The guide shows us some of the newly planted coffee plants.  It takes about 5-years for the plants to get this size.  Plants also grow better when under other tree’s canopy. 

Nearby to the planted coffee bushes is this building, which I presume to be a shed.  If it is one, it is a nice looking shed.

Berries ripen at different times on the trees, as you can see here.  At this coffee farm, the berries are handpicked instead of machine picking, taking ripe and unripe berries.

The guide takes us through part of their flower nursery.  I cannot believe the flowers they have here.  Just look at these flowers.  Have you ever seen flowers like this?  There are so many flowers here that I’ll have to add a page of just flowers at the end of the traveling blog.  

Check out the watering system they created by using bamboo.  Just cut out a notch in each section and insert a flowerpot and a water drip hose.  Easy!

The plantation composts everything coming out of making coffee and we were taken to where they make the compost.  The guide scoped up some of the compost along with some of the worms to show everyone how rich it is.

Moving on we pass by more coffee bushes that underneath a shaded canopy to protect the coffee berries and plants.

On one of the plants, I get a picture of the coffee berries just starting out.  Soon, these will fill someone’s coffee cup.

We come to where the dump berry husks before processing into compost.  There is quite a bit of the berry husks here representing hundreds of pounds of coffee beans.

While at the dump area for the berry husks, we were able to see this bird.  Now I’m not going to pretend that I know what this bird is, but I’ve seen it called a Yucatan Jay, or a Geai Houppe, or Azure Jay, or a Bushy-crested Jay.  So take your pick, I tend to like the Yucatan jay. 

Having completed the outside portion of the tour, we move to where they are roasting some the coffee beans.  The building is small and when I get in there is not much room to stand and the guide is finishing his talk of roasting.  This is one of the roasting tubs and the workers are in the process of dumping the beans into a bucked under the roaster.

After the roasting information, we moved into the museum.  Here is all kinds of information on coffee and as shown here coffee makers.  I have actually used a couple of these.

Besides the coffee makers, one must first grind the coffee in order to brew it to drink.  Here are a number of grinders from different regions of the world.  Check out the one that looks like a meat grinder and the 18^th century wooden grinder to the right of the big red grinder.

In the museum, we learn that for every $1.00 for a cup of coffee, the laborer gets about $.08 and the importer gets about $.67 for the roasting, packaging, distribution, overhead, and profit.  We also learn that it takes 6.5 pounds of coffee berries picked to make 1-pound of roasted coffee beans. 

Nearing the end of the museum, we learn that Guatemala is the 8^th coffee producing country in the world, with Brazil the first and what I found interesting Vietnam the 2^nd ahead of Columbia. 

After passing through the museum and the shop, we then moved to the music museum at the coffee plantation.  Here is the courtyard leading to the entrance and building and music museum.

Inside the museum, which was inside the building around the courtyard, was dark.  We were able to see many of the instruments played by earlier inhabitants of the area, like these string instruments.  Different sections displayed various other instruments including flutes and drums.

I found it interesting that inside the music museum was this jaguar skin laid out in the tree branches; quite impressive.

Back in the visitors shop, these masks were on the wall. 

We are waiting around because a group of musicians from one of the local villages will soon entertain us.  In the meantime, I am busy looking at all of the different flowers they have here at the plantation.  The ginger plants are in bloom and this plant has a nice clump of flowers that have not quite opened yet.

Outside the area where the small music concert would shortly begin was this ornamental grass.  I always find ornamental grass like this fascinating to me.

Speaking of the musicians, this trio played a varied number of instruments, including flutes in many different shapes.  They made sounds like birds and other jungle animals.  They were very good and the music was very pleasing.  The three musicians are brothers. 

These are but half of the flutes used during our music concert.  I was amazed at the sounds the group made using this selection of flutes.  Everyone seemed please with the performance and some even purchased their CD.

Back on the road, we pass through several small villages and found this woman sitting on the sidewalk, presumably waiting for one of the buses. 

Even after seeing these for a week, I still cannot get over the bars covering the front of convenience stores.  If you want something, ask and it will be brought to you after you pay for it.  This also looks like a regular hang out.

I have been remiss.  We have passed so many tire stores and I haven’t posted a picture of any of them.  Here is one of them, tires and chrome wheels.  Next door, you can buy mufflers and truck cattle guards.  But wait, if you do not like these tires or prices, go down the road a few stores and there is another tire store, then a few more down the road.

I have been expecting to see sheep, goats, or cattle as seen here herded through the streets.  I was almost giving up seeing either of them, but thanks to this man, I get my picture.  We have now seen domestic animals herded through a town in every country we have visited.

Carmen and I have missed many of these salvage yards and this one seems to specialize on school buses.  Well with all of the old school buses we have seen, they have to get spare parts from somewhere.

We reach the hotel and after getting into our hotel room, we checked out the balcony and have this view.  As you can see, the haze this evening is very thick since you cannot see the other side of the lake to the mountains beyond.

The light is dying quickly after we get to our room and then back out to the grounds.  I get a shot of the pool looking back to the hotel’s restaurant. 

Looking at all of the flowers on the grounds makes me think I just might take a few pictures just on the different flowers.  I’m also hoping that with the flowers we might see some of the more exotic bird I keep hearing about in the rainforest. 

Getting back to our room to get ready for dinner, I take one last look out over the balcony viewing the other balconies along the hotel.  You can see some of our group on their own balcony also waiting for dinner. 

Tomorrow, after breakfast, the plan is to visit Panahachel, the nearby Mayan village with its market.