Hola, Buenos Dias!
Today was our last day in Panajachel.....possibly the most beautiful place on earth. We woke up erly and got to see the sun rise.......truly the pictures don't do it justice, it was breathtaking. Funny thing, when I'm at home I have a hard time adjusting to waking up to an alarm clock and seem to want to sleep more, but since on this trip I am naturally waking up around 6. I'm not particularly going to sleep early and our days are long and exhausting...their is something organic about letting your body fall asleep and wake up when it wants......I like it!
So we got up before even shop sellers and restaurants opened and walked on the Paseo (a pathway along the edge of the lake). We walked a little over an hour while the sun was rising and the town was waking....it was bliss. We then had an amazing breakfast at our hotel and headed on a lancha to another village. A lancha is a boat that takes us across the lake to other villages. We accidentally got dropped off at the wrong village, but it ended up being a good thing.
We specifically traversed the lake to go on a coffee tour as this altitude and climate is perfect for growing coffee and plants are everywhere. We found out that the village we got off at actually has the best production and an organic processing facility! So, we enjoyed some coffee at. Local cafe overlooking the lake and headed off on foot for our tour. We were a bit confused as the guide said their would be a taxi and some walking,,,,,,,ummmmm, we quickly find out it is a Lot of walking uphill and a small portion of taxi.
The guide was wonderful and was a coffee grower himself, we met an indigenous man in the tour who was checking his plants up the mountain where we were. I also need to mention that this village is on the side of a volcano and is VERY steep. We walk and we walk and then our guide gives us the option: 1) in the sun with a great view or 2) in the shade. Feeling good we choose the great view....ok so this tour is just Gramma, me, and our guide ...a local. We obviously knows this trail like the back of his hand....and trail is a severe overstatement for what this path was. We basically traversed the side of a mountain. It was undoubtably beautiful but we went through strep rock formations, dirt, mud, et ....it was certainly a experience.
We did see a working Myan alter that had recently been visited...that was really cool.
After more walking we finally made it to the facility to learn the process of coffee from fruit to what we enjoy. Basically the coffee plants start to produce around 3 years and continue until about 5 or 6 before fertilizer is needed. They also cut the old sticks off and new ones grown on the same plant.....theories of picking which plants to plant is extreme involved.
Their are basically 4 different harvests where local growers collect each coffee fruit by hand (red below) and it is 1) separated from the sweet covering, 2) washed and fermented to remove the slimy covering on the skin, 3) dried and then shipped unroasted. 10% of themcropzt this facility is kept and it is even further processed and the yellow shell is take off to expose the green bean. The good green bens are then hand picked and roasted t the fa iLife and ground for specific organic export. This is the 1st crop and highest quality coffee in any region I'd Guatemala and possibly the world.
Another really interesting thing about this facility is its ability to reuse the fruit case and yellow shell case of the beans to feed their worm supply that help to make their organic fertilizer. The tour was extremely informative despite the ridiculous amount of walking and mountain hiking.
We then took an extremely rough boat ride back, grabbed a quick lunch and headed for Antigua in a collective tour can. We were packed in like sardines in an area small can for atleast 3 hours. We finally made it to Antigua after a bumpy, curvy road. We met a lovely lady from Belgium here on holiday who we might catch up with later on this week. We checked in to our quaint hotel Valentino and headed out for dinner. We went across the street to a lovely little place with live music...met the musician and his wife who are missionaries here and who were very delightful. The music was wonderful, the fellowship was priceless, and the food was excellent. All in all we are exhausted from the day and ready for a food nights sleep.
Buenos noches,
Gramma & Kristin Noel
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