Pimples of the Earth

On Wednesday we set out to hike up the highest point in Guatemala, as well as all of Central America, Volcan Tajumulco. We missed our first bus and got up the mountain a little later than planned. About a half hour from the top the clouds started rolling in, so by the time we reached the summit the only view we had was through an occasional break in the clouds. It was still awesome though! The trail starts out as a rough road going through some farming areas, then turns into an actual hiking trail after a short distance.  Here is Rachel heading up the road, and us on top of Tajumulco.

It was surpisingly warm for 13,845 feet, and not very windy either. There was a huge group of religious nutjobs up there chanting and praying away. 

The next couple of days were spent on long, crowded bus rides. One count was 29 people in a 15 passenger van, not including the people riding on top. We rode on top once, it was nicer than being inside. Sometimes it smells like cattle inside those things. Here is a typical bus terminal in a small-medium sized city.

The old American school buses are called "Chicken buses". They are usually so crowded that the bus assistant, the guy that collects fares and recruits people from the street, actually has to climb on the tops of the seats to collect money. They also transport people and their chickens, hence the name. I guess. With the quality of the roads, curves, climbing over mountains, how slow the buses are and how many times they have to stop, it takes about 3 hours to go 40 miles. At least it´s cheap.

We got into Coban yesterday evening and explored a bit of the city today. There is a coffee farm in town that we took a tour of. It´s been operating since 1888 and is German owned. I guess there was a whole bunch of German Fincas (farms) way back when, until they were ran out of town by the USA sometime during or around WW2. The farm employs 6 people year round and up to 200 during the picking season, which lasts from December-March. This farm does a total of 5 rounds of picking during those months. Each plant yields approximately 5-6 lbs of beans, which ends up being about 1 lb of finished coffee after going through the whole process. The beans on the left look to be ready to be picked, the red ones at least. On the right is the drying process which occurs after the cherry has been removed and the beans washed. After drying the outter shell is removed, then the roasting occurs. The end.