Oaxaco, Mex Blog#4 On The Way To The Next Coffee Village......

Early the following morning we loaded ourselves, lots of bottled water and the little cooler full of Trader Joe's munchies in the Ford van and hit another windy and dusty road! This coffee village was only about a 4 hour drive! After about 2-3 hours and fording two small rivers we climb up out of the valley about half way up the side of one of the many small mountains. At this time Juliette one of the COFFEE KIDS team ask the driver to stop. She pointed to a village way off in the distance to our left as our destination. I got out to take a photo. It looked like we had to go up and down two more valleys to get there. As we were making way, by and by we would see a man with a straw hat riding his burro. On one occasion we picked up an old man who had just finished tending his coffee parcel and was on foot on his way home to the village we were going to. He had about a 7-8 mile walk ahead of him. Christino instructed the driver to pull over and pick him up. He sat next to Christino and the two began to talk. Christino ask if his three boys would be helping him this year. The man said no, they had all travelled north to America. He said, he has to find other help or will have to pick it by himself. This story is one that seems to be the norm. It's like that old Peter, Paul and Mary song "Where Have All the Young Men Gone". It makes me wonder, will there be anybody to tend the coffee parcels in the future?

More to come,

The CoffeeMariner