Lost somewhere along the Pan American highway, which winds itself through elevations of 2300 meters just 50 kilometers south of Cartago, are the tidy agricultural towns of Santa Maria, San Marcos and San Pablo de Leon Cortes. The journey by bus takes several hours over a fog enshrouded highway that allows thick forest cover to creep out over the highway with leaves the size of scatter rugs.
The descent into San Marcos was more dramatic than that of Santa Maria as the terraced hilsides with rows of coffee trees rolled in waves down to the main street. Journeys up always revealed a new marvel on the way down.

Embarking from the bus there was little to differentiate this small town from others along the way. The usual restaurants, bars, mini mercado (Seven/Eleven) and of course a Chinese food restaurant. With my bag slung carelessly over my shoulder I casually sauntered down the main drag trying to peruse with darting eyes all that was necessary to find a room, eat a meal and have a beer. On the second circuit my choice was made for the $8.00 room above the Chinese restaurant complete with terrazo floor (and an only moderately softer bed) and balcony framing a lush farm valley view.

Finding a refreshment stand was less successful as my time quaffing ale was continuously interrupted by a regular who was convincing enough to wangle several pints from me before the barkeep separated our company. In my limited spanish I was able to secure an evening of horseback riding from Carlos, dressed impressively in modest western attire, who had arrived soon after my discussion with several workers from the local coffee co-op. My arrival had been noted the moment after stepping from the bus earlier in the day.
This town was from the past, the characters and buildings had a vacant warmth yet to be filled. It was reminscent of my own small town which was 30 miles distant from Toronto and had yet to catch up with the mainstream development of the late 1950's. It happened slowly for me but I wondered if it would happen here at all.

It would be some time yet before computer generated vinyl graphics would threaten this man's livelihood. It was one thing to paint a fella's name on the sides of a toyota dump box, but it was still another to paint the whole thing, inside and out.
Trucks of all descriptions were on constant parade to the Terrazu Coffee co-op, further down the valley, laden with the red ripe berries. These are the same beans that the local coffee cafe franchise, in a Candian suburban shopping mall was heralding as "Terrazu, the worlds most delicious coffee, only $14.95 a lb.

My arrival had not gone unnoticed by many in this small town and certainly not to the exclusion of a couple of expatriate Californians' who had arrived 6 years before from San Diego. My morning sketching session was in full swing in the main town square when I was startled with a crisp...
"Good Morning"
I reeled my head from my drawing page to see before me a smiling young man in his 30s' dressed in Levis jeans, a Bugle Boy shirt and an L.A. Gear hat. Certainly not your average San Marconian, I thought.

"Hello, you here on vacation ?"
From here I expected to be escorted to a recluse for wandering Nord Americanos which was presently overpopulated with single women and had just received a federal government subsidy to research the number of coffee beans in a ton of ripe berries.
"I heard there was a gringo in town " he said, laughing.
" This is quite unusual, I mean for a tourist to come here, to San Marcos. We don't have the usual attractions of the beaches or cities or night life."
I was beginning to wonder what the attraction was for me.
" I guess I'm just big on coffee." I answered, wishing my reaction had sounded just a bit more adventurous.
"Great, wait here until I fax these drawings to Virginia and we can go up the mountain to my place. My wife and I farm 9 acres of coffee, avacadoes and apples." he said excitedly as he rushed off in the direction of what looked to be a post office.
On the cab ride up the rocky pot-holed mountain path we passed a number of new homes being built all with expansive views of the valley and with services and amenities reminiscent of most any development in any suburban America.
"There has been an explosion of home building here in the past year" Jim told me.
"You can, without a lot of complicated regulations, buy a lot as large as you see here (.25 acre) and build a modern ranch style bugalow for about $20,000. A lot of Americans are buying up this mountainside just to spend 3 or 4 months here in winter. It's even more active on the Pacific coast where the land is subdivided back from the beach like they did in Florida 20 years ago."
"And you...how do you fit in" I asked as our heads met the roof of the Nissan that dissapeared in and out of a classic Costa Rican volacano crater.
"I contract the work for the purchaser. I speak the language and know the rules, besides I have experience in building homes back in the States.
Coffee price have been so bad the past few years that we probably would not have been able to stay if not for this construction boom."
I asked Jim "What is the price a farmer gets for ripe berries"
"between 12 and 15 cents a pound" he replied.


As we walked among the rows of apple and avacado trees, the reality of climate, proximity of market and international buying cartels would soon move this young family on to another adventure with another mandate. I wondered if those street corner vendors in San Jose would have given the same shelf space to a 6 oz.'Terrazu Pippen' as to a 3 oz. Washington State red delicious.
"These avacados made us some money last year, but this year the yield will be down and the apples won't give much of a return for a few seasons yet." Jim muttered as he turned a leaf in search of another possible problem.

Thinking I may be a candidate, Gwen took me on tour to a home that had just been completed for a school teacher in Los Angeles but was available for $200 per month. Hmmm.... wouldn't this be great for a writer or an artist.....if only I could draw, if only I could write, if only I had a jeep to take me up and down the mountain.

We departed company after an early evening meal at a comfortable but predictable little restaurant on the main street which was serving shrimps and rice as the daily special.
"Oh, shrimps again? I 'll have that." Gwen smiled as Jim reflected on their need to return to the States every 6 months for a culture fix.

I was about to enter into my own fix, of sorts. Climbing the back streets of San Marcos I eventually found my rendezvous point with Carlos who, not speaking any English or communicating slowly enough in Spanish for me to understand a single word, brought from the rear of his lot a marvelous stead regaled in the fanciest of cabellero gear and sporting an energy that would have me back in Cartago within the hour.
To my considerable relief Carlos leaped upon his mount and high stepped him further down the country road with me in tow, where we met Santa Marie, an affable chap who shook my hand and was about to hand over the reins of this more balanced pony to me when he too swung himself into the saddle.
Come on guys, I thought, where's my horse?
And yet from another corner of the yard appears something entirely different. What was this, a large dog? a frail cow?. What had I got myself into here.

I would live to regret my lack of confidence in this little equine as the evening wore on. Mounting my pony took little more than a swing of my right leg and then with a brief pause to the local harrier to repair an ill fitted shoe we were off in a cloud of dust.
Each of my guides looked anxiously back at the hapless gringo bobbing out of sync with his proudly strutting pony. I tried for all I was worth to maintain a rythm with the ponies gait and as the other two in the posse would periodically bolt down far ahead of me I gripped the reins in the hope that I could hold on if she decided to follow. The choice to go straight down through the middle of town may not have been intentional but it did manage to display my inadequate preparation as a cabellero to the entire population of San Marcos. It was easy to laugh with the children and even accentuate my actions to please them but my self-effacing humour abruptly terminated as I passed a bar full of locals who felt no compassion at all for this michelin man charade. It was as if I were the ball attached to a paddle bat by a short elastic band. The cascade of guffaws eminating from that drink pit had me wanting to turn my proud little pony through the swinging saloon doors, leap down to the bar and order up a round of local lightning for my chuckling amigos.

The return trip by-passed much of the main drag but encountered a viscious dog attack on all the ponies. First the lead horse riddden by Carlos was bitten, then to Santa Maries' spirited little mare where the snarling beast ripped large gash in her left flank. I sat immobile as the dog then turned and circled towards my pony, then with a twist of his muscled frame he lunged fully fanged towards the rear of the horse. I held tightly to the reins and to astonishment of us all my horse reared and kicked in a sideways fashion almost twisting my upper torso off my trunk and whacked the oncoming canine into tommorrow with an almost fatal blow to his head. Cooly she sauntered on her way and the dog, realising he was still living, scampered away under the bushes.
New respect for this quiet and dependable pony was due, but not for the extended journey the next day, which was guaranteed by my trail guides to bring me to Manuel Antonio National Park on the Pacific coast in just 6 hours of mountain riding. I defferred to another time, drank a refresco and retired to my room to check for swelling.
The following morning I recounted my visit to Jims' farm to the operator of small cafe near my hotel. "You don't come to coffee country just to watch berries ripen." Was the response of the cafe owner who had just filtered a fresh cup of coffee for me.
He laughed as he talked and was sure my trip to San Marcos would not be complete until I had seen some serious Costa Rican manufacturing. I sat watching the spring water seep slowly through the soft cotton filter turning murky black in the large ironare mug. The melmac must have been in the washer.
"Take this gentleman to the co-op" he barked to an unassuming fellow drinking Coca-cola at the other end of the bar. He snapped to attention and prepared to lead me out the door. I drank my long awaited java in a flash and hurried to keep up with my guide being thankful I had not ordered a full breakfast.


"Good morning, my name is Juan and I will take you to our cousin. He is the order processor at the co-op and he will be happy to take you on a tour. My itinerary had been planned. A travel agent could not work this efficiently.
Juan did take me to his cousin...Juan.
This was a very large complex. If you could visualize, at home on your kitchen counter, a blender, a bean grinder, a weight watcher calorie counter scale, a lighted propane torch, and a tonka dump truck all running at maximum speed and were able to amplify the shapes and noise by about 500 you would have a good idea of what it was like in that processing plant during a full production day.

The ripe coffee beans are handpicked from trees that seldom exceed 8 ft in height and are dropped into baskets slung on either front or back of the picker.

When the weight of the load causes the harvester to buckle at the knees they are emptied into a dump box as in the signpainter photo or in the case of smaller operations into handier dump boxes. Another smiling face was there to greet me and offered the same to the farmers who had just brought in their daily harvest. Each co-op member has the weight of his harvest recorded and is guaranteed the prevailing international rate.
If you equate the grain harvest of midwestern North America with the coffee harvests in Central and South America you find that a wheat farmer will be returned approximately 15 cents for every loaf of bread sold at $1.00. The Coffee farmer on the other hand is returned approximately 15 cents on every pound of coffee sold at $6.00.



Juan ushered me through the hulling plant where a green coffee bean is separated from the red hulls which are then transported by overhead trolley to the tailing piles to be used as fertilizing mulch. The actual beans are sent along conveyors for sizing and grading before they are introduced to the large roasting furnace.





The roasting furnaces are filled with the green beans. Fired by enormus gas furnaces the tumbling beans are left to reach the point of roasted perfection as dictated by the tastes of the destination market. The longer the roast the more bitter the taste. Espresso coffee endures the longest exposure to roasting and is consequently much lower in caffeine.

Mine cup had runneth over.

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