El Salvador: August 2006

Page 4 - Coffee, Indigo, a Glimpse of Waves, and a New Hotel.

Ok, today we got booted out of the Decameron, headed up-country, did some weird shit, and then returned to the coast, just a little ways away from where we started out.

The itinerary called for a visit to a coffee mill, another visit to a place where you can dye your own little sheet of cloth with natural indigo while admiring the archeological sights at the same place, and then coming back down to a different hotel.

So I’m just as stoked as can be about things, right?

Wrong.

The whole thing sounds just about as dippy as you could possibly imagine.

Coffee mill. WaHOO!

But I’m a good troop, and I dutifully get into the bus with the rest of the FAMsters, and it’s off we go.

We head more or less in the direction we headed yesterday, but before we get all that very far, we veer northbound, and start the trek up in to Coffee Country.

El Salvador apparently grows some serious coffee, and we’re gonna get the full show and tell on it.

We wind up and up, and go through several funky towns along the way. Salvadorians all over the place, hanging out, driving their cars, and just generally doing whatever it is that people do around here.

The towns are old and funky, but not that old. Our guide informs us that it’s because of the earthquakes. This place has so many violent earthquakes that buildings dating from colonial times haven’t survived the thrashings they’ve taken over the years.

Comforting thought, that.

Off in the distance, as we rise ever higher, we can see the group of volcanoes we went up into yesterday, looking just as cool as hell.

If you want volcanoes, this is the place to come.

We continue on our way, and the roads continue just as well maintained as any back home. Our guide tells us that it’s because they have a twenty cent per gallon tax on gas here, and the tax money goes only to the care and upkeep of the road system down here.

The system works, that’s for sure.

And as to the twenty cents per gallon, once again I find myself in a foreign country where the currency is the good old U.S. dollar. Mighty damn convenient, if you ask me. And, as to the gallon part, guess what? That’s how they measure their gas down here too. So if the sign says $2.93, then by golly that’s DOLLARS per GALLON, and not some kind of weird mumbo jumbo involving liters or strange money with people’s faces on it that you do not recognize.

All in all, it’s just about as easy on people from the United States as it is back home.

Higher and higher we go, and the road begins to wind and switchback, like the roads in Costa Rica do a lot of the time, but there’s NO potholes.

Way to go highway department in El Salvador!

Our guide is giving us a non-stop stream of information about the place as we drive through it, and most of it sails right on past me without sticking in my mind at all.

Oh well.

Finally, we’re at the Coffee Place, and we get officially greeted by the Coffee Guys, and I’m groaning inwardly, thinking that whatever’s coming is going to be just as tedious as it gets. With the possible exception of making my own indigo hankie later on, maybe.

So it’s into the guy’s house we go.

Nice touch there.

It’s been in his family since 1930.

And the place is just as cool as hell.

It’s an old wooden house, filled up with all kinds of books, old photographs, memorabilia, and who knows what all else.

Got that old house kind of smell to it. Very nice.

So we’re all in there and the next thing you know, Mister Owner is behind a counter in one of the rooms and he’s going at it with some serious old-time coffee rigging and a whole raft of very fine china coffee cups and saucers.

Everybody gets some, and the stuff is GOOD.

Turns out this place only does gourmet coffee, and they sell to Starbucks, interestingly enough.

Now I’m not one to go down to a damned Starbucks and plunk down twelve bucks for a goddamned cup of foofoo coffee, but that doesn’t keep what we drank from tasting pretty damned good.

Ok, coffee swilled, it’s time to go See How They Make The Stuff.

Again, I’m groaning inwardly, expecting to see a bunch of industrial equipment doing its mindless thing, all the while getting an earful of arcane and useless information on the process.

WRONG!

We head on over toward the mill, and the owner and his brother give a little presentation to the group of us prior to heading inside. We’re at that part of the growing cycle where nothing’s happening. The stuff isn’t ripe yet, and none of it’s been picked, and during this downtime the equipment is silent, and maintenance guys are doing maintenance work on all the gear.

Whatever.

So in we go, and by golly just as soon as we round the first corner, Jimbo realizes that he’s in for a major treat.

IT’S ALL ANTIQUE MACHINERY!

Every last bit of it!

They originally built the place back in 1930, hauled all this gear up here on the mountain (coffee likes altitude) in a disassembled state, on OX CARTS, and then reassembled it in place, fired the motherfucker up, and it’s still running to this very day.

I’m just as fascinated by old machinery as can be, and all of a sudden it’s like I’m a little kid in a giant toy store, and they’ve got all this super-double-extra-cool shit, all over the place, and I can walk around INSIDE it, like a ten year old playing on the Jungle Jim in the schoolyard.

The only thing that’s changed from day one up here is that they switched from steam power to diesel power to run the equipment somewhere along the line, many years ago.

But the steam shit’s still here, furnace and all, ‘cause they use it to heat up the beans and all that jazz when they’re processing them.

So we’re getting walked around by the owner, who’s describing what all this cool shit does, and all my FAMbuddies are just totally deaf, dumb, and blind to what’s all around them! Meanwhile, I’m launching myself across rickety catwalks to marvel at bull gears, finding myself amazed at the archaic construction of the steel grating on the catwalks, taking note of the all-riveted construction in the roof trusses, and just generally going hog wild over all this swarm of steel beams, pipes, hoppers, drive belts, drum roasters, and who knows what all else, that you could NOT purchase for any sum of money, from anybody in the world as new equipment.

NOBODY’s making this shit anymore.

You can’t get it.

Even better, the owner’s brother kind of picked up on my bizarre interest in his gear, and very kindly takes me aside every time I ask him a weird question, and graciously walks me through the story associated with whatever it was that prompted me to ask the question in the first place.

Too cool!

It’s a perfect clear day, with brilliant sunshine and cool temperatures, and I make the very best of it as I run around and eyeball the living hell out of ALL OF IT.

Very very nice.

But I guess you kinda gotta be in to this kind of thing, or otherwise it’s not gonna really swat you the way it swatted me.

We finally finish up the tour and it’s time to go.

WOW, but that shit just ROCKED!

The poor indigo place doesn’t stand a chance after the opening act, that’s for sure.

Back down the mountain we go, driving through mile after mile of coffee which reaches all the way up to the very tops of the mountains, and we’re now headed to the indigo place.

Ho hum.

Except that it’s not really all that bad at all.

The place is actually an archeological dig, which sits out back under another one of those low tin roof structures kind of like what I saw yesterday.

The pre-Columbian folks who used to live here were in to indigo too.

So they’re studying what’s coming up out of the ground as they excavate, and what’s coming up is pretty damned cool.

They’ve got a serious stash of pre-Columbian artifacts in the museum, and I photograph the hell out of it. Haven’t even looked at the pictures yet, as I write these words. Been a busy day.

In the indigo room, we get a short introduction to the process, don big dark blue aprons (dyed that way with the indigo, natch) and rubber gloves, and then we go at it with the pieces of white cloth, marbles, rubber bands, rocks, and all manner of implement for making tie dye patterns in the cloth.

Once we tie the stuff up, we go over to some of the nastiest-looking shit in vats that I’ve ever seen.

It’s the indigo.

It’s dark navy blue with foam on top and it smells weird ‘cause it’s fermenting.

Don’t ask, that’s just the way they do it.

So we dip our little wads into the murk, swish it around for a full minute, then walk outside and try to squeeze out most of the nasty dark-blue liquid into concrete troughs (without getting the damned shit all over ourselves in the process) and let ‘em air out (the oxygen does something or other to make the color set correctly) and then go back in and do it another FOUR MORE TIMES.

Needless to say, before it’s over, the indigo has gone to places that god never intended indigo to go to.

Oh well, maybe it will wear off after a while.

Then we turn our little creations back over to the proprietor of the Indigo Room, and then we go and gawp at the pre-Columbian art stashed in the building.

And when we’re done, then we go and collect our trophies.

Mine came out fairly nice looking, surprise of surprises.

Drop by Surf Express some time and maybe I’ll let you admire it.

Ok, then, now what?

Back to the coast, that’s what.

In the bus, our guide engages all the passengers except me in an endless series of jokes.

For some reason, canned jokes just do not do ANYTHING to me.

They’re just not funny from my point of view.

I get my yocks elsewhere.

A lot of the jokes are told in español, which spares me all pretense of having to be amused at any of it.

Which suits me just as fine as frog hair.

Once again, I’m glued to the window, watching people and volcanoes go by on the other side of the glass.

Lucky me, I get to actually concentrate on what I’m seeing out there, and I don’t have to pretend I’m having fun and games with the stale humor.

I’m sure my fellow FAMsters think I’m a complete fuck, but oh well. My guess is that it’s gonna be a good while before I pass this way again, and my primary job is to absorb just as much of it as I possibly can.

Jokes, I can get anywhere. El Salvador only happens in El Salvador.

So we finally make it back down to the coast, and pull into some kind of weird place that seems to be part condo development, part construction project, and part hotel.

All done in low-rise one-story construction.

We pile out of the bus, head over to the food area right next to the ocean, and goddamnit it looks like there’s a WAVE out in back of this place!

Well fuck ME!

It’s hard to tell for sure, ‘cause the wind’s onshore in the late afternoon, and it’s hitting way the hell outside on several different reefs, but from everything I can see, there’s a couple of nicely workable peaks out there, shifting around.

The hotel staff, and everyone else too, is brain-dead when it comes to surfing.

I inquire about maybe a board on the property and all I get back, from several different sources, is that “There’s a very good wave nearby at Sunzal.”

Well no duh, Sherlock, I’m already at least partially dialed in to that little concept, but what about what’s going on right here in your own backyard?

“The rocks are too shallow.”

Well, yeah, I can see the rocks sticking up inside, but what about those reefs outside?”

Blank stares.

Arrrrrrggggghhhhhh.

And if it’s not enough that I’m in the company of totally clueless people here, I’m not even going to be allowed to sit here and study this damned setup, ‘cause we’re off to go take a tour of the GOLF COURSE that forms a part of this complex.

I’m being punished for something, I just know it.

I attempt to gain the interest of ANYbody here, travel agents, hotel staff, ANYBODY, and I’m met with a solid wall of clueless indifference. Nobody gives a flying fuck, and it would appear as if they LIKE IT that way.

I tell them that perhaps if this wave is actually rideable, that they might be able to sell this destination to surfers.

I may as well have been pitching real estate on the moon for all the impact it had.

Oh well, where’s the fucking golf course? You win, I lose, so let’s get this over with, shall we?

In defense of the golf course, they let us drive around in the golf carts, and I had the guy sitting next to me more than just a little worried as I gave the little electric powered tootlewagon all I could give it. But that was it as far as golf thrills were concerned.

But I would MUCH rather have been permitted to just hang around at the beach, and try to figure out what was going on a quarter mile out there on those reefs that were throwing whitewater in a most interesting way.

Ah well.

And tomorrow will be no better.

We’re gonna be up and gone by eight a.m.

I might get to peek at it a bit longer, but I’m NOT gonna get to paddle out there and have a see for myself, first-hand.

Shit cuss fuck hell damn!

So here I sit in the dark, banging away at it, and there’s no hope. None at all.

All I can do is hope some more that K-59 will be doing a little something when I get there on Saturday morning, after this crew of dingalings has all flown back to the states, or wherever.

Tomorrow we go back up country once again, but I’m not sure what we’re doing.

But whatever it is that we’re gonna do, it’s sure the hell NOT gonna be surfing.

Sigh.