Coffee

Hello! First things first - i can get email now. Got in through the back door.

I still haven´t explained the coffee adventure in Yali, just before i left for Matagalpa. We were just wandering about looking for breakfast when we bumped into Noel, president of aforementioned Co-op in Yali. He´s standing in front of his shop with a great big vat of milk, doling it out to anyone who arrives with something to put it in. Of course MaggieJo knows him, we get to talking, we go in for coffee and a chat. Upon discovering that I´m off to Matagalpa for 2 weeks in an hour´s time, and coffee processing season is nearly over for another year, he decides that we must go 'ahorita' - right now, in the truck, to his processing place. We will be back in time for the bus in an hour. So, the Nicaraguans can move fast when they want to!! And was I GLAD he did. There he is look, standing with MaggieJo looking at the first step of the process...

Because it's a special processing plant (or Beneficio). As well as the normal de-husking, washing, drying business...

...They also in this beneficio re-use the water, and then when it's dirty clean it using a sort of 'reed bed' system of three lakes. By the time the water gets to the third, they are testing at the moment whether they can grow plants and raise fish - and if so, the whole thing will be successful. This is fairly unique in coffee plants, I´m told, and this is the community that´s right at the beginning of starting tourism. I think the hippy tourists will lap it up, no?!
(By the way. Do you raise fish? is that the right verb? I´m losing my English!)
Below are the gutters where the water runs to be pumped back up. I have more pictures but I'm not sure how much of the story they tell so I'll hold back til I know more... And ALL THIS before 9am in the morning!! Santos is the excited looking guy above, in the drying section. I think he'd make a great guide. Vamos a ver!!