climb, climb, climb

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With the small team here from Master Provisions taking video and pictures to share back in the US, we got to take another trip up to Sampedrana, all the way up to the coffee farm at about 5,800'  

We stopped at the Church to pick up Alfonso, Henry, several bags of sand (used for making concrete for a ditch they need to pour for the road to clear water better) and wood (for fence posts.) 

It is hard to fathom how hard is to build anything up there, given the difficulties of transportation.  I say hard when what I really mean is...expensive and time consuming.  

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It is also hard to capture in pictures the steep nature of the property we have.  It is beautiful...but quite impressive in the heights covered in relatively little distance.  Driving in the Ford the maximum angle the dashboard shows is about 16 degrees.  But my less scientific reading of the hill we walk up to get to the tree shown in the picture showed (taken via the compass on my phone) was somewhere around 25-30 degrees.  

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I mean, in the previous picture, you get a sense, but this one below is better, as you can see just a tinge of red which is the Ford's roof to the right of Dalton who is waving to me.  But what you do not know is...the distance I have covered is perhaps only two hundred feet up the trail.  We discussed that in the future having this trail have steps and even a lane for driving would be nice.  It would certainly leave you less gasping for breath.  But once you catch your breath and turn around...then the view takes it away again.  

You would think that a farm so remote would not have many people just passing by, but we have noticed that our avocado trees, which we hoped would produce to give roughly 25% away to people in the Church there, 25% to use as a mission (Milk Project, staff, volunteers) and 50% to sell, has had "disappearing fruit."  It appears that when there is little to harvest, some on the mountain are then quite motivated to walk up to our trees for something to eat when they are ripe.    

So this is the first time we have been up there to help pick quite a few, albeit a bit early to get them before others do.  Oscar and I are the first paying customers in this case, just to get some income and since we had wheels.  The next bunch Alfonso will get (hopefully) will be for the Church.  

Long term, we need to find another worker that wants a job as well as a place to stay to have someone there full time to keep an eye on things.  Especially since we are looking to plant more fruit bearing trees to be along side the coffee in the future.  

We have been letting Alfonso grow some beans, onions, and beets as well on the lower portion of the property to help his family out.  He surprised us with a gift of some before we headed back.  The onions will also mix well with the avocados for some great guacamole.  

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