Well, we did end up stopping and spending the night in Bahia Maguey, one of the bays of Huatulco. Very attractive bay with a bunch of palapa restaurants on the beach. Did lots of swimming and had margaritas, guacamole and pico de gallo at one of the nicer looking places. Weather looked good, so we left for Chiapas the following day and had great sailing with our code zero and main up together, an unusual combination. Very fast that first day, so ended up arriving in Chiapas about 10 pm instead of the following morning. Not ideal but with night vision, radar and good charts we got into the marina without a problem. The next morning we were boarded by soldiers with a drug dog. Let’s just say Bella was not very happy! She had to get off the boat before the dog came on but she could smell the dog everywhere afterward.
I said, “without a problem” but that’s not really true. The pico de gallo (the only thing Theresa didn’t share with me) gave me the worst Montezuma I’ve ever had. EVER. And of course that further aggravated my already bad back… Got over the Montezuma after three days but today is the first day my back is really feeling like it’s on the mend. Discovered that people on the two boats in front of us had the exact same problems and ate at other restaurants on the same beach. Apparently there was a sign in the bathrooms that said “do not use to wash your hands“!!!
We can now say that we are into the real tropics as this is actual jungle. Complete with all the scary snakes and spiders and crocodiles and monkeys. There are vast banana and mango plantations everywhere. Wonderful sounds of birds all day and a great group of cruisers, most of whom are also going at least as far as Panama or returning from same. We swapped guide books with some folks heading north so we now have all the cruising guides we probably need for the next two years. Score!
We did a tour with a group of cruisers yesterday to a large coffee plantation in the mountains (2,000’) called Finca Argovia. Fantastic tour, our guide Miguel was very knowledgeable and, as this was a large grower, a very different way of processing the beans compared to the smaller ones I’ve seen before. Apparently, after the Mexican revolution, the government invited Germany to send people to develop this region via coffee plantations. Therefore most of the larger coffee growers in Chiapas are still owned by German families. Nescafé had two very large facilities that we passed. Interestingly, the small family owned coffee growers that abound in the mountains all grow robusta beans as they are a bit easier to raise but are used only for cheap coffee or instant coffee. Finca Argovia was established in the mid 1800s and is now run by the fourth generation of the family and most of their beans are sold directly to Germany. All of the equipment still in use was built over 100 years ago. They have diversified their business due to fluctuations in coffee prices over the years, and they also raise teak and run a beautiful bed-and-breakfast spa business on their almost 500 acres.
The picture of the red grate floor is where the coffee pickers bring their baskets in and fill up the wooden boxes. They are paid cash on the spot by the person sitting at that little desk. The bins are then dumped into the pool of water below where the good beans will sink to the bottom and through the corner drain. A mountain stream running through the property provides the water and gravity does virtually all the work through the various stages of processing. 400 tons produced annually.
The round yellow flowers can be squeezed gently with both hands and they emit a natural bug repellent that you can then rub on your arms and legs. The church is actually a Mennonite type of church. La Luz del Mundo, and we have seen them everywhere in Mexico
On the way back, we went through downtown Tapachula, a city of 400,000 that has grown to 500,000 in the last three years due to immigration! A lot of Haitians, Africans and Hondurans. We passed a Mexican detention facility that is apparently full to the brim as Mexico sends them back as fast as they can. The local Walmart is the busiest in Mexico thanks to all the Guatemalans shopping and sending everything back home. The attitude toward migrants here is the same as back home – send em back. But our guy did say that Mexicans will not pick mangoes as the work is too difficult and therefore they have to bring in migrant labor from Central America! We bought pineapples from a street vender, three for $2.50. Delicious!
