SAN PEDRO - Coffee, Cocoa and Mosquito Bites

The following blog post was written by Pascal and supplemented with Anja's additions. In addition, she corrected numerous spelling, sentence structure, and comma errors 😜

How it came about…

One of our significant plans in South America was to work somewhere for food and lodging on a short to medium term. Our goal was to get to know the culture better and do something in the line of “Work and Travel”. After procrastinating for a while, we took the time (actually only Anja) and browsed some Internet portals where so-called "hosts“ offer a place. We were already set on Peru due to our travel planning. Anja wanted to do something with nature, preferably with cocoa, and I wanted to live remotely and preferably in the jungle. A few days of research and discussions later, we created a couple's account on "Workaway“ for approx. €50, wrote to the two preferred hosts. The registration fee at least ensures to some extent that only people who are serious about it apply (even though we learnt about a few bad apples). After a somewhat - let's call it "time-displaced" - written contact, we could finally get down to brass tacks. Richard, our host, agreed to have us for 10 days and 10 Sol (€2.50) per person per day. The great thing about it: the timeframe was just right and our criteria - coffee, cocoa, and jungle - were exceeded, as it was even a small family-run organic farm. It should be added that it was not directly a jungle, but a central forest. This is a preliminary stage between the mountains and the jungle, but the vegetation is already very pronounced here. In retrospect, perhaps even the better choice, since everything is not as hardcore as in the jungle and you can get used to it better. The fact that we had to pay extra despite our labor and the registration fee bothered me a bit in the beginning, but in the end it turned out to be completely okay.

Accommodation

Our accommodation is currently under construction, so for example we had to go down the stairs, out the front door, in the other front door and through the living room to the toilet. That keeps you fit! Funnily enough the whole house is also very open built, because it is never actually cold. This allows quite a lot of insects to get into the house, but Richard, our hero, luckily had a mosquito net lying around. For example, you have to cover the drinking water with a lid or such a sweet fabric cap so that no flies get in. The tap water always has to be boiled or treated with charcoal tablets. Forethought is the order of the day! We were able to wash our laundry with the home washing machine. But since the water is provided with small sediment deposits and regularly clogs the washing machine filter, Richard came up with something: just hold the garden hose in the washing drum and manually refill the water level. Genius! This way our sweaty laundry could finally gain some freshness again. And thanks to the high temperatures, the laundry dried very quickly. You just have to bring it in before the next rain shower, otherwise the sun put its energy in for nothing ;) ☀️ Here's a little anecdote: One afternoon, I was wondering why the barking, or rather whimpering, wouldn't stop - could it be a dog? After a brief search, it turned out that the neighbor's dog had fallen into a pit that hadn't been secured yet due to renovation works. With a lot of patience and a few treats from Rambo's stock (Rambo is the cute household dog), he finally allowed to be lured out ;) Now about Rambo: Rambo is quite independent, to quote Richard's words: "Rambo has his own life". Together with the dog of Richard's aunt (who lives right next door and runs her grocery store there), he forms his own gang and defends his territory against neighboring dogs. The two of them always go around the village together making it unsafe ;)

Our Host Family

Our host family consisted of two people, Richard, and his mother. Richard is actually an employee in a national park, which is a bit far away, but in his free time, he also takes in volunteers like us. His mother was a teacher, but is now retired, yet coordinates and works diligently on the farm and in the household. Every couple of months Richard's grandma, who is already over 90, drops by and lives with them for a few weeks. Thus, the siblings take turns over the year and the grandma is taken care of. Quite a cool principle but probably wouldn't work in Germany with most people because we don't have so many siblings. On the farm, there is a family that works regularly, who are employed to farm and maintain the farm. During the peak harvest season, additional harvest helpers are hired. In the small village, there are quite a few churches, probably three or more, even though there are fewer than 500 people living there. For many people, even a daily church service is on the agenda, during which there is always nice loud singing. Sometimes there is also an unofficial little competition about which community can sing louder, but not better. Our atheistic host family sometimes joins in the competition, however, with party songs and the appropriate drinks.

Full Program

Work on the Farm

In itself, we only worked about 2-4 hours per day on the farm. The cool thing was that there was almost a different job every day. Richard usually showed us at the beginning how it worked, then watched briefly to make sure we understood everything and then we went. We did the following things over the whole period:

• Cutting cocoa trees, either small shoots or really thick branches. You sometimes had to climb around in the tree.
• Harvesting coffee beans, but only the beautiful red beans, not the brown or green ones. I think this was the job where we were the slowest.
• Climbing up in the high "Tañelo“ tree and picking ripe "Tañelos“
• Retrieving papayas from trees
• Pruning banana bunches or even cutting them down to get to the delicious fruits. I found it very interesting how many different types of bananas there are and how different they can taste. This ranges from cooking bananas, which you have to watch out cook before you can eat them, to bananas that don't taste like bananas at all ("Flatano Manzana“ or also Apple Banana). Of course, there are also ordinary "German“ supermarket bananas. Lastly, the small "Plátonos biscocitos“ should be mentioned, and by the way, there are also red bananas.
• Drying, peeling, sorting, and roasting coffee beans. We did this once by hand or hand grinder. Normally, Richard, however, has his harvest processed in the next larger town. He explained to us how the umpteen different types of coffee are created by slightly different processing. On his farm, we dealt with the variety "Red Honey“ and "Yellow Honey“.
• Picking ripe cocoa fruits
• Peeling cocoa beans at a local acquaintance of our host and eating a lot of homemade trial chocolate, of course, we also bought a few bars regularly

Cooking

Morning. Noon. Evening. Always traditionally Peruvian, of course. Sometimes there was also an appetizer in the evening. Only once did Anja and I scrape Spätzle for the family, which were very well-received. But, of course, is also with a lot of cheese and onions in it. Our task then was to wash dishes. I think the dishes have not received so much affection for a long time ;) And I can't remember when I last spent so much time washing dishes. Thank God we have a dishwasher at home. Here is a small album with the dishes and drinks that we enjoyed in San Pedro. At this point, a small message to Richard: Recipes are appreciated! With our article we are unfortunately a little bit out of date, therefore, we don't know the names or preparations anymore. So if you have a spare minute and boredom, feel free to write your delicious recipes for us and all future Workawayers and make our world a little bit more delicious ;)

Other Leisure Activities

After lunch or even on weekends, we also occasionally did things in the afternoon. It was very interesting to walk through the forest and observe all the strange plants and animals. For example, we swam in the big, raging river next to the village, splashed in the water beneath a large waterfall called "Catarata San Andrés“, and visited the "Petroglifos de Huanacaura“, sites with symbols and creatures from long past times chiseled into a large stone. When Richard's sister visited once, a fresh chicken was planned for the next day's menu. So, for the first time, I saw a chicken being slaughtered right in front of the kitchen and later helped with plucking the feathers and butchering. It was a momentous event, as the knife was unfortunately too blunt. Well, just to be on the safe side, Anja had already gone to bed. Besides, we visited the annual school festival with its cooking, dancing, and beauty contests. It was also quite interesting to watch the fathers play a soccer tournament. Otherwise, in San Pedro, the cute central square "Parque San Pedro de Coviriali“ is worth mentioning, where we also watched the local children playing.

Nature's Force "Central Forest“

Although the central forest is not yet a rainforest, we still got to experience a downpour almost every morning. You then stay in and do some more dishwashing. There's nothing else you can really do. Sometimes the power or the internet might go out, but that's nothing unusual. After the next generation of mosquitoes have grown in all the puddles and pools of water, you can then get nicely bitten. The only prevention is long thick clothes or 20 kilograms of anti-insect spray. For aftercare, however, a BiteAway pen is great, which heats up the bites at the push of a button, but only so much that the itchy protein denatures and not the skin. Anja managed to fry a few batteries into her body. Definitely better than scratching fits. When working, it is then rather humid and hot, which is why drinking plenty of water and using sun protection (especially on the head) is recommended. The temperatures were not a problem for me, but for Anja, it must have melted some brain lines, her head was always so red.

Satipo - The Perfect Small/Large City

In the village, there are only four to five general stores. So if you want something other than toilet paper, beer, or chicken, you have to go to the next bigger city. In this case, that is Satipo. We went there a few times to buy building materials, glass carafes, clothes, and vegetables, in addition to the essentials. We found this city perfect, as it really has everything one needs. But the city is not too massive, and you still feel somewhat like being in the central forest, as towering green mountains surround the city. We will particularly remember the ride with the building material transporter. It was a big motorcycle with a hood for the driver and a loading area the size of a normal van, on which we and a large heap of sand rumbled back from Satipo to San Pedro. In Satipo, we went shopping at the main square "Plaza Mayor de Satipo" and at "Mercado 1° de Noviembre" and "Mercado de Frutas". We also saw the pedestrian bridge "Puente Pasarela". Also, we made a large purchase in terms of cinnamon, cloves, and other spices, and bought swimming trunks and jeans for Pascal and a long, airy pair of pants for me. In Satipo, we were definitely the only foreigners - not many seem to get lost here :) From San Pedro to Satipo, we either hitched a ride on the motorbike or took the moto-taxi.

Other Curiosities

One day, when we came back from the farm to the village, a large banner was hanging over the main street. There, the tax office was advertising to pay your taxes, because then you qualify for a sweepstakes where you can win a washing machine or a motorcycle, for example. I think this anecdote illustrates quite well how the shadow economy in Peru is organized. Otherwise, it is also interesting to see how health department employees in full rubber gear with flamethrower-like devices fumigate an entire village. The aim is to combat the dengue fever spread by mosquitoes. Thankfully, it didn't catch us.

Bus to Cusco

Since my friend Jona was visiting for the next few weeks and we wanted to check out the highlights of the Cusco region together, we had to get to Cusco fairly quickly. We had two options. The first one was unfortunately not feasible, as we would have needed almost half a week to travel through the jungle by boat, bus, and minibus. In addition, a lot of it would have only been able to be organized on site. So, unfortunately, we had to take the less direct and more unexciting route via Lima. After almost 2 days, including a 4-hour layover in Lima, we finally arrived in Cusco. We were also quite lucky because when we booked the bus from Lima to Cusco, we just managed to get the last two seats with "Cruz del Sur". Otherwise, we would have had to go with another bus company or the whole thing would have taken even longer. Cusco would later turn out to be the starting point for the region, which we kept coming back to. For the journey from Satipo to Lima with MovilBus, we paid 85 Soles per person and 185 Soles for the Lima - Cusco route. With competition "Civa", we would have included a small care package and only paid 140 Soles. However, I preferred to travel with "Cruz del Sur" since we already have experience with this bus company. In Lima, we then stopped at our favorite bakery and relaxed in the park until our bus departed.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Richard for the great time, the lots of food, and the many explanations of how things work on the farm. <3

Post Script

Many photos are again available at https://hoenisch.eu/photo/mo/sharing/OJ8UXOQoi