Learning Tour 2010: Peru and Colombia

Today we saw what happens to the coffee after it leaves the farm and before it gets put into a container and shipped  to Level Ground. We visited Cooperativa Cafetera de la Costa, the co-op that acts as a facilitator to find buyers for individuals or groups of coffee farmers;  RED,  the association of organic [...]

Read Full Post »

This morning we loaded ourselves into three four wheel drive vehicles and headed towards the mountains where our coffee farmers live.  I’m sure for many of us this trip was the first time four wheel drive was REALLY needed. It also  gave us an even greater understanding of the meaning of high altitude shade grown [...]

Read Full Post »

Arrived safely in Bogota last night. This morning we toured the largest wholesale fruit market in Bogota – 42sq hectares! 10 million dollars in sales per day happens at this market and 200,000 people per day are involved in the transactions. By the time we arrived mid morning most of the day’s business was over [...]

Read Full Post »

Our last day in Peru was spent with our good friends Yannina and Mario from Manos Amigas. We toured their new office, warehouse and hotel facility across the street from the current location. Completion of the construction and occupancy is on hold awaiting the necessary permits from the local municipality. Tito Mandino an artisan from Huancayo  joined us [...]

Read Full Post »

Monday May 3rd As the sun was slowly rising over Cuzco everyone was fast asleep catching some well needed rest.  Little did we all know our wake up calls would come early and from the residence of Cuzco — in the form of fire crackers.  This 6am wake up call was the start of their [...]

Read Full Post »

Read Full Post »

After a good night sleep to adjust to the high altitude we were off to visit Florintino in Pisac, located in the Sacred Valley.  Florintino lived his whole life in Pisac and was orphaned as a child.  By the age of 6 he had shown an interest in ceramics and by the age of 10 [...]

Read Full Post »

Today we took a 6am flight to Cuzco the capital city of the Inca Empire.  This city sits 3,625m above sea level which meant that we all had to have a quick cup of Coca tea and rest at the hotel for a few hours.  After a light lunch we had brief overview of the [...]

Read Full Post »

We started the day with a visit to Julian Garcia- a musical instrument producer. When Manos Amigas met Julian he was being cared for by his uncle who had taught him the art of crafting instruments . Manos Amigas had been working with the uncle but discovered during a surprise visit that he was exploiting [...]

Read Full Post »