Bolivia: Off the Beaten Track

Photos and article by Julia Baumgartner, Just Coffee.

Click here to read the original article on the Just Coffee website...

Boasting the highest capital city and the most dangerous highway in the world, Bolivia is a country of extremes. Before my departure, I will admit I was rather nervous. The extremely high altitude of La Paz, the famous death highway, the rugged traveling, the long days and new experiences in an unfamiliar land left me unsure about the upcoming journey this landlocked South American country with one of the highest poverty rates in Latin America, despite it’s wealth of natural resources. I geared up for a week long Farmer to Farmer exchange on behalf of a grant that Cooperative Coffees had received from USAID, with fellow cooperative members Tripp Pomeroy of Café Campesino and Brad Brandhorst of Larry’s Beans.

Well, the nerves I had built up upon my departure were all valid, as it turned out. Going from Madison’s 323m altitude to La Paz’s 4150 m above sea level hit me hard. We arrived at 6 am, waking up with this high mountain metropolis. Markets lined the streets outside our hotel, and we admired baskets full of abundant varieties of potatoes, pastas, grains, flowers, crazy cuts of llama meat, and trinkets as I chugged along, searching for more oxygen to fill my lungs. In the distance, the snow capped mountain peaks set the backdrop while high rise buildings, square lego-like brick houses, and a million people filled the valley below. Between the bowler hats, the potatoes, and dry mountain air, it was clear that we were now in South America.

We spent the first afternoon getting to know FECAFEB, the Federation of Exporting Bolivian Coffee Producers, an umbrella organization that organizes 40 coffee cooperatives and associations throughout the country. Exporting nearly 90% of Bolivia’s coffee (almost all fair trade and organic!), the organizations that belong to FECAFEB are leaders in Bolivian coffee production while promoting sustainable development for small-scale producers throughout the country. We were here to not only strengthen our relationship with FECAFEB, but also with several individual cooperatives to discuss the challenges and opportunities within the fair trade market, especially focusing on this year’s record high international prices. Like many of the cooperatives we work with, FECAFEB faces many challenges including an increase in local competition as prices rise, low yields, lack of coordination among organization, climate change, inadequate access to prefinancing, and a change in leadership at the federation level. Throughout the course of the week, we shared our experiences, focusing on the importance of face-to-face interactions in order to truly strengthen relationships between producer groups and roasters.

 The following morning, I awoke to my heart racing, a killer headache, and a wicked case of Soroche (altitude sickness) that even several cups of coca tea could not kick. I spent the day in bed before setting out for coffee country. We left the dry, arid Andes mountains, passing by herds of llamas and alpacas and snow capped mountains, climbing up and over high peaks towards the Yungas region. If you look up "Yungas Region" on google, your first hit will probably be "the death highway" or “the world's most dangerous highway”. This new chunk of the road that we cruised along was the first half of the new highway built years after the Death Highway, which is claimed to be the most dangerous highway in the world for taking nearly 300 lives a year and is now only used as a mountain bike haven for the adventurous tourist. About five years ago, the first portion of the new highway was constructed, which follows the Andes Mountains as they transform from the dry altiplano to the lush green forests of the Amazon Rainforest. The second portion of the road will be widened and paved in another five years. The Yungas Region is the divider between these two climates and is home to some of the most fertile soil, and consequently where the majority of coffee in Bolivia is produced. All coffee that comes from the Yungas region must travel on these treacherous dirt roads to be processed and exported from La Paz, and so too must those who wish to visit those farms.

One thing about traveling to coffee country is that it is almost never an easy ride. The geography needed to produce a healthy coffee plant does not always provide for the smoothest roads, requiring an altitude of anywhere from 1,000-1800 meters above sea level on rather steep terrain. Coffee communities are generally isolated and the roads that lead to them are underdeveloped. But the roads in Bolivia are a whole other story.

Our friends from the Federation assured us that the "new" highway was not as bad and that it was ok we were driving at night, in the fog. Once again, I trusted our fearless leaders, for they had done this many times in their lives. People do this every day, I thought. “It’s not the death highway anymore,” Elias assures us between his grin, “Ahora es el camino de la vida.” I hoped that what I had read and heard about these roads would be an exaggeration of the reality as we piled into the Land Cruiser that would be our trusty carriage as we navigated our way through coffee country on one of the most risky adventurous us gringos had ever experienced.

We followed the luxurious pavement for the first three hours, although still drastically winding around the mountains as the sun set and the fog grew thicker. About an hour in, we managed to slide into a ditch at a wayside somewhere along the pavement and spent a good forty five minutes piling up rocks and aligning them just right so as direct the Land Cruiser back on track. We reached Coroico, the halfway point where we stopped for a bathroom break and snacks before the real adventure began. Elias, Don Marco and his wife, Juan, Tripp, Brad and I headed towards Caranavi, the coffee capital of Bolivia. And then the pavement ended. It took us nearly four more hours on unimaginable roads, just wide enough at most parts for one single vehicle. If there was one benefit of tackling this drive at night, it was that we could see the other vehicles coming around the bend by the flickering of their lights and the honking of their horns, among the fog and dust. That, and we couldn’t actually see how horribly close to the edge we were and how far down the cliff fell, just inches from our tires. Rule #1 on this highway says that cars traveling towards La Paz have the right of way, meaning they get to hug the inner “lane” of the highway since they are usually traveling with a full load while cars traveling away from La Paz are to stay to the left side of the road, closest to the edge. As we whipped around the tight curves, we often found ourselves face to face with fully loaded trucks without enough room for either of us to pass. In these tricky obstacles, we would have to reverse until we found a point in the road just wide enough for the other vehicle to pass, edging much too close to the steep drop off, and stopping until the other car had passed. “Um, is this the death highway?!” Tripp turns and asks us, nervously but with a touch of humor, as we find ourselves head on with yet another truck. I was busy grabbing the “oh shit” bar, keeping my eyes closed tightly, and my jaw clenched, except for those moments when my mouth would drop open, let out a gasp and my eyes would widen in disbelief. This road seemed to go on forever and with every bend in the road, there was little more that I could do than accept that I had no control of this situation and just hope for the best. Iput my trust in Elias, held ontight, and let the road carry us into Caranavi.

Seven hours later, we finally arrived in the coffee capitol of Bolivia to spend the night. I felt relieved, though anxious knowing we'd have to return on that same route a few days later. Magically, the nausea and headaches brought on by La Paz’s altitude disappeared immediately with our descent into the more familiar lush coffee forests of the Yungas region. From Caranavi, we still had another four hour drive through equally frightening roads (matched with one flat tire, one broken muffler, and a busted car battery) to reach the cooperatives where our coffee producing partners call home. From the beginning, it was clear that Bolivia's roads have an incredible impact on the way people carry on their lives. Most people measured distances by the hours it took to walk there by foot, since transportation is hard to come by and things are just extremely isolated. It left me with a much greater appreciation of how difficult a journey our coffee beans must take to reach our cups in Madison.

 In Pumiri, a small community outside the town of Calama, we were greeted by AIPEP Cooperative in the middle of their harvest season. AIPEP is a cooperative made up of 67 members, producing four containers of organic coffee, all of which is sold to Cooperative Coffees. Coop members shared with us the serious challenges they have faced with the rise in world market price including the devaluation of the US dollar, low production levels as a result of heavy rains and climate change, an increase in costs (especially for day laborer wages), high local competition, as well as a dramatic rise in prices for basic goods. “It is difficult for us as producers because people assume that we have money since coffee prices are going up, but really we are not benefitting because all other local prices are going up too and this money is not reaching us,” coop members share with us. Accessing prefinancing is another obstacle that the cooperative is faced with. Without much collateral or guarantees, it is difficult to gain access to enough credit with reasonable interest rates. By the afternoon, we found ourselves at the Mejillones collection center where producers were turning in their semi dry sacks of pergamino coffee to be measured, weighed, and eventually shipped off to La Paz to be processed and exported. Normally coffee is dried until it reaches 12% moisture before it is processed, but here in Calama, coffee is only dried until it reaches 18% humidity leaving the time for the beans to dry on the long slow trek back up to the 13,500 ft altitude of El Alto.

We woke up the next morning in Calama as the small town was preparing for their feria. Music blasted and pueblito came alive as the sun rose. Calama is far off the beaten track, not frequented by many outsiders. We stayed in a sort of hostel overlooking the town square, a second floor hallway with very basic rooms and walls as thin as the mattresses we slept on. Ironically, beneath my room was a coffee collection center for Keros (the negative local term for coyotes or intermediaries). Early in the morning, producers had come to town to sell their harvest and the walls of my room shook as each sack of nearly dried parchment beans was thrown into a heaping pile for the keros to take into La Paz to eventually be sold to another broker. All traceability and transparency was lost as the coffee was gathered into one uniform pile, nobody really sure where this coffee came from or where it was headed.

Every Sunday in Calama is market day and people come in from their small communities to buy basic goods to stock up for the week; all kinds of potatoes, pastas, quinoa, vegetables, toilet paper, dried llama meat...it's all there. The majority of the population here is native, and vibrant colors and bowler hats complimented this beautiful market. Brad, Tripp, and I did our best to stomach a heaping pile of dehydrated potatoes, rice, more potatoes, and chicken legs for breakfast, excusing our inability to eat so much dense food that normally would fuel a farm worker for a long day of harvesting. We were here to meet with Mejillones cooperative, a group of 87 coffee producers that became organized in the 1980s when their families migrated to the Yungas Region from the Altiplano after extreme droughts forced them off their land, carrying with them coffee plants from Coroico and hopes of a better life. This year Mejillones is selling Cooperative Coffees 3 containers full of coffee and we were here to get to know them a bit better and participate in open conversations about the crazy coffee market, pricing, fair trade strategies and relationship building. Mejillones produces high quality organic caturra and catuaii coffee varieties, and this year will send three containers full of green beans to Cooperative Coffees.

The board of directors welcomed us into their office, located conveniently in the middle of this amazing marketplace. Before long, we were offered gifts, crowned with extravagant leis (vines of ripe coffee cherries and beautiful flowers), had confetti thrown in our hair, fireworks were lit off and we were directed to the front of a parade through this market, complete with a six piece band until we reached the coop's collection center. I felt myself beaming, never having been received in such a way, and unable to believe this was actually happening. My traveling companions and I shared many looks of shock, both completely honored by the festivities and overwhelmed with emotion. Very few outsiders ever visit Calama and it was the first time a buyer had visited this cooperative, and it was truly an honor to be received in such a way. From there we had an excellent meeting with the group, establishing and deepening our relationship through conversation, dancing, and cupping coffee.

Without necessary funds to hire enough agricultural technicians needed to meet the needs of the cooperatives organized under FECAFEB, the board of directors has looked to alternatives for sharing information on pricing, markets, quality, processing, and organization with the thousands of producers living in isolated communities throughout the coffee growing regions of Bolivia. “La Hora del Café” is a one hour radio program that airs every Monday morning throughout the Yungas Region and beyond, offering a wealth of information to many producers at a much lower cost. Brad, Tripp, and I (along with several representatives from FECAFEB) joined The Coffee Hour one morning to share with producers what we were experiencing in the states as roasters and importers. We shared challenges that we too face in terms if financing the coffee we are purchasing, consumers’ impressions on Bolivian coffee, quality requirements, as well as the importance of being organized in cooperatives rather than selling locally to larger brokers and keros.