Dawn breaks by 6:00 a.m. year-round here at 13 degrees north latitude, just about the time I'm getting up for work. It's rung in with a cacaphony of birdsong as the roosters are already a few hours into their work day, the zanates squawk and shriek amongst each other, and the passing loros catch up on the news while commuting from their nests to the trees where they spend their days. The loros, officially called pericos verdes, make me smile, and not just because their name sounds like "green beans" in French, but because they're just such noisy little busybodies as they cruise overhead with their life-partners. This isn't only the dawn soundtrack, but one that plays on an endless loop for all daylight hours in El Salvador.
Today I'm not getting up to head to the office; instead, I swing my camera over my shoulder, pull on my tennies and slip out of the hotel room as quietly as I can to not wake my husband, locking the door behind me with the old-fashioned iron key. I pause before stepping off the curb to pick a direction, hopefully somewhere lit by the rising sun, and turn left to the east.
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| Country alarm clock |
I can smell what I've come to call the scent of El Salvador: the combination of thick corn tortillas being slapped together by hand and the smoke from the charcoal fire over which they're grilled. Already a steady stream of people are walking away from the center of town towards a bus stop just out of sight. They're equal numbers of women as men, many are carrying large, flat baskets - the tools of the coffee pickers' trade - and no doubt they're headed to one of the many coffee plantations these towns on the steep volcanic slopes are known for. Specifically, I'm in Concepcion de Ataco (called simply "Ataco") for a few days to see the coffee estates, the art and handicrafts and simply to be up at a bit of altitude (4,068 feet) for fresh air, pine trees and quiet. Quiet except for the dang roosters, that is.
As the parade of coffee pickers and other workers hustle to grab a spot on a bus or the back of a pick-up, there is also a flow of kids in school uniforms making their way to class in the opposite direction. Those old enough walk in groups, jostling and joking with each other on the way to class, while the little ones are hand-held by a parent or older sibling.
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| Early sun lights up the faces of Ataco |
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| Starting the morning wash |
Dogs trot by, sniffing out greasy spots on the sidewalk for a bit of something tasty from last night's garbage, or find sunny spots to warm their bones in the still-coolness of the morning.
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| Dogs and laundry warm up in the first rays of the day. |
Finishing my rounds, I turn back over the cobbled street to our little hotel and find my husband and our visiting friend already up and sipping coffee in the interior courtyard, ready to start the day themselves.
Ataco is a gem of a town, but I'd be lying to call it a hidden gem. A popular stop along the tourist route "Ruta de las Flores" that winds up into coffee-plantation mountains in El Salvador's far western edge, Ataco also attracts visitors for its art, indigo-dyed clothing and typically colorful Salvadoran murals. Our first day in Ataco was spent popping into one doorway or another, watching artists and craftspeople at work or just wading through touristy souvenir shops.
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| Volcanic panarama on the Ruta de las Flores |
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| Typical mural style that often features three cats. Won't find me complaining. |
After breakfast, we take a short drive to the El Carmen Estate, a coffee plantation just a minute from the center of Ataco. We've arranged a tour of the estate and the coffee processing factory, including lunch and a tasting. The family estate, known as La Casona, is over 100 years old and has been perserved as it always was with thick adobe walls hanging original art, (now antique) furniture, high ceilings, original tiles on the floors and arched windows that look into gardens and cool interior patios. While I was charmed by our tiny, cozy hotel - next time I won't be able to resist packing a long, cotton nightdress and staying here in the 1920s instead.
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| Bedroom at La Casona, El Carmen Estate. |
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| Many a cigar was puffed here over the decades. |
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| Coffee pots or tea pots? |
We chose a Monday to visit El Carmen Estate and were rewarded by being the only three on the tour. It started not in the steep, shady hillsides where the bushes grow, but later when the beans arrive at the plantation to be processed in what seemed to me a factory of Rube Goldberg complexity. I continually asked myself, my friend, my husband and likely a few too many times, the guide, "But how'd they figure out to do THAT step, too?" as he explained the sorting, roasting, and washing, then showed us the machinery that shook off this bit but left on that bit. Geez oh Pete! As a life-long tea drinker (pick leaves, dry leaves, add hot water, enjoy), it amazed me that they persisted to perfect the process. But they did.... and still do. From the drying patios, to the bean sorting conveyor belts, to the guys stacking the 100 lb sacks in the warehouse, the amount of physical labor, not to mention painstaking record keeping to track and monitor the batches, just to create a tasty morning beverage was astounding. And the gut punch for me - these workers are making $1 per hour. Yup, $45 weekly salary for 5.5 work days.
The tour ended with sampling of the varieties, from "honey" to "bourbon" and "gourmet," but we only got to see a bag of the super-flowery "geisha" - too rare a variety for the day tour, it seems. Finally we sat down to a roasted chicken lunch on the patio accompanied by yet more roosters and a flock of guinea fowl.
By now the afternoon was upon us and it was time to move down the road. A gorgeous morning in Ataco, just one part of a day in the life of a Salvadoran town.
Next: Afternoon in Panchimalco
