Teen flicks, Coffee, and a Dip in the Pool

There is a little known phenomenon in South America regarding the need to watch teen flicks portraying stereotypical, yet fictionalized high school life in America. Apparently this most often occurs on long bus rides..or so I was led to believe on my trip from Lima to Jaen. Who knew there was such a desire to watch such films at "The Hot Girl" and "John Tucker Must Die" on overnight bus rides through Peru?

So...here we are in Jaen, the not-so-small-but-not-entirely-big town I find myself in here in this Andean country. The town is nice; typical by South American standards consisting of a plaza, stray dogs, and enough motorcycles (or such things) to overwhelm even a Sturgis veteran. Our home is the Hotel Prim's, a nice establishment equipped with sparten rooms, a nice restaurant, and a phallic shaped swimming pool. I wish the latter was a joke (or an unfortunate accident) but I doubt either is the case. I kid you not, it is unmistakable...very unmistakable. Sorry for being so crass, Mom.

Ok, right now we just finished watching the Miss Universe contest (go Japan!). Luke is reading and watching CSI, and Niels is probably conquering Lichtenstein on his midieval computer simulation game. As I sit on the floor of our room and survey my surroundings I am overwhelmed with visions of what it must have looked like to live in 1973. Burnt orange carpet, brown velvet-ish bedspreads patterned with some sort of flowery/yucca design, and a painting of a series of waterfalls that illuminates (or at least it did at one time) when plugged into the wall. Heaven. I am going to bottle this place up and bring it back to Berkeley with me.

Here in Jaen we have been relatively busy. In addition to continuing to refine our research, we have met with a couple of coffee cooperatives to talk about there operations and their use of energy in various aspects of the production process. Personally, these discussions have been extremely interesting. Prior to arriving in Peru my knowledge of coffee was limited to ordering a large cup each morning as I dragged my exhausted ass into work or class. As long as it was hot and strong I was good to go. But now I am seeing it from its inception; from growth through distribution. Interestingly, some of the coffee that you may be drinking right now as you read this blog instead of working may have come through some of the cooperatives we are meeting with here in Jaen. Even more exciting, tomorrow we are heading into the fields to get a better look at the actual operations that are in place. We will head north through Chirinos and then on to San Ignacio where we will meet with coffee farmers and more cooperatives.


Alright, I am not done with the swimming pool. The fun doesn't stop with its very masculine design. A little background: we have hired a driver in order to traverse the coffee growing regions of northern Peru. He will take us from town to town and probably act somewhat as a guide. Oh, and hopefully he will vouch for us if we are mistaken for miners...more on that some other time. So, our driver, Antonio, swung by Hotel Prim's today to introduce himself and discuss the details of our expedition. Luke, Niels, and I were sitting outside by the pool discussing our afternoon plans when he arrived. The table at which we were sitting was adjacent to the "beans" portion of the previously described pool. Since Luke is our native Latino (or so he speaks like it), Antonio walked towards him first to kick off the introductions. As he rounded the table something tragic happened, causing Antonio to (ungracefully) slip on a "bean" and fall into the pool. Fast acting Luke, still clutching Antonio's hand from the introductory shake, was able to quickly pull our driver from the pool, and thereby saving his cell phone keeping the upper portion of his clothing relatively dry. Thus, for the next fifteen or so minutes our driver, the man we will be trusting to take us through rural Peru and whom I still haven't officially met, stood sopping wet talking to Luke about our plans for the next few weeks. Hell, after a stunt like that, I will trust Antonio to take me to the end of the world...which may be where we are going.

Stay tuned!