Bubba
Apr 16, 2007, 11:33 AM
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Just in time for our planned trip to the Soconusco region of Chiapas near Tapachula, the travel section of Guadalajara´s MURAL newspaper for April 15th has featured an article on this splendid and famous coffee growing area. Much of the article has to do with the overland tours of the Soconusco sponsored by Holland America Line cruise ships out of Puerto Chiapas but most of you reading this will doubtless make any road trip of the region commencing in Tapachula or Motozintla, Chiapas which can be reached over good roads from San Cristóbal and Comitan de Dominguez.
Between Tapachula and the "zona del Soconusco" you enter high mountains where the "fincas Cafetaleras", or coffee farms, are located in an area the newspaper describes as a perfect harmony of man and nature. Here you will find fincas and towns with such names as Nueva Alemania, Irlanda, Hamburgo, Génova and Paris. In the 19th Century, European writers were entranced by the region inspired by its tranquil tropical jungle. German and Swiss families became enamored of the region and came to Chiapas to establish coffee farms with names such as Argovia or Hamburgo.
The article features a finca known as Argovia, founded in 1880 where, today, you can take extensive tours demonstrating the process of cultivating and preparing both arabica and robusta coffees for the market from growing and harvesting through drying and roasting. At Argovia, which consists of 187 hectares altogether, they have evolved into an agricultural development that is dedicated to preserving the flora and fauna of the region. In addition to coffee cultivation, 20 hectares are cultivated with ornamental plants and the property boasts 200 species of floral, medicinal and timber-yielding plants (both native and brought in from such places as Hawaii, Mauritius and Holland) and 157 species of birds such as tucans which can be observed from the finca´s mirador. The finca also has at least 170 different species of tropical trees on its grounds.
The finca sponsors Jeep excursions to the Tacaná Volcano on the Mexico-Guatemala border for outstanding vistas and viewing of jungle wildlife.
One can stay at Argova or at Finca Hamburgo(no doubt among other places) where charming rustic cabins look out over jungle and extraordinary mountain vistas.
The article also describes the restaurant Tierra de Café on Finca Argovia where Chef Matias Klein, a Mexican whose parents were German, prepares what is described as mexican and fusion cuisine. The newspaper describes the food offered here as "high cuisine" and lists some of the offerings. Once I´ve been there, I´ll report back on that.
Now, we have found San Cristóbal an easy place to make friends both among the indigenous people and middle class mestizos and our architect has a cousin who works in management of a coffee finca in the Soconusco which we will be privileged to visit. Our architect and friend describes this region of Chiapas as among the most beautiful in all of Mexico where, at the 3,000 (more or less) foot level, these coffee farms proliferate and the tropical scenery is breathtaking. If you look at a topographical map of the Soconusco region, you will see the magnificent Sierra de Soconusco rising dramatically from the flat coastal tierra caliente of the Chiapas Pacific Coast. An extraordinary place.
A little bit of history. The Soconusco was not always a part of Chiapas but was merged into the state when both areas broke off from Guatemala to join Mexico after its independence. While the notion of the European coffee growers attracted to and developing the coffee fincas of Chiapas is romantic, there are many involved in the coffee growing cooperatives of today who will become positively apoplectic about the slave labor conditions imposed upon native labor by the European overlords. For a balanced view of the conditions at the coffee fincas during the last part of the 19th century after you have been charmed by the beauty and tranquility of present day Argovia, I recommend you visit the Coffee Musem in San Cristóbal which is owned by the cooperative of today´s Chiapas coffee growers and hear their tales of the inhuman conditions on the fincas at the turn of the century. That should bring you back down to earth but not before you have been seduced by this wonderful region of Mexico.
(This post was edited by Bubba on Apr 16, 2007, 11:45 AM)
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