Postcards from Santo (pt. IV)
To my friends,
Just a quick one before I hop on the plane back to Vila…
On a whim I did some asking around Luganville (the main town in Santo) and discovered there’s still an operating coffee plantation not too far afield! This being too good an opportunity for a shameless addict such as myself, I rose early one morning and sat through another bone-jolting hour in the back tray of a truck to reach I.R.H.O. – an old French agricultural research station now run by the government. It has long since abandoned its research into coffee, but maintains a modest plantation for commercial purposes. With no prior introduction, they were nice enough to take me on a tour of the operation! For those who care, the photo is of some nearly-ripe Robusta berries (for reasons I couldn’t quite get out of the Mama-in-Charge they grow primarily Robusta, with a smaller Arabica crop for blending).
After a memory card of photos, we retired to a little bench amongst the Arabica blossoms (the smell of which reminded me of the camellias at my folks’ house) for a little sample of the crop and a storian…
And then I came back.
Posted: Oct 1, 07:32 PM Category: Reflections
Tags for this article: vanuatu
Daniel · Oct 7, 09:01 PM
Nice photos, Joel.
David Corless · Oct 9, 06:36 PM
Thanks for all the updates Joel. Glad to hear you’ve managed to have a little time out!