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NI: Global Issues for Learners > The Issues > Coffee > On the road: by mule > On the road: by truck

 

 

On the road

part 2: by truck

From the co-operatives at Putina Punco, the coffee beans from many different farmers are taken in large trucks to the town of Juliaca, on the other side of the Andes.

 coffee route

Across the Andes

Gregorio and David travel in a pickup truck: they are driven along the scary mountain roads by a skillful driver called Abdon. Further along the road,however, Gregorio leaves them but he will meet David later, in England, to see what happens to the coffee there. Right now, he has to help his elderly parents, Luis (81) and Celestina (64), to harvest the coffee beans on their farm.

David and Abdon continue. As they climb higher and higher it gets colder and colder. They are shaken and bumped inside the pickup and, as they get higher still, David's head aches badly and he finds that it's hard to breathe. Finally, after 10 hours of driving, the pickup truck stops. They have reached the summit, 5000 metres above sea level.

But the journey goes on through the freezing night, past Lake Titicaca with the starlight dancing on the water. At last, shortly before dawn, they come to the town of Juliaca. They have been driving for a day and a night.

 

PICK-UP TRUCK: a small, open-backed truck

HARVEST: (v) to pick crops

SUMMIT: the highest part of a mountain

Juliaca

Juliaca is the base for for all the coffee growing cooperatives in the region, where their Central Office is located. The town has two things the coffee growers need: banks and electricity. They need the banks so that they can export their coffee; they need the electricity to operate the machines that clean and sort the coffee beans, ready for shipping. Only the larger beans are exported; the smaller ones, of less good quality, are sold on Peru's domestic market.

In the past, until the 1980's, all the coffee was exported through the government, mostly to America. Since then, new markets have developed, especially in Europe and Japan, and now the cooperatives Central Office (CECOVASA) exports 80% of its coffee to those countries. They are independent of the government, and make their own sales.

 

BASE: (n) central place

On to the coast

From Juliaca, the coffee travels in large trucks for another two days, across a mountainous desert, down to the coast, and then north to the port of Callao. Here, officials check to make sure that the sacks really contain coffee beans, not illegal drugs. Then they are loaded into large containers, which are sealed shut. Then they will be put on ships to North America, Europe, Japan or Australasia.

WORD: (part of speech) definition
The article from which this was taken appeared in the September 1995 issue of the New Internationalist.

© 1995: the New Internationalist

NI: Global Issues for Learners > The Issues > Coffee > On the road: by mule > On the road: by truck

Last Modified: 15 March 2000