Farm tours

This hillside looked like a patchwork quilt. Each square was hand planted and tended. Dad found it interesting that the crops were planted under and around the trees. Corn seemed to be the most frequent thing we saw.

Coffee plants grow under trees for shade. In the winter (or at least what they think is winter) the trees are trimmed to let in more light.
Ollie found a red bean, which is ready to be picked. It was fun searching for the red beans, like a game of Eye Spy. We only found a few.
This large concrete area was amazingly clean. The beans are spread out here to dry. Workers are scooping dried beans into an auger which loads the beans in large bags. The bags are sewn closed with a hand held sewing machine. What a wonderful workplace view! But, the workers are paid based on production and a good days wage is $10.
We also toured a macadamia nut farm. The trees were really pretty, but the leaves were very pokey. We were told that Guatemala is third in macadamia nut production behind Australia and Hawaii. The shells are returned to the soil as fertilizer and the farming is all organic. We bought some yummy chocolates in the gift shop.