Greetings from Mykanos.
Well it’s now September, the month leading up to the cosecha or harvest, and we are getting ready to pick and process coffee. We are also getting ready to cope with a very poor coffee price, and putting pressure on the Federación to support us, but I will leave that for the next Letter and focus on August instead.
August here, traditionally, is the windy month, the time to go fly a kite. In town we see crocodiles of kite-carrying school kids being shepherded towards wherever it is that their teachers have determined is going to be good for getting their paper fabrications up into the air, and on the way to Pereira we pass roadside displays of multicoloured kites being offered for sale. They vary widely in size. Some are in the shape of cartoon or comic characters, some sport fanciful representations of animals or people, some are more abstract, but all are colourful.
For us, the winds were less about kite flying and much more about change.
For starters, Shakira, our fierce Rottweiler who has spent 11 valiant years guarding Rancho Grande, the coffee processing plant and all who toiled in it, has retired and moved to join Adriano and me at Mykanos. She now spends her days sleeping and barking at the ducks. Stricken with arthritis in the hind legs, she circumnavigates their ponds, pursuing the ducks as they glide gracefully to the other side ignoring her bellicose baying. Eventually she can’t stand up anymore so lies down in the shade of a nearby plantain tree until she can get up and moving again. A call from us means that she dutifully, but reluctantly, abandons her pursuit and wobbles back towards the house, inevitably pausing halfway down the hill before turning about to go back to the ponds until she gets a second call and has to obey. She is either trying it on, or is suffering from Alzheimer’s.
Checho, the impressively fanged Rottweiler-Doberman cross who lived with us here has now gone to Rancho Grande to take over guardianship. He is half Shakira’s age and in much better shape to keep an eye on things. His departure is balanced by the arrival of mother and daughter duo Lulu and Niña, who used to live with Don Narciso, Adriano’s father, and the new blonde kid on the block, Danilo, whose lineage could include Alsatian, Labrador, terrier or who knows what else. Unlike the very compact Lulu and Niña, whose barks are much more fearsome than their bites, Danilo is of a reasonable size and will get bigger as he grows. He is a handsome boy, and very playful, following Albeiro (our agregado) wherever he goes trying to grab hold of the decorative leather thongs that adorn the sheath of his machete.
We are still without a cat. Both of us feel the need for a break after Pispirispis’ departure. Some have said to us, “Just get another one”, but that starts making them sound like a commodity or an accessory, which is something our pussies have never been. Adriano has even refrained from making Nespresso cappuccinos, as we have no Pispirispis demanding a Pisppiccino. So it’s just dogs for now, which is quite a change.
Another change, of which very few of you are aware, is that Mykanos now has a second identity … Casa de Adriano, one of the star boutique hotels of the Zona Cafetera.
We had been thinking about it for a couple of years but in May it became a reality. Well the idea became a reality … we had to wait a bit for our first guests. We have two guest suites, and breakfast and a full Adriano dinner extravaganza are included, as is a jeep tour of the vicinity. We also offer cooking classes. The empanada class we did with Fran and Jones and Rob and Carey last year was good practice.
We are careful about whom we accept, and then do our best to give them a very special experience. It turns out to be quite good fun; Adriano gets to cook and I get to talk.
Our August guests were two brothers from Sherborne in the UK who were backpacking in Colombia, and two friends from London who were on a gourmet sabbatical in South America.
In both cases, when they were with us, they were the only tourists in Anserma, and in both cases they were a delight to have.
Ollie and Finlay were on university holidays and came to us by bus from Salento, a tourist hotspot. They were surprised when Jhon Fredy, who had been sent in the taxi to pick them up at Caballo Rapido, where they got off the bus, recognised them immediately. It was only when we were having breakfast in town the next morning that they realised why. They were a foot and half taller than everyone else, a lot paler, and the only boys in shorts. I think we were a nice change from hostels.
Julie and Geetha are high-powered consultants from the Boston Consulting Group, and their three nights with us, following three nights in Medellin, was a prelude to a weekend in Lima dining at the top restaurants in that gourmet destination. It was their first time in coffee country and were duly impressed both by the surroundings at our place, and the breathtaking mountain scenery revealed around every corner. They also seemed to like the food, which was a relief.
All in all, it was very pleasurable introducing our locale and ourselves to intelligent convivial strangers and we hope it stays that way. If you are interested to see how people get to know about us, click on the following link to the Pereira City Guide and its guide to the best boutique hotels in the coffee zone.
Perhaps the biggest change of all is that Horacio, our administrator for the past decade, is no longer with us.
We have a new man in charge running the entire show, and he is proving to be very good indeed … none other than the artist currently known as Adriano.
It’s a big job. We have seven farms to manage, our five plus those belonging to Adriano’s father and mother, neither of who are anywhere near up to the task. He is up at 5 am every morning, either donning rubber boots to walk one of the plantations or off in the car for an early start in the office at Rancho Grande, or overseeing the collection and sale of plantain, or negotiating contracts with suppliers and contractors or agreeing terms and prices with customers. And now of course they are dealing with the owner, not the owner’s representative.
He has restructured the organisation, replaced the weak links, weeded out bad practises and taken on some fresh new faces. That also means new families in some of the houses.
He complains about having too much to do and too many things to think about but I know that, apart from not having as much discretionary time as he would like, he is actually enjoying it, taking total command of the undertaking we have created and using the proceeds to reward good work, good behaviour and good intentions.
Adriano’s longest standing friend Jorge Ivan (they were in school together) has joined us as Adriano’s assistant. A civil engineer more used to building roads, bridges and buildings Jorge Ivan has a lot of experience working with teams, managing budgets and tracking details and he and Adriano make a good team.
It does mean that Adriano is not in the studio creating, but for the moment we feel his time is better spent safeguarding our future and the jobs of all the people that rely on us for their livelihoods. He has enjoyed quite a bit of time with Hockney, Bacon, Freud, Picasso, Matisse, Soutine, Degas, Cocteau, the Abstract Expressionists and his own sketchbook over the past 18 months. Now his focus is a bit closer to home and bit more practical, but no less rewarding in the long run.
After all, there is an art to everything and growing great coffee is no exception.
Love from him and me
Barry
