Day 2 - Cochabamba, Bolivia

I’ve made it to Cochabamba, Bolivia’s third-largest city and one of the highest-altitude major cities in the world. Getting here is not quite as difficult as reaching Daga, but it still took 40 hours, four flights and nearly 20 hours in the air. There are not many direct connections between Europe and Bolivia, and the local airlines are notorious for the poor quality of their service. Delays, cancellations and planes that sometimes seem old enough to qualify as vintage aircraft. I’ve now taken two flights with the local airline Boliviana de Aviación, and neither has exactly been a joy. But I’m here.

Cochabamba itself lies at around 2,600–2,700 metres above sea level, while the wall of mountains surrounding it reaches around 4,000 metres. The climate is quite pleasant throughout the year. The altitude keeps it from getting too hot, while its proximity to the equator means that even during the colder months, daytime temperatures remain above 20°C.

The city has grown rapidly. Seventy years ago, it had fewer than 100,000 inhabitants; today, more than a million people live here and in the surrounding suburbs. There has never been one major industry driving the local economy. Historically, this has primarily been an agricultural region, although today you can find everything from banks to oil refining. This has not brought widespread prosperity, however. According to our local partner Matteo, most people work in the informal economy and the average salary is probably around 250 dollars.

While Cochabamba is taking its first baby steps in coffee, coca leaves have been grown here on a significant scale for a long time. The lower tropical areas of the Cochabamba region produce up to 40% of Bolivia’s coca leaves. Some of that certainly makes its way into our Coca-Cola, but where most of it ends up... who knows.

Today, we are crossing the mountains surrounding the city, as coffee cannot be grown inside the basin. It is simply too dry here.

The plan is to reach the small village of San José, where a few dozen families began growing coffee around ten years ago. Their reasons were probably just as unexpected and, at times, difficult to understand as ours were when we went to Georgia to restore abandoned tea plantations. In other words, pure renegade stuff.

Coffee had never been grown in this area before, and none of the necessary infrastructure existed. But a government programme provided seedlings and some training... and a true renegade does not spend too much time thinking about everything that could go wrong. They simply get started.

And that is exactly what the farmers of San José did. These families earn most of their income from growing vegetables, but they planted the coffee seedlings they had been given because the worst that could happen was that nothing would happen.

But something did happen. What exactly, and what we are planning to do together next, will follow over the coming days, along with photos from the ground. 😉

P.S. Just 200 metres from my hotel is a café ranked 33rd among the world’s best coffee shops. I recommend it. 🙂