La Esperanza (Campo)

I've been traveling quite a bit as of late and have gotten to see some truly beautiful places.  To be honest, what I've seen is so captivating that I bought a motorcycle just to be able to explore it more.  One of my favorite places is the countryside (campo) above the town of La Esperanza.  This is the heart of potato country so I've been here a few times now.

This area is at an altitude of 1600 - 1800 meters above sea level, is perfect for growing potatoes, and is home to one of Honduras’s ethnic groups, the Lencas.  As Rynaldo and I rode up and down the hills we would see them walking to and from the small houses scattered across the hilss.  The Lencas are generally quite short but also very strong and hard workers.  The women wear bright headscarves that stand out sharply against the greens and browns of the hills and fields.  The children are especially small (logically so, I suppose) and sometimes I would see what looked like three or four-year-olds walking by themselves on their way to school.  Sometimes they’d walk with their backpack straps hanging by their forehead, just to be funny.

The land undulates up and down and the packed dirt road winds around the features.  Every so often we would stop to talk with a farmer or a group that we are working with.  We chatted with a farmer that was rocking a Real Madrid jersey (amazing), convincing him to leave his cows for a bit.  From there we moved along to a women’s group that weaves headscarves and blankets.  I talked with them for just a bit to get an idea of how they ran their business.  She was able to give me seasonal revenue, variable costs, fixed costs, and assets (plus depreciation).  I don’t think they had the concept of unit margin but they had all of the components.  Not bad.  We passed some more potato fields (blight, low yields, terrible harvesting (see photos below)) before arriving at a flower growing cooperative.  It was run by Lencan women and looked to be quite the operation.  They had a greenhouse and were growing roses for sale in late Jan / early Feb.  This looked like a pretty slick operation but I didn’t get that sense that they really had a killer business sense.  Even with the aid they had received, they were struggling to pay back a loan of 1% annual interest.  Seems like there should be something in the area that would return more than 1% in a year.

 

After leaving them, we passed through more beautiful country on our way back to La Esperanza.  The roads were rough in places and my legs and arms got quite the work out from functioning as primitive shock absorbers.  We got back to Rynaldo’s house and, after convincing his wife that I ate beans, meat, and tortillas, had an amazing meal.  Gorgeous day.