The topography of the Cerro El Tigre coffee region in the west of El Salvador is not only intense but often nearly inaccessible. Here farms and forest often seem to blend into one continuous and verdant wonder as towering native trees shade the coffee plants. Home to El Imposible National Forest and the Apaneca-Ilamatepec mountain range, from the high hills where coffee growers tend their cherries, you can glimpse the shining Pacific Ocean.
Legend has it that in the early 1900’s, mules carried coffee from coffee farms in this region to the port at Acajutla. Between the port and the farmers yawned a deep precipice, spanned only by single rope bridges which did not always hold the weight. Periodically, one would give way, sending people and animals plummeting to their deaths, taking the precious cargo of coffee with them.