1. From Cucuta, it travels thirty-five miles by railroad to Puerto Villamizar, a Colombian river port on the Zulia river.
2. At Puerto Villamizar it is loaded into small, flat-bottomed, steel lighters that are taken to Puerto Encontrados by man power. Puerto Encontrados, belonging to Venezuela, is on the Catatumbo river; and the trip from Villamizar takes from two to four days, depending on the depth of water in the river. During high water, river steamers are also used, and make the trip in less than a day.
3. At Encontrados the cargo is loaded on river steamboats more or less of the Mississippi river type, which take it to Maracaibo, Venezuela. Coffee is also carried to Maracaibo by small sailing vessels.
4. At Maracaibo it is taken by ocean vessel, which either carries it direct to New York or to Curaçao, Dutch West Indies, where it is transhipped to steamers plying between New York and Curaçao. It is obvious that the many transhipments that coffee coming from Cucuta has to undergo greatly retard its arrival at a foreign port; and a cargo sometimes takes a month or more to reach New York.
Old and New Methods Employed in Loading Heavy Cargo on the Santa Cecilia
Coffee from Cucuta is stored in the Venezuelan custom-house, from which it must be shipped for export within forty-five days, or the shipper runs the risk of having it declared by the Venezuelan government for consumo (home consumption) at a prohibitory tariff. Arrangements can be made at considerable cost to have the coffee taken to a private warehouse; but it is no longer possible to make up the chops in Maracaibo, as was done formerly with all the Cucutas. The Venezuelan customs will not even allow the Maracaibo forwarding agent the same chops, as a general rule. Special permission must be obtained to change any bags that are stained or damaged. Schooners from Curaçao have, in the past, carried a great deal of the Colombian coffee to Curaçao.
Port Handling Charges in Brazil
It is almost impossible to list all the various charges for the handling of coffee at the port of shipment in Brazil, the figures not being accessible to outsiders. Some figures, such as warehouse charges and various forms of tax, are obtainable, however. For every bag of coffee which is in warehouse over forty-eight hours from the time of its arrival from the railroad there is a charge of two hundred reis (about five cents). In São Paulo there is an export tax of nine percent ad valorem levied by the state, and in Rio the state tax is eight and a half percent. Then there is a surtax of five francs per bag in Santos, and of three francs in Rio, which goes toward defraying the expenses of valorization. For every bag of coffee that passes over the dock the dock company charges one hundred reis (about two and a half cents).