If you see a trailer brightly painted with jungle leaves and displaying a giant jaguar on the back and a toucan on the front, you’ve just found The Jingle Jungle Express.
The trailer belongs to Jaime Altamirano, a mechanic for the city of Burlington, and since May, it has housed his coffee business. Creating his own business was something that Altamirano, 49, said he had been contemplating for decades.
He used to live in Miami, Florida, and it was there that he helped a man fix up a van to use for a food business.
“He did it,” Altamirano said. “He opened up his own chicken place. He was 63. I mean, it’s amazing. So, I always knew it was possible.”
But, honestly, it wasn’t always possible.
Altamirano was born in the small town of Matagalpa, Nicaragua. In 1979, when he was only 5, the Sandinista National Liberation Front overthrew the Nicaraguan government. He was young, but he remembers the horrible bloodshed of war. Six members of his family died in the revolution.
In 1981, the U.S. government decided to back and fund a rebel group called the Contras. The Sandinistas instituted a military draft, and Altamirano’s father fled to Canada. He soon sent for Altamirano, who had been drafted himself even though he was just 14.
When Altamirano crossed into Mexico, the plan was to get him on a flight to Canada, but that never happened. Instead, he spent nine months stranded in Mexico. He had to take a 12-hour bus trip from Monterrey to Matamoros, in the northeast tip of Mexico along the Texas border.
Once he was in the U.S., he went to live with family in Miami.
Coffee may seem like an odd choice for his business, but it’s what he could afford, and he had loved making coffee for his family long before he started Jingle Jungle Express.
“I love coffee so much that I brought me an expresso machine [to work] one time,” Jaime said. “But I couldn’t work because everybody wants to drink coffee.”
Jaime’s 18-year-old son, James, helped set up the trailer. He’s been helping his dad with the business since they first got the trailer in 2021. But when his dad told him about his plans to open a coffee trailer, it was an unexpected development.
“When he announced it to the family, we were a little confused,” James said. “Because it was a curveball that came out of nowhere.”
The two have worked a few big events. Altamirano’s 15-year-old daughter, Janine, also has helped with the trailer. James has been able to work fewer events recently though because he is a full-time college student and has another part-time job.
“For me it doesn’t seem like work,” James said. “It’s just like me being able to make coffee with my dad and talk with anyone who wants to support the business. It’s really nice.”
The Jingle Jungle Express is often set up at Granddaddy’s Antique Mall. You can reach out to Jaime at leonard2512@icloud.com if you are interested in booking the trailer.
