At this point, we're comically behind on the blog. "How behind?" you might ask Well, we are writing from our roof top in Medellín after returning from our travels last night. So, pretty behind. After Salento, we stayed a few more days in the coffee growing region visiting Filandia, Quimbaya, and Manizales. Just a warning - the next few entries may read a bit funny because some pieces of them were written as we were traveling, and others after we had already moved on.
Filandia was one of the highlights of our trip. We stayed outside the city in a small hostel where we were the only guests - it was definitely more like a room mate situation, which was only occasionally uncomfortable :) Our hostel:
Upon arrival, we were greeted with cups of coffee and a brief "tour" of the coffee plants (there were probably six in total?) in the backyard.
During the tour we got a bit of background on coffee farming and some of the predominant cultivation practices in Colombia. There seems to be a pretty strong division between the younger, more educated producers who are vying for the organic artisanal market, and older campesinos who are part of a larger coffee cooperative (monopoly?) owned by Juan Valdez. It's something we still want to learn more about, but our motivation to do much research has been trumped by the necessity of last minute travel plans and terrible internet connections. After our tour and getting settled in we took a short hike to some waterfalls.
They would have been the perfect place for a swim had a heavy rain storm not descended on us right as we arrived. Incidentally, the rainy season is still very much happening.
The next day, we hiked from Filandia to another small town, Quimbaya, about 15 km. away. For the first 30 minutes or so, this little guy was our companion.
We both felt the pace of the hike afforded us an opportunity to glimpse life in this area that we would have missed traveling by any other mode. The wide variety of homes, schools, and farms all added nuance to our still very incomplete understanding of the region.
As we were leaving Filandia, our luck, which had been pretty solid up to that point, started to change. Because the hostel is outside the city, the only way to get back in is walk (1 hour) or take a taxi-jeep. However, the taxi-jeeps don't exactly run on a schedule and there's not a great way to predict when the next one is headed your way. We were advised to just start walking up the road, the understanding being that even if a jeep didn't come someone would probably pick us up. Wrong. We hiked for a solid hour, uphill, carrying all of our things and didn't see a single car! Once on the main road our prospects improved and we were finally able to flag down a jeep that took us to the main square where Matt, for the first time in his life, was stung by a bee while we tried to enjoy an overlook of the city.
Two bus rides and a taxi later, we found ourselves in Manizales, a city we had high hopes for. We planned to base ourselves out of the city for about five days, but after a series of disappointments (mostly related to everything we wanted to do being closed and/or prohibitively expensive), we shortened our trip to one full day, more or less fleeing to Bogota as soon as possible.
While Manizales fell way short of our expectations, we managed to have a pretty "fun" time at Recinto Pensamiento - a "nature park" a bit outside of the city. We needed an excuse to get outside our hostel and the park provided just that.
The park, we learned, is not suitable for individual wandering, instead you must join a two(ish) hour tour that takes you through all the highlights - the herb garden, humming bird sanctuary, Japanese garden, and orchid trail. In retrospect, it's probably good we had a guide, because left to our own devises we probably would have walked through it in about thirty minutes. Hands down the best/strangest part was the Japanese garden.
I can't tell you how surreal it is to see this view on one side:
Filandia was one of the highlights of our trip. We stayed outside the city in a small hostel where we were the only guests - it was definitely more like a room mate situation, which was only occasionally uncomfortable :) Our hostel:
Our resident sheep:
The next day, we hiked from Filandia to another small town, Quimbaya, about 15 km. away. For the first 30 minutes or so, this little guy was our companion.
The road there was incredible. As we walked we passed through coffee and banana farms, small communities, and several different micro-climates (we started at a fairly high altitude and then descended).
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| Coffee plants with banana trees providing shade. There are two main coffee harvests during the year, but bananas can be harvested year round so provide a much more sustainable source of income. |
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| We saw many of these signs as we walked through coffee fields. Most advertised public works projects. Note the Juan Valdez logo in the top right |
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| The view as we neared Qimbaya |
As we were leaving Filandia, our luck, which had been pretty solid up to that point, started to change. Because the hostel is outside the city, the only way to get back in is walk (1 hour) or take a taxi-jeep. However, the taxi-jeeps don't exactly run on a schedule and there's not a great way to predict when the next one is headed your way. We were advised to just start walking up the road, the understanding being that even if a jeep didn't come someone would probably pick us up. Wrong. We hiked for a solid hour, uphill, carrying all of our things and didn't see a single car! Once on the main road our prospects improved and we were finally able to flag down a jeep that took us to the main square where Matt, for the first time in his life, was stung by a bee while we tried to enjoy an overlook of the city.
Two bus rides and a taxi later, we found ourselves in Manizales, a city we had high hopes for. We planned to base ourselves out of the city for about five days, but after a series of disappointments (mostly related to everything we wanted to do being closed and/or prohibitively expensive), we shortened our trip to one full day, more or less fleeing to Bogota as soon as possible.
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| Matt, pre-walk, ready for adventure |
The park, we learned, is not suitable for individual wandering, instead you must join a two(ish) hour tour that takes you through all the highlights - the herb garden, humming bird sanctuary, Japanese garden, and orchid trail. In retrospect, it's probably good we had a guide, because left to our own devises we probably would have walked through it in about thirty minutes. Hands down the best/strangest part was the Japanese garden.
and cherry trees and bonsais on the other:
This is our guide (who was maybe 20?) explaining about the bonsai trees and yes, that is a palm bonsai and a bougainvillea bonsai. Did you notice the rain clouds in the background? We got rained on here too.
Highlight number two, the unexplained presence of an ostrich hanging out with the sheep.
What is that ostrich doing there? We never got a satisfactory answer. Arriving back in Manizales, we had the saddest meal of our entire trip at a food court in a mall near our hostel where we were treated to christmas decorations and children screaming.
After a day, we were so so happy to leave, even if that meant spending 10 hours on a bus to Bogota. (Which, spoiler alert, it did.)
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