ZONA CAFETERA (Manizales, Filandia, Salento). The Axis of Coffee. 73 068 Km
Shortly after Christmas it was time for us to give up our little apartment in Medellin and get back on the road for the last few weeks of our time in South America. Given the size of the country and the vast amount of things we still could see and do, we decided it was best to concentrate on one area and see it well without feeling like we were rushed or always on the move. So off to the Zona Cafetera we we went.
Manizales
The coffee tree nursery
Our first stop on the tour was Manizales. A relatively large city set among a vast array of hills filled with coffee plantations. Of course we had to start our tour of the Zona Cafetera with a trip to a coffee farm and take a tour of how it's done. The number of coffee farmers in the region starting to offer these tours have increased over recent years has increased as the owners have realised that tourists are keen to pay money to see the coffee process and it helps to balance out their income.
The tour we did at Hacienda Venecia was awesome. The first part was a history about coffee, it's growth, different plants, and how coffee functions in Colombia. We were told coffee is the second most traded commodity after oil and there can be up to 18 middle men between picker and drinker of coffee. Amazingly, Colombia has a coffee federation who have banded together all the coffee producers in Colombia (average coffee farm is less than 2 hectares but large ones are several hundred) to sell coffee as a co-operative. Furthermore, they successfully started a national coffee shop chain in Colombia which is required to pay back into the co-operative. This co-operative then distributes social funds including building of schools in rural areas and paying the teachers in those schools. I could go on for ages but least to see it was a very impressive set up, especially in a country like Colombia.
After the talk we got out into the farm to see the trees and the beans. From the fields we then went to the processing house where we shown the different quality of beans, how they get sorted, and how they are dried. Interestingly, the coffee co-operative sets minimum standards for coffee bean exportation to keep the quality high and the rejects beans are what stays in Colombia for general consumption.
Main house Hacienda Venecia
On the second day in Manizales we went on a tour to the Sierra Nevada mountains. An area of recent volcanic activity that thankfully has settled and allowing tours once again. The volcano itself goes up to 5000m and though you can do a hike to the 4800m mark, we opted for the bus tour.
As we went up and up from Manizales, we went through a region of parmour, which only exists in a small part of the world. The proximity to the equator has allowed plant life to exist at higher altitudes than you would normally expect and this has lead to an environment unlike any other.
Paramour
The pathway of the most recent ash activity
As we continued up we passed by the area of recent volcanic activity and then further up to get a view of the volcano. As you can see from the photo above, we didn't really get the volcano view we were hoping for. Getting a little chilly at 4500m in the clouds, the tour then headed back down for lunch and a stop off at a thermal pool.
Now we were staying a little out of Manizales towards some of the smaller communities. Partly because we wanted to escape the city and partly for the views. It also meant that there were some nice walks straight off the back of the property through jungle and coffee plantations towards rivers and waterfalls. So on New years day we headed to the local waterfall, with Cielo the hostel owners dog, and though we got pretty muddy on the way, the waterfall was totally worth it. And given we had it all to our self, a cheeky skinny dip was in order.
View from the hostel
Just up the hill from the hostel was another small area of town that looked over the valley. At this time of year it was also filled with lights, street foods, and carnival rides along the main street. The atmosphere up here was awesome with heaps of families out and about enjoying the nights offerings.
Filandia
From Manizales we headed to the small and quiet town of Filandia. The main reason for stopping here was to soak up some nature and do some small hikes.
Filandia from the town lookout
We filled in a couple of days here hiking through the local nature reserve where we saw howler monkeys, walking to the local river, and making our way to various looks outs that were spattered around town. We also started to see nativity scenes everywhere. it seems that there is a small obsession with them.
Northern lookout
Howler Monkeys
Look out tower
Nativity scene at lookout
Salento
Our final stop on the Cafetera tour was Salento. We came here to hike the Cocora Valley. Famous among Colombians and foreigners alike, this valley is filled with ancient palms that rise 60m into the air. The hike in the valley first takes you past farms, jungle rivers, up the mountain, and then down again past a large open area of palms. It turns out we were fortunate to see the palms as it is expected they will disappear in the next 15-20years. It turns out the palms we saw were sparred from logging because they don't produce good building wood and the area surrounding them that was logged then became land for cattle, which soon seeded grass into the area and stopped any new palms from growing.
Top of the hike
Wax palms
We spent the next couple of days doing some more hiking in the local area, visiting nature reserves and coffee farms, and generally relaxing. We figured one way to definitely get our relax on was to visit another hot spring. And this one had a massive waterfall to enjoy as well.
Unfortunately it was then time to leave the Zona Cafetera to return to Medellin for a couple of days for Claire to assist at a course for the volunteer work she was doing. With the return to Medellin it was suddenly very clear that our time in South America is coming to end soon.
73 068 Km (39714Km Flights, 9156Km Sailing, 23679Km Bus, 296km Hiking, 51Km Horse riding, 150Km Train, 12Km Bike)
