20 de Junio - Armenia, La Zona Cafetera, Colombia
We arrived by bus from Medellin, jumped in a taxi, and headed to a Finca (coffee farm) in the heart of Colombia´s coffee growing region. Over the past 10 years coffee prices have gone down a lot with the introduction of cheaper coffee beans from Africa and Brazil, so La Zona Cafetera in Colombia has had to make the necessary adjustments. What was once all coffee ranches is now a patchwork of coffee, banana, bamboo, and green grazing pastures for cows and sheep. Fincas are the ranch houses that sit on the agricultural properties, and now many welcome tourists. Over the years since coffee has gone down in price, tourism has flourished in the area to supplant what has been lost in coffee related revenues. Therefore, most of these Fincas have swimming pools, restaurants, and all the amenities of upscale hotels. We made our base La Finca Bonito Alto, about 5 miles from the nearest town of Montenegro.Most of the tourists in La Zona Cafetera are Colombians from Bogota, Medellin and Cali trying to escape city life by heading to the rural part of the country. It is very family oriented, and most people drive or rent cars to get around if they fly there. The area is not really well set up for people like us who do not have cars. We figured this out our first night after we watched a spectacular sunset over the banana and coffee fields in our backyard. We decided to head out to find a restaurant and walked along the road in the direction of the nearest town. Everything is well spread out, so we walked for about an hour to get there, half the time in the dark. The task was a little more than we signed up for, but we decided that walking was better than flagging down a car. However, once we got there we had a very nice meal in a local restaurant. The owner gave us free dessert and coffee, would not accept any payment, and then found us a taxi to get us home.
The main attraction in the area is El Parque del Cafe, which is part museums about the coffee industry, part National Park, part coffee growing zone, and part amusement park. Again we headed off on foot to the Park, not far from our Finca. We kept noticing jeeps driving by with 12-15 people on them. They are the local form of transportation, and called "Willys" by the locals. Each one has three people up front, 6 in back, 3 on the roof, and 4 people standing on the rear bumper holding on. Everybody has a Willy in this area, they are definitely as important to the people here as a Ford or Chevy pickup is to those who live South of the Mason Dixon line back home. As we continued along the road past many coffee, banana and bamboo Fincas, a guy stopped and let us jump in the back of his Willy and he took us to the Coffee Park, again he would not accept any money, he just smiled and drove off.
The Coffee Park is a perfect place for a family vacation. It has all you need to keep a family happy. Lots of good walking around beautiful bamboo forests, expansive coffee fields, roller coasters, and a small town built in traditional stylings with restaurants and a guy dressed as Juan Valdez standing with three mules carrying coffee bags and posing for photos. The most interesting part were the museums. They have all the great coffee plantation owners of the past pictured on the walls in the museum, and it was funny how they all looked exactly like Juan Valdez. Each one wore the same style ranch hat, a lightweight poncho, and had a small mustache. The icon Juan Valdez is truly the exact replica of everyone that built the coffee industry here years ago.
As the day progressed we got sick of the tourists and amusement rides, so we went to look at the coffee plantations. Coffee is a beautiful plant. A mature plant stands at about 8 feet tall, with dark green leaves that are very shiny and reflective, and covered with beans, red ones are ripe, green are not yet. We were able to walk through the rows, pick beans, and get to understand the growing, harvesting, and roasting methods. We had one guide explain to us different roasting methods, and after her explanation she asked where we were from. When we told her the States she said, "Thank you for being the greatest consumers of coffee in the world." Colombian coffee is the most premium in the world, and Colombians are proud of this fact. It is very uncouth to drink coffee here with milk. The coffee is so smooth, silky and mild that it is always taken black and sometimes sweetened with sugar. It is insulting to put milk in it, milk is for Brazilian coffee, as the locals will point out.
That night we did not want to go on another long walk down the dark street for dinner, so we asked the owners of the Finca what we could do. They went ahead and ordered food for us, went to pick it up in their Willy, and drove it back for us to eat there by the pool. For dessert they harvested some mandarin oranges from their trees (the best we have ever had) and gave them to us. This is another place where we felt so incredibly safe, but noticed that the Finca employed a guard to walk the grounds at night with a slung shotgun. In Colombia it is easy to feel secure, but there are always reminders of days past when you see the armed guards that are everpresent. We couldn´t help but compare this area to wine country back home. It is rural and beautiful, with a slow pace of life, but also well developed for tourism.
posted by The Blaus @ 4:27 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home