Good coffee is a pleasure that when shared with good friends transforms it into a treasure!
While we aren't huge coffee drinkers, we still enjoy an occasional cup of caffeinated happiness. This cup of café seems to reach a higher level of joy when we find ourselves back in Colombia sharing a cup with friends. The artistic designs and rich aromas makes Colombian coffee a national treasure ... as well it should be!
Colombia is the third highest producer of coffee in the world ... only Brazil and Vietnam produce more pounds of this important morning octane. The majority of their mild, well-balanced Arabica beans are grown in a small mountainous region known as the Eje Cafetero or coffee axis of Colombia. Three cities, Pereira, Manizales, and Armenia, form the Coffee Triangle, an important agricultural as well as tourist area of Colombia.
Just south of Medellin, coffee plants start to populate the Andean mountainside. Small coffee fincas (farms), colorful pueblos (villages), and other hidden treasures await the many visitors who journey to this UNESCO World Heritage area every year. Through the years, many of our Colombian friends have encouraged us to visit this picturesque region. The question remained ... is our Spanish finally adequate enough to explore a new and unfamiliar area?? We will never know for sure unless we try, so ...
Eje Cafetero, here we come!
We could have paid a little more to fly into one of the major coffee region cities and would been at our destination within an hour. But who's in a hurry? For the cost of a $30 bus ticket, we could ''enjoy'' six+ hours of beautiful landscape ...
... as well as plenty of narrow roads, hair-pin turns, and traffic jams.
Was our decision to take the bus the best choice?? Well, we found that the bus had a smooth and quiet ride. Seats were comfy and there is a bathroom on board. On our way there, we were able to travel in a double-decker bus, and our upper deck front row seats gave us a primo view of the road and countryside ... which had its good and not-so-good moments. Watching fearless motorcycle drivers dot in and out of the lanes of the oncoming traffic as we approached hair-pin turns became our ''entertainment'' for the day.
During our trip, the bus made one stop at a large roadside restaurant so that we could get out to stretch and get something to eat, which in hindsight, we should have taken better advantage of. Traffic and construction delays turned the scheduled six hour ride into nine hours, and at least one of us was a bit ''hangry'' when we finally reached our new Airbnb destination.
Due to construction and traffic issues, taking the bus ended up being a long journey. But sometimes we need to follow the advice of Ralph Waldo Emerson ...
Adopt the pace of nature ...
Her secret is patience.
From what we have experienced, this also seems to be the beautiful philosophy of our fellow Colombians, and we learned to embrace it during our time in Eje Cafetero!
Our slow, two week journey through Eje Cafetero would lead us to the land of ...
... beautiful flores alongside magestic cascadas,
... stately Palmas de Cera,
... rugged Willy jeeps,
... rich semillas de café,
... and possibly, a ''Juan Valdez'' sighting!
I am sure that Doug's Spanish is ''suficiente'' to lead us on some amazing Eje Cafetero experiences,
... he may just need a poncho and sombrero to convince everyone that he is a true Colombian Caballero!
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