Hotel y Centro de Convenciones Las Gaviotas Armenia

... our freshly brewed coffee and requested a pre-dinner soak (it would be rude not to, surely?).<br><br>Coffee was first introduced to Colombia in the early 1800s and has flourished ever since, becoming massively important to the Colombian economy. Because we were staying on a working coffee hacienda we were able to see first hand the process that transforms red berry to coffee goodness. Between bouts in the pool, eating Marthas huge meals, walks around the area ...

... and the sun started to shine. We headed off into the jungle. <br><br>We took a long leisurely walk down the road, East of town, and through the jungle. It was absolutely magical. Devin and I sometimes have to pinch ourselves to remember how lucky we are to be living this waking dream. We took several pictures but, as always, the pictures never do the scene justice. We will just have to remember that afternoon and it´s magic forever in our hearts.<br><br>

... onto the roof and rode with the bags and one other guy.<br><br>When we got back into Solento we went to a place called Lucies which served up one of the best Menu Corrinete&#8217;s we have had on our trip for $6mil pesos. We found a place that sold a good poncho, my present for father&#8217;s day. We went back to the hostel, we were planning to leave early tomorrow, so we needed to pack. Later we went for our last coffee at Jesus Martinez café before returning to slumber.

... I would prefer not to share our most intimate moments, or most unsavory habits, or indeed listen to others as we did on some occasions. Well I guess that&#8217;s hostels for you. We waltzed into town for a quick look around. The plaza was extremely busy with portable eating kiosks everywhere. We grabbed some Patacon, which was a bit like a pizza, very tasty so we went back for more. The square was very busy with many locals out strolling, it was Saturday night after all ...

... trucks need to go slowly in order to save their brakes. This leads to risks, risks taken by some of the faster and slimmer trucks, lorries, buses and cars as they try to slip in and out of the procession. Quite often the risks are taken on complete hairpins when it is only your faith that stops you participating in a head on. I have noticed on this trip that I am steadily becoming more religious and I find churches much more interesting than I have in the past ...

... i will stay here, maybe another day or so. tomorrow i want to go see a typical coffee farm and see the whole process, and drink a cup of coffee at the end. <br><br>lastnight the owner of the hostal and i went out for a beer, and he took me to a typical little bar here in the town. it was a billiards place, filled with old guys playing billiards, and all listening to tango. in this part of colombia it is more common to hear tango or ranchero music which is also really ...

... para el Estudui del Bambu - Guadua", to have a guide and learn about this useful type of tree we paid $6,000 per person, around US$3.00... This place is very nice, people really use the bamboo or guadua a lot, they create lamps, build houses with it, musical instruments, curtains, etc. After we finish with this interesting place we walked for almost two hours to a little town call Cordoba, later on I red that in that town exist nice water falls.

... villages of Filandia and Salento (see photo above), picture postcard type villages with lovely colonial style buildings, and bright colours. Further on from Salento we visited Valle De Cocora, a beautiful valley famous for its trout and enormous wax palm trees, the national tree of Colombia. These beautiful trees rise from the ground through the clouds that shroud the valley and up above them to ...

... went like this.. couple leave, guy at reception makes a phone call to the next lot saying the room is ready, strips the bed and remakes with 'clean' sheets and sprays some sort of deodoris**, next couple come in and so on. Turns out the place is frequented by couples, lov**s and prostitutes. Anniek and I couldn't stop giggling, wond**ing how the hell we ended up h**e and what was G**ry thinking off**ing this recommendation.

... see the coffee plants and they have people to show and tell you how the coffee is grown and what happens to it after it is picked. Our Spanish is improving because we understood more or less everything that the people were telling us and that is a far cry from when we went out for the day with Ellie and Kev in Madrid and we had a tour in Spanish and understood nothing!!!! We had a few coffees, of course and also went on the roller coaster and log flume ( I got soaked ) and we ...