Last nights meal was rice with meat washed down with beer and this mornings breakfast started with potato and meat broth followed by rice and meat washed down with cafe. The road continued to climb and wind its way to an elevation of 12650 feet; our first glimpse of the grandeur of the Andes. The scenery is staggeringly beautiful while the cities Manizales and Pereiria are ugly due to numerous earthquakes which destroyed their original architecture. We were slowed down sufficiently by the numerous road reconstruction efforts that we were better able to enjoy the sweeping vistas of cafe fincas and villages. The villages show that the people are poor but they decorate their very basic homes with gardens and potted flowers. Garden centers, called viveros are very common and large crops provide potted flowers and plants for export. Regular gas price is about $3.50 U.S. and super about $ 4.30 U.S. in cities; gas seems cheaper in the countryside. There are fewer SUV's here and most cars are gas powered. Renault dominates the car market and Toyota as usual dominates the truck market. There are a lot of the old Renault 5's and 12's at least 30 years old. Most taxi's are long wheel base Jeeps with sideways bench seats. It rained heavily today but only for a short while; the official rainy season is finished here. We were off the road about 4 o'clock and settled into a small family run hotel at the edge of Armenia. Gillie enjoyed meeting the owners miniature Pincher. Armenia is the bottom end of the coffee growing area. It was very interesting to see the coffee plants growing on the mountainsides interspersed with banana trees.
Armenia Hotels
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