Coffee tour begins!!

Trip Start Jul 22, 2008

Trip End Jun 20, 2009

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Flag of Colombia Armenia, Colombia
Friday, June 5, 2009

So my long awaited tour of the coffee region of Colombia has finally begun! I arrived here on Monday after an 8 hour bus ride through the mountains from Bogota, which was actually very pleasant and passed quickly. Spectacular scenery. Busing it is definitely the way to get around here, you can't see any of this stuff from a plane - well you can but it's not as nice. Andrea's niece very kindly put me up for the night while I was waiting for Isaure and Alexandra to arrive. Picked them up at the airport on Tuesday and we went to our first port of call, this beautiful hotel in the middle of the countryside called Mirador Las Palmas. At around 200,000 pesos per night it's pricey for Colombia but when you divvy it up between 3 it works out at 20 quid each for the night, not bad for a luxury place. They have an infinity pool overlooking panoramic views of the fincas and mountains which is just absolutely breath-taking. Plus it's low season right now and there was no-one else there so they waited on us hand and foot - not a bad way to start the holiday

On the road to nowhere...

! We spent the day and night relaxing there before heading on.
    Yesterday we did the Parque Nacional de Caf�, an entire park dedicated to all things coffee (with an attraction park for the kiddies). There's a museum, an eco-walk which shows how they produce the coffee among a forest of coffee plants, cultural shows and cable car rides. We spent almost the entire day there without realising it! In the evening we headed back to Armenia to spend the night and managed to bargain the price down in a decent hotel for the night (you gotta love low season!)
    Today we went to some botannical gardens out in the countryside and had a great time in the butterfly house. I had 3 big owl butterflies (I think that's what they were called anyway) on my hand at one point, all with their weird tongues out trying to suck at my skin. They must have needles or something on their tongues because it felt like they were pricking me. Then I couldn't get them off and freaked out a little bit before Alex came along and batted them away!
    We went to a lovely little restuarant by the roadside for lunch and had a local chicken dish, and the owner was even nice enough to give us a lift back to the bus station!
    After doing another quick spin of Armenia and looking in some of the Artesan shops, we were off to our next destination, the village of Salento (where I am now, writing this from the world's smallest internet cafe)
It was dark when we got here but the village looks fantastic, old colonial houses painted up in all different colours. I bet it'll look fabulous tomorrow. We ate the regional dish of trout, which they sell almost exclusively in every restaurant...fried trout, grilled trout, trout with garlic...you get the idea, I'm going to be eating a lot of trout this week.
Tomorrow we're planning to go hiking in the famed "Valle de Cocora" to take in the fresh country air and eat - you guessed it- trout!
Photos coming soon I promise!

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Hammocks on the roundabout??	Hotel Mirador las Palmas	Me at the hotel...fantastic, isn't it??	View from the hotel
Lunch...you guessed it...trout!	Chillin in a hammock	Me and Isa in the pool	Alex
The hotel's extensive property	Coffee beans growing!	Unusual flowers	Unusual flowers
Unusual flowers	Avocados growing on trees	Picking the avocado!	Trying to eat it
The kids who live at the finca (farm)	View from Parque Nacional de Cafe	Isa and Alex at the viewpoint	Parque Nacional de Cafe
Parque Nacional de Cafe	Me and a willy	On the ecowalk, surrounded by coffee plants	On the ecowalk
Coffee (it's not ready yet though!)	Giant bamboo	On the little train round the park	Old school fire engines
On the cable cars	Butterfly sanctuary at the botannical gardens	At the botannical gardens	Unusual flower
Butterflies!	Butterflies!	Butterflies!	Butterflies!
Typical paisa dish	At the gold museum in Armenia	Demonstrations in Armenia's main square