Coffee Lands of Colombia, Medellin & Bogota (1)

---

After the wedding, we commenced 3 weeks of travel through Colombia with a small group of the Australian contingent of wedding guests.

This part of the trip didn't get off to the smoothest of starts as there was torrential rain in Cartagena, which delayed our departure by a number of hours, and this then resulted in us missing our connection in Bogota. We spent the whole day waiting around in airports and didn't get to the farm we were staying at in the coffee lands until 1am the following morning! However, we were welcomed by our two maids when we arrived at the farm with a typical Colombian meal waiting, even at this late hour, which ensured we had a full stomach before going to bed, a nice end to an long and frustrating day.

The farm we were staying at was a gorgeous place in the country side, surrounded by plantations of platano (a typical food in Colombia that looks like a big green banana, and is prepared by frying it in oil or cooking it in the oven). The farm itself was made of a type of bamboo common to the region, and frequently used as a building material. We had rented out the whole farm for the eight of us for the time we were staying in the coffee lands. We had two maids looking after us during our stay, who prepared all our meals for us and were just lovely, all dressed up in their little maids outfits! As the maids could speak no english, everyone had plenty of fun practicing the little spanish they had, with plenty of hand gestures, to get their meaning across for ordering their breakfasts each morning. We had also hired a driver and minivan during our stay, and each day he would come and pick us up in the morning and take us to whatever activity we had organized for the day.

One of the days we went to the Cocora Valley, a national park about 2 hours from our farm. The national park was an amazing place, subtropical rain forest shrouded in mist, called cloud forests. The area is best known for the huge wax palms, Colombia's national emblem, which grows only in this area of the world. These palm trees grow more than 70 metres tall, and tower over the surrounding rain forest. We spent the day here first going for a 3 hour horse ride deep into the valley. As the area receives a huge amount of rain, the paths were super muddy and slippery, so we were glad to be on the back of the horses while they slogged through knee deep mud and across 7 river crossings. We finished our horse ride at a small guest house, where we had lunch, and got to admire some beautiful varieties of hummingbirds that were feeding at little feeder boxes placed around the house. After lunch the hard part of the trip started, with a 4 hour hike out of the valley. The first two hours of the hike was slogging our way up a steep muddy slope to the top of the valley. However once this was out of the way, we then cruised down the other side of the valley back to the little community where we were parked, taking in the majestic wax palms while the sun slowly set on the horizon. An awesome day!

Anecdote: We discovered during the trip that one of our close friends that came to the wedding and the subsequent trip to the coffee lands is petrified of frogs (some of you may know who I am talking about!). We found this out coincidently earlier in the year when giving her advice on potential things to do in Colombia, as part of her trip to the wedding. We were telling her about a 5 day jungle trek we did to the ruins of a pre-columbian city of the Tayronas, in the northern part of Colombia. We had written her an email calming some of her fears about how speaking Spanish wasn’t an issue, there were no security risks, etc. As an aside, we mentioned that when we had done the trek, we had seen what looked like a cane toad on the track, and had later researched this and found out cane toads had originated in Central / South America, before being introduced into Australia. Expecting a positive response from her after our email about travelling in Colombia, we were surprised (and amused) when her response completely ignored all the information we had given her, and only focused on the fact that if there was any remote chance of running into a frog on the trip, that there was absolutely no chance she was going to be doing it! It was at this point that I refrained from telling her that the world’s most toxic frog, the golden dart frog, is from a region in Colombia, in addition to hundreds of other types of frogs, and that there was a very good chance that she would be encountering some of them while in the Colombia. There ended up being a couple of anxious moments in the weeks she was with us, where we saw frogs inside some of the farms we stayed, and our little group had to keep this hush hush from her to prevent her immediately packing her bags!

On another day we went to a place called Park del Café, a type of amusement park. In addition to the many amusement rides, they also had a small coffee plantation, information on the coffee growing and harvesting processes, a botanical garden and even a 45 minute performance, with dancers wearing the typical costumes of the region, acting out some of the country’s rich coffee growing history. However the coolest thing we did while in the park were bumper boats! These were the equivalent of bumper cars, except on water. The “boats” were rubber tractor tubes with an outboard motor and seat mounted on in the middle of it. You then propelled yourself around a small lake using the motor, and crashing into other people! Awesome fun, except when you crashed head on into anyone else, a big splash of water would be created, so we all ended up completely soaked by the end of it; and then spent the next few hours drying off!

Another highlight from our time in this region was going to the grand final of the national Colombian soccer league, which was in Manizales, about 3 hours from our farm. It was a bit of a mission organizing tickets to go though; through a friend of our driver who then had to organize a few people to stand in the ticket sales line as there was a limit of 2 tickets per person, etc, etc. We ended up paying a premium for the tickets, but we were all stoked that we managed to get tickets! On the day of the final, we got there about an hour before the game started, and the ground was already pumping with more than 30,000 spectators crammed into the ground. The home team's colors were white, and almost the whole stadium was dressed in these colors in typical ponchos. There was only a thin band of yellow and brown in this sea of white where the opposing team’s fans were crowded together. We were thankful that we had chosen white to wear, as otherwise we would have been completely out of place; the only foreigners we could see in the whole ground, on top of in opposition colors would not have been good! The game was entertaining, but the crowd was much more so! Every third person had a trumpet / horn that they blew constantly throughout the game. There were also heaps of people banging away on drums. And then over the top of this were the various team chants and songs that were being sung by the crowd. The first goal was scored by the home team right on half time, and you could feel the entire concrete stadium moving as the home spectators celebrated, jumping and shouting with joy. Amazing to be in the middle of it all! The home team ended up winning 3 to 1, although you would never have known the opposition scored, except that the crowd went a little quieter. After the game we had to wait an extra half an hour in the ground before the police would let the home fans out, to give the opposition spectators a chance to leave. When we finally got out, we then had to duck and weave part of the way back to our minivan, to avoid the eggs and flour bombs that were been thrown around by the celebrating crowd!

Anecdote: My auntie developed a chest cold while we were in the coffee lands and so we gave her some vitamins to help boost her immune system and recover a bit quicker. One of the vitamins we gave her to take was an effervescent Berocca tablet, not realising she had never taken one of these before. The next thing we know my auntie is foaming at the mouth with this shocked look on her face, trying to tell us she thought there was something wrong. She had mistakenly placed the tablet directly into her mouth rather than dissolving it first in a glass of water!

From the coffee lands we headed on to Medellin, where we stayed at Patty's mum's farm, about 45 minutes from the city. Medellin is a city of about 3.5 million people, nestled in the bottom of a steep valley. Patty’s mum’s farm is on the escarpment above this valley, and has a gorgeous country house, with huge glass windows to enjoy the surrounding countryside. As Patty's mum is also a wonderful artist, she has the entire place decked out in her artwork and beautiful varied furniture and antiques from around the world. We spent a week in Medellin, celebrating Christmas on two of those days, one day with the entire Duque family (dad’s side of Patty’s family) at Patty's uncle's farm and then another day with the entire Llano family (mum’s side of the family) at Patty's mum's farm (where we were staying). The Duque Christmas party is always an entertaining affair, as they are a huge family and the uncles always organise caterers, music and entertainment. This time round there was also an impromptu break dancing performance by the partner of Patty’s sister and a few of the cousins (with one of the cousins ending up in the pool), and even a half hour card magic show by one of Patty’s younger cousins. The Llano Christmas celebrations are a much calmer affair, and also a little less overwhelming, as it is a much smaller family and you actually got the time to meet everyone and have a bit of a chat. Patty’s mum also organised a trio to play boleros (typical Colombian music) throughout the afternoon making it a very special day.

We also ventured into Medellin in our hire car on a number of the days. A highlight from one of these trips was going to an amazing lights display in the centre of the city. This spectacular lighting display has become a huge event at Christmas time, extending more than 3 kilometres along the bank of the Medellin river. It began many years ago in Medellin as a means of providing employment for the underprivileged people in the region, who make these amazing sculptures out of coloured LED lights. Each year a different theme is picked months before the event, and then the artists go to work to have their displays ready for the Christmas period. There are literally millions of lights formed as fountains, houses, religious icons and of course various Christmas decorations, and this year’s theme was Christmas fables so there were a lot of our favourite kids characters in display. We spent an evening walking along the river checking out all the different creations, and sampling different typical Colombian foods that we bought from the multitude of street vendors along the way.

Anecdote: One of Patty’s cousins is a chef and owns a restaurant in Medellin, called Mystique. He recently competed in an invitation only cooking competition in Europe, the first time a Colombian chef had ever competed at that level. We went to the restaurant one evening so everyone could experience his cooking, as it was amazing! We got the VIP table in front of the plating counter, where we could see the two chefs plating up each of the dishes. Ceviche, succulent beef cheeks, 24 hr slow cooked pork belly; everything on the menu was delicious! Definitely the best restaurant we have been to in Colombia, if not South America!

After Medellin, our final stop was Bogota, the capital city of Colombia, high up in the Andes mountain ranges (2600 metres above sea level) with more than 8 million inhabitants. We spent nearly a week here and thankfully had some of the best weather I think Bogota has ever seen, with beautiful sunshine every day, almost unheard of in this typically rainy part of the world. We did a heap of activities here, first with a half day bicycle tour of the historical centre of the city, which also included a brief ride past the red light district! We also took a cable car ride up Mount Monserrate, a vantage point high above the city which offered spectacular views of the city.

Probably the most interesting activity we did in Bogota was a trip to the Salt Cathedral in Zipaquira, a roman catholic church in a small town about an hour from Bogota. This cathedral has been built 200 metres under the ground, inside the tunnels of an old salt mine. All of the religious icons, ornaments and crosses have been hand carved out of the granite rock, including these 4 huge pillars that support the underground antechamber of the cathedral. We spent more than an hour and a half getting a tour through the tunnels and chambers, and the history explained to us. There was also a water mirror; a large, rectangular pool filled with only a 10cm layer of water. However the water was like glass, and the reflection of the roof of the cave gave this stunning illusion that you were looking into a deep rocky hole. The cathedral formed part of a theme park, and there was also a salt museum and a huge outdoor rock climbing wall which entertained us during the day.

A group of nine of us celebrated the arrival of the New Year in Bogota at a steak restaurant / bar called Andres Carne de Res (Andrew meat of beef), an iconic venue in the area. It has been super famous for over 20 years, not only for its meat, but for the amazing way the restaurant has been decorated. The restaurant is spread over about 1500 square metres, and has been extended a number of times over the years, creating bends and cubby holes, interspaced with tables and a number of dance floors. Now imagine thousands of art objects and knickknacks, everything from cheese graters to mannequins in lingerie, portraits of Jesus as a 1960s hippie, a man with a bullhorn herding restless children, squat candles smouldering in dark corners, noisemakers, chubby dolls, sparklers, Indian masks, flying skeletons and rustic iron wheels performing no obvious function, everywhere the eye can see. Add into this mix the restaurant staff decked out as angels, clowns, chickens, princes, deranged black punk rockers, and fortune tellers who parade through the place entertaining customers, and it's sensory overload. The restaurant normally holds up to 3000 customers, however for their first new years eve celebrations, they limited it to 800, which was great as it meant that everyone wasn’t crowded in like sardines. Our group was one of the first to arrive around 8pm on the night, and when Patty told the staff we were a group of foreigners, they graciously gave us a tour of the restaurant before the rest of the patrons arrived. Alcohol for the tables isn’t ordered by the glass, but by the bottle and so we initially ordered a bottle of aguardiente (the typical Colombian drink fire water) and a bottle of rum, before later in the night getting into the cocktails!

The restaurant also provided a “new years eve” party kit for each table, which had all the paraphernalia to complete a host of traditions to ensure that you had a happy, healthy and prosperous year ahead. This included yellow underwear (to be worn when welcoming in the new year), limes (to put juice on a note of money and keep in your wallet for the year, to bring you wealth), a little wooden suitcase (to take for a walk around the restaurant while thinking about places you to travel to, to succeed in your travel dreams), helium balloons with message cards (to write your wishes for the coming year, attach them to the helium balloon and release them into the sky), lentils and different types of grains (to fill your pockets to represent the 7 grains of abundance), and a whole heap of other things which everyone had fun doing over the night.

Anecdote: One of the competitions on the night, to win flights to America, was to be one of the first couples on to the dance floor wearing the yellow underwear that was handed out midway through the night. Heaps of couples raced on to the dance floor, wearing their yellow underwear over the top of their clothes, to try and claim the price. At this point, the judge told the punters that they could only win if the underwear was in contact with their skin with nothing else underneath them. Hearing this, two brave Colombian women in their mid 30’s were the first to immediately disrobe in front of the entire audience, as modestly as they possibly could, so that they were only wearing the yellow underwear, before then accepting their prize with one arm across their naked boobs! Very funny!

The night flew by, as there was always something new happening to entertain us, from an opera singer doing a half hour performance, to a 7 piece brass band playing regeton and typical new year music, to a fortune teller reading some of our fortunes. Everyone had an amazing night, with lots of dancing and celebrations, and also finishing up walking out of the restaurant with a bagful of souvenirs to remember the night.

---