Adios Colombia, via a coffee plantation, thermal springs and the worlds most dangerous city (in c.1994!)

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Hi all. It´s our final day in Colombia :-(. Flight to Quito isn´t until this evening, so we thought we´d spend the morning updating the blog in another noisy, compact internet cafe. Olie has reverted back to surfing the sports websites, so I´m back on duty again....

11/08/11 - Took an Aires flight (Colombian Easy Jet style operation) from Cartagena to Medellin. Told to expect delays, but in reality it was pretty smooth and worth the savings. After a quick flight to Bogota we had to wait around for a few hours for connecting flight.. Events that spring to mind...sat next to the French U20 World Cup team in lounge, accidently walked down the ´wrong´staircase and got told we had to go through security all over again for this minor mistake (grrr) and ordered a pequeña Bogota Beer Company (BBC) cerveza and ended up with 2 over priced pints of heavy ale (not Emma´s cup of tea... I´m craving a cup of tea!). Flight to Medellin was only half an hour, but airport is an hour out of town. Bus, then taxi and eventually ended up at the Yellow House Hostel in southern Medellin. Owner very friendly, but it did feel like we were staying in his house rather than a hostel. He told us Medellin centre isn´t the safest place at night, so we ended up riding the public transport system that eve (better than it sounds!). Medellin has spent millions of dollars on its public transport, which includes a cable car line up to the mountain suburbs. Pretty cool views for just a 30p subway ticket. We then ventured over to the ´backpacker´suburb of El Poblado (Zona Rosa) to find dinner. To be honest it had a bit of a ´Brits abroad´feel (but with Brits substituted for Americans and students). After our rip off airport beer, we were not in the mood for paying over the odds for food, so after a few drinks, we headed back in the hope of finding a cheap eat nearer to the hostel. Big mistake! Nothing was open and we ended up with yet another disastrous meal. Take it from us, NEVER order a ´Carne´. We were desperate and the only food we could find was a street vendor selling what we thought were hot dogs. Hot dog was a minor detail in this grotesque concoction, On piled the relish, half a kilo of fried cheese, a bag of dried onion, another half kilo of bacon fat, more cheese, more relish and then ketchup for good measure. I felt sick just looking at it! A group of teenagers came up whilst this was going on and laughed at our appauled looks. One spoke English and said ´bet you weren´t expecting that´. I said we´d ordered a hot dog and he laughed and said, óh no, you´ve got a carne..good luck´. We couldn´t even attempt to eat it there and then, so took it back to the hostel (see photos of foil and what can only look like a pile of sick!) I think we ended up eating the soggy buried bread and chucked the rest,. Grim. Anyway, lesson finaly learnt...we´re trying not to be so stingy on dinner any more!

12/08/11 - Minibus up, down and round very windy mountain roads into the coffee region of Colombia. Destination: Manizales, which is the capital of this region and full of students (represent a quarter of population here). Absolutely stunning location, although the city itself doesn´t have particularly pretty buildings. It was a colonial city, but has been destroyed one too many times by earthquakes. The result is a collection of half finished looking buildings, but the city has a great atmosphere. We felt really safe here and it is one of the only places in Colombia where we´ve had better evenings then days. We set up home in Mountain House hostel, which was the first hostel to open in Manizales. It was really lovely, with comfy rooms, a big kitchen and dining area and helpful staff. Would recommend to anyone planning on staying in this town. That night we found a little sushi restaurant (student city!) and then took a taxi (after 4 attempts of asking...no taxi driver had heard of it!) to the nearby ´Tierra Viva´ thermal springs. Taxi driver was crazy and we weren´t entirely sure we were going to end up at the Thermal Springs. He was shouting in spanish at us the entire 20min journey..pointing out the Industrial Zone scrap yards (or bus graveyard) amongst other things. Anyway, we were relieved when we got there although he insisted on coming back for us. We said we didn´t know what time we wanted to go back, but he wouldnt let us get out. It felt like we were teenagers and were being told we needed to get back home by a certain time! We gave in and told him to come and get us in a couple of hours :-). The hot springs were amazing. Freezing mountain air, warm natural spring water and drinks served to you in the pool. There were a few Colombians chilling out, but it wasn´t particularly busy. A bizarre Friday night out.

13/08/11 - The main reason we´d come to Manizales was to visit a coffee plantation and to hike up Los Nevados Volcano (snow capped all year round). We tried to book onto a tour but were told that the volcano has recently been active and no-one was aloud up to the peak. Poor timing! We had a free day to fill, but it wasn´t meant to be. Everything we tried failed! We decided to go to an ecopark with various mammels (including Brazillian tapirs and Andean bears), but were told you needed special permission to get in (and we didnt know where to get the permission from!). So, we got into a taxi and tried to get into a local park with hiking trails and good views of the city. However, when we got there the taxi driver was stopped by the police and we realised a ´rock concert´was taking place so we weren´t allowed in. By this time we were pretty pissed off. 3 failed attempts. We ended up paying too much for the taxi driver to take us to the local city park. This kept us entertained for a few hours as there were a lot of activites going on (volley ball, tennis, football, swimming, motor cross racing), but I was full of a cold, so we made our way back to the hostel to dose up on Lemsip! That night we went to Chipre; the highest neighbourhood in Manizales. Fab views of the city and the national park. Lots of kite flying taking place at sunset. We went up ´Torres el ceilo´, a lookout tower/bar and then planted ourselves in a random bar to watch the Colombia v´s Mexico U20 quarter final. Great atmosphere (random Colombian swang from a beam on the ceiling when Colombia scored) , although in the end Colombia lost 3 -1. Also enjoyed a delicious steak dinner without a plantain in sight (to make up from the previous nights disaster!)

14/08/11 - Another day of failed trips! Just as were were about to get into a taxi to a Fruit farm, the hostel owner caught us and told us it was shut on a Sunday! Grrr. We ended up going quite a long way to another hot spring (near Santa Rosa), which although located in a beautiful setting, was completely overcrowded - you could barely fit in the pool! Santa Rosa town was probably better than the hot springs. We sampled the local ´chorizueos´sausages and wandered around the centre before taking the LONG bus journey back.

15/08/11 - Happy Birthday Sally! Hope you had a lovey day in the Spanish sunshine! We took a jeep (9 of us squashed in, resulting in crushed ribs!) to Hacienda Venecia, near Chinchina. The well reviewed coffee plantation didn´t disappoint. The setting was gorgeous...lush, green plantations as far as the eye could see. Upon arrival we were given a fresh cup of coffee and then sat down for an educational lesson on the history of coffee. We learnt that the origin of coffee was Ethiopia...Nat, have you visited a plantation?..the Dutch then smuggled it to Europe and it finally ended up in Latin America. Coffee has to grow within the tropics and there are 3 main types... Robusta, Natural Arabica and Washed Arabica. Colombia speacialises in washed Arabica (needs to be washed due to the humidity or it will rot) and the government are strict on the quality of the beans exported. The ´Juan Valdez´ logo (which also has a selected real life representative) confirms the certification of Colombian quality. We also learnt about coffee trading. London houses Robusta coffee trade, New York speacialises in Washed Arabica and Sao Paulo in Natural Arabica. Sorry to bore you with this, but we found it really intersting and it was lovely being taught by someone a) passionate and b) knowlegable about coffee. Ivan (the plantation manager) gave us this lesson. The plantation has been in his family for over 100 years. He was picking on us for being the only English people on the tour, but we later found out (when we invited him to play cards with us) that he had a soft spot for England as he´d been to school in the UK for 6 years. After the talk we watched coffee being roasted and tasted the difference between a good bean and a poor bean. We then did some ´smelling´ of various coffee aromas (chocolate and beef amongst others!) We then put our wellies on and did a tour of the plantation. Some areas are so steep! Pickers are migrant workers and in high season can pick up to 200kg/day, for only c.$40/day! The Manizales region is popular as they have 2 picking seasons (due to its location (relatively) close to the equator). Hacienda Venecia produces around 4,500, 70kg bags of coffee/yr. Colombia produces about 180,000 bags a year, so the plantation contributes a small, but significant proportion of Colombias export (esepcially when about 80% of the worlds washed Arabica coffee comes from Colombia). We tasted raw coffee beans, which have a very sweet pulp. We suggested that they should use this to make something rather than letting it go as a waste product, but Ivan assures us he would if he could! :-) After crossing a worm farm and being told that in Ecuador they pump worms full of flour and pass them off as mincemeat to be used in burgers (!!!!) we made our way back to the guesthouse for a delicious bean casserole lunch. We´d booked to stay the night at the guesthouse, so whilst the others caught the jeep back to Manizales, we relaxed by the pool :-). The staff abandoned us after dinner, so us 2, a Dutch high school guy (whose mum works in the coffee industry and had sent him off to Colombia to learn Spanish for 2 weeks) and 2 Canadian guys were left to entertain ourselves. We spent all eve helping ourselves to beers and exhausting all possible topics of converstaion! It was really good fun.

16/08/11 - Spent the morning reading and then went for a walk up the mountain but turned around after about an hour, when 2 dogs hiding within a supervisor picking station suddenly started chasing us! Running away from them, screaming, was probably the worst thing to do, but they got bored eventually and left us to it. Jeep back to Manizales and cooked dinner at the hostel. The coffee plantation tour was excellent...one of the best trips we´ve done so far. Thoroughly recommend to anyone planning a trip to Colombia.

17/08/11 - Caught a bus back to Medellin about 9am (4th different company!) as we needed to get back for the U20 World Cup semi final (5pm). Arrived with plently of time to spare. Prado 61 guesthouse is a lovely place to stay for the price...almost boutique hotel, but not quite Casa Sweety. Caught the subway to the stadium 1.5 hours early (not like us at all!) We hadn´t eaten, so stopped at a stall for an empenada and then casually made our way up to the stadium in search of the box office. Disaster struck...who knew you had to collect tickets from Colombias national supermarket?! Lets just say 2 hours later we made it into the stadium to see Portugal (not Brazil as we were expecting!) beat France 2-0. FIFA are getting a stroppy email from Olie as we speak as we were stupidly under the impression you collected tickets from the stadium.

18/08/11 - Final full day in Colombia was spent wandering around Medellin. Formerly the worlds most dangerous city, it now appears to be a great place for familes. City planners have prohibited new developments in central Medellin that don´t include public art, so the city is full of bizarre sculptures, contemporary architecture, fountains and parks. Highlights include the interactive museum near to the main university and Plazoleta de las Esculturas (Botero is a Medellin born artist and has numerous rounded sculptures of generally naked, overweight men and women. Olie loved it and made me take far too many pictures of him with the beasts). Another cool area was Parque de las Luces...concrete plaza dotted with about 300 thin, concrete pins that light up at night.. Great city and probably warrents more time than we´ve given it..

Anyway, sorry this blog is pretty dry. Not many comedy moments this week (which is why Olie has refused to contribute!) Hope everyone is ok...email us your news. Olie´s email account has gone crazy and wont let him log in, so send any emails to [e-mail]. Speak to you from Ecuador xxx

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