Coffee pickin, mountain climbin, chiva ridin madness

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My next stop was in the lovely little town of Salento, an hour east of Armenia. The town is a typical pueblo paisa and full of colourful fronted houses around the main plaza and lots of people milling around with their ponchos on. I stayed in the Mountain House hostel which is in one of the nicest settings I have stayed in here, with lovely gardens and an annex down across a field with the best views from my dorm room.
From here I took a jeep with some others from the hostel to the Cocora valley famous for its wax palms, where I wanted to go horse riding. The others were all planning to walk so I was a little surprised to find that I was renting a horse but no guide and set off all on my own hoping that the horse knew the way. It was quite cool to be in charge of going where I wanted on my own horse until the horse started playing up by trying to turn back, then by taking me into a field full of cows, then when we reached the forest he tried half heartedly to throw me off but I pushed him on getting a bit nervous that he might get really angry soon but I thought I had better show him who's boss. We made our way up through the forest along a stream and I had to jump off at one point and drag the horse through at one of the crossing points when he refused to cross the water. I could see why he fancied turning back at the woods because the going was a bit steep in places and quite rocky but really beautiful although I was worrying more about ending up on my arse than the scenery. Finally the horse took me up to a little house and stopped dead at a fence where he obviously gets tied up with his head down waiting. Since I didn't have much choice in the matter I tied him up and walked up to a little house where hummingbirds were flitting around between feeders. They have a very disturbing habit of flying right up to you and hovering in front of your face checking you out, whizzing from side to side before shooting off again. I am never fast enough with my camera though to capture one of these flybys.
After that we passed the others slogging up a steep hill with me sitting on my horse feeling guilty as he did all the slogging (all though it served him right for taking the mickey with me), and emerged at another house surrounded in misty clouds with bits or mountains peeping through.
After that it would have been a flat out canter all the way back down a track to where we had started from if Mr. Ed had got his way and then he finally got rid of this big lump on his back who had been bugging him for the last few hours and I got to rest my wobbly legs until the others turned up and we caught the jeep back. Spectacular scenery but next time I think I'll walk in order to appreciate it better.
The next day I went to visit two coffee farms which were close to the hostel. I wasn't too sure I wanted another tour but the farms turned out to be at the end of a beautiful walk and I had a great afternoon. The first one run by Don Elias was a small family business and he took me through the very simple process of picking, skinning and drying before he sells the beans to a local cooperative. Then he showed me how he roasts them in a cast iron saucepan before we sat down to a freshly ground and brewed cuppa. I chatted with him about weather or not I though he could learn to use the internet at his age while a brief thunderstorm passed before heading off to the next farm. The next one was a much bigger operation with fields and fields of neat rows of coffee bushes and big vats for skinning and drying the beans. It was set in beautiful surroundings and had hotel rooms in the house looking out over the river valley. I got a lift on someones motorbike on the way back past a lovely campsite down in the valley and little colorfully painted houses, then another lift whilst waiting for the bus which took me back to Salento and then I was off to Manizales on the bus.
I didn't intend to stay long in Manizales, the purpose of the visit was just to take a tour to the Nevado de Ruiz, a snow capped volcano, just to see if everybodys claim that Colombia really does have every type of climate was true.
Having got rid of all my warm hats, gloves and warm shoes on arrival in Colombia thinking that I wouldn't be seeing anymore mountains from now on left me a bit chilly at that altitude but it was a fantastic day out. The bus took us almost all the way up through rapidly changing vegetation dominated by a kind of stunted palm tree, until we were in the clouds and I was worried we wouldn't actually see any of the snow. The group was entirely made up of Colombians and again I was pleased to see just how many locals are traveling their own country. We lost a couple of people to the strains of the altitude but for those of us who made the hour long slog to the snow there were wet feet, lots of slipping and sliding, snowball fights and lots of photos taken before we headed back down to find that in the clouds now luckily below us it had been snowing and we drove down through a newly white landscape to a much needed soak in the hot springs below.
Before leaving Manizales I inquired where I could take one of the Chivas which are the traditional form of transport in Colombia. They used to be the only type of bus but are now only found in the rural countryside or painted up as tourist transport but I wanted to take a real one just once before I left the country.
On rocking up at the market there was only one bus leaving but it wasn't going to come back till the afternoon making it a 8 hour round trip. Eventually the driver said that there was another bus coming back down which would get me back earlier so I hopped on and sat there feeling a bit of a prat, the only person taking photos of the bus. We stopped just outside the city and picked up a whole load more people. Colombians are always very polite and helpful except when it comes to giving up and aisle seat on the bus. Instead of moving over if there is an empty seat by the window they just swing their legs over or at worst do nothing so you have to clamber over them almost sitting in their lap to get to the spare seat. The Chivas only have rows of long bench seats and there is only an entrance at one end so I waited eagerly to see how it would work, was the refusal to move over a modern vice or a city bred habit? It turns out not, everyone just gets in the bus and sits by the entrance, every successive person then has to clamber over and of course then sits just to their left so that if you want to get on a full bus you have to crawl over all the passengers to get a seat. If you then want to get off you have to clamber back over everyone again, only the first person to get on can get out without any struggling, but is it really worth all the bums in your face to hang on to that one seat???!!
Anyway, I had a great time on the bus trundling down a dirt road chatting away to a lady next to me as we passed the bamboo houses and four house villages. I still dont really have any idea where we were going, there didnt seem to be a town or village as a final destination, the bus just went to the Rio Claro and turned round to come back. The only place name I could understand was Bajo Arroyo and I got that off two barrels of milk which were loaded on along with all sorts of other cargo. I had worried about how I would get on the other chiva to go back as the lady I chatted to said there was no village to get off in and have coffee whilst waiting. I soon realised though that being a single track road we were just going to flag down the returning bus as it passed. So with the transfer completed, lots of waves goodbye and a confused look from the driver of my new bus, I got safely back to Manizales for the bus to Medellin with a big smile on my face and another goal achieved.

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