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Published: March 3rd 2015
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There are so many wonderful things that we love about Colombia and the Coffee Region is one of them. In this post, you're going to learn more about our experience in 'La Zone Cafetera', a few random facts and (hopefully!) by the time you've finished reading this blog post, you'll be full of beans and buzzing with enthusiasm to visit the coffee region for yourself!
What is the Coffee Region
What I am calling the Coffee Region, is referred to as a few different things: La Zona Cafeteria, The Colombian Coffee Growing Axis, Eje Cafetero, Colombia's Coffee Triangle, and possibly more variances than I've listed too. In essence, it's a rural area of Colombia containing three departmentos (counties): Caldas, QuindÃo and Risaralda which occupy over 5,0000 square miles. The population of over 2,000,000 are spread throughout the region which is segmented around the three major cities of Armenia, Pereira and Manizales (You can find out more about Manizales, including the U20 Soccer World Cup of 2011 in our previous blog post). Due to the climate, topography and all the right ingredients, it's a perfect place to grow coffee.
Why did we visit the Coffee Region?
As may have learnt
from my previous blog posts, Colombia holds a very special place in our hearts since it was the destination and culture that was the impetus for our big trip in 2010-2011, which took us from India through South America (via London and Tampa) and finally back to Colombia. We wanted to spend the most time of our trip in this beautiful country, experiencing as much of it as possible including coffee. My wife has turned me into 'a cup a day' drinker too, so we had to check it out. When you think about Colombia, one of the first things most people think about is coffee. Ok, a LOT of people will still think about the other export that starts with a 'C and ends with an 'e', but coffee is still synonymous with Colombia. Actually, I was interested to find out just what Colombia's official top exports were:
Top Colombian Exports to The World (http://www.worldsrichestcountries.com/top_colombia_exports.html)
1. Oil: $39.3 billion - 67%!<(MISSING)br>
2. Gems, Precious Metals, Coins: $2.5 billion - 4%!<(MISSING)br>
3. Coffee, Tea & Spices: $1.9 billion -3%!<(MISSING)br>
Getting There
Sarah and I were coming from Medellin by bus, which takes about eight hours of
windy roads through the mountains. As we did more often than not on a long journey, we took the overnight bus because it essentially saved us time and money - you sleep at night when you are getting there, it saves the cost of a hotel and you wake up with a full day of adventure and activity ahead. It's probably not for everyone and it took a couple of goes, but it worked out well for us. After our night ride, we woke up in Manizales.
A friend of ours from Medellin had recommended staying on a Finca in Manizales. He described it as a wonderful and relaxing experience on a Colombian Ranch. So we spent our first couple of days at a small Finca right outside of town (I wish I could remember the name!). The finca experience proved to be as our friend advised...it was very relaxed and felt like a retreat in some respects. Our time in Medellin was mixed with working hard and playing even harder, so the chilled out atmosphere at the Finca was nice. We got to walk around the beautiful property, eat an abundance of fresh fruit and see how coffee
was harvested.
How to harvest coffee
While we we there
Politics play a huge role in South America. If you haven't already, check out blog post on getting across lake Titicaca when a political situation closed ground transport between Bolivia and Peru. My wife and I had an excellent adventure involving international bribery, and stealth boating across borders! Getting back to Manizales though - there was a 'water shortage' while we were there right before local elections (which may have meant that the party in power were controlling it now to be the heroes and bring it back to the people right on time to be voted back in). You'll notice a picture of crowds of people lined up in the Manizales town square, waiting to fill up on water. Apparently, this sort of thing was not uncommon and while we all can have something complain about, there is something to be said about having potable water on hand.
While travelling in Asia and South America, my wife was always keen to spend time looking at jewelry and handicrafts. It took me a while to get into it and while I may not ever share the same
interest as Sarah in the things themselves, I do enjoy the story behind them. As we moved around, she connected with artisans in different places and in Manizales she met quite a few. One of favorite artisans was a contemporary designer called Humberto who crafted a jewelry brand called Lleno de Alegria (Full of Happiness). He epitomized his brand and was such a nice guy. Sarah loved his jewelry, which was really beautiful. More than that I loved the fact that the precious rocks contained in most for the jewelry was recovered in the local area by Humberto's family and then he would pour his joy and his gratitude into his art and jewelry pieces. To find out more about the handmade crafts that we discovered on out trip, please head over to The Native Source dot com.
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