El Eje Cafetero – Your next vacation

This past weekend we went on a mini-vacation to coffee country here in Colombia. It was an amazing experience. We are going to break it up into a few different posts. First, we will set the scene. The area called “el eje cafetero” and is located in the Quindio department (state). The capital of Quindio is Armenia which is where we landed. Armenia is pretty much due west of Bogotá (8355 feet) on the central cordillera (mountain range) but it is considerably lower in altitude (4865 feet). It is much more tropical. The temperatures are always between 65˚F and 80˚F. It really is the perfect climate! It is the major area for coffee production in Colombia. The climate is perfect for coffee since coffee is a sensitive plant and cannot have it too hot or too cold nor too dry or too wet. The area was highly dependent on the coffee harvest so when coffee prices fell in 2002 and an earthquake followed soon after the area was devastated economically. They seem to be diversifying into plantain production and eco-tourism.

The first day

We left Bogotá at about 6:15 a.m. on Saturday and arrived in Armenia at 7:00 a.m. The plane ride was basically up over the central cordillera and then down. The airline still gave us a little breakfast! They gave us a ham and cheese sandwich (very common in Colombia). We did not receive our sandwich until we were descending since we were in one of the last rows.

We had hired a driver for the weekend and he picked us up at the airport. An interesting side note at this juncture, we did not even bring car seats with us. I am usually fastidious about the kids ALWAYS riding in car seats but I was sure that the van we had hired would not have seatbelts (which it did not) so we did not even bother taking them. Below is a picture of us on the last day of our trip, me holding BLP and AJP spread out on the seat.

Finca Hotel El Bosque del Samán

Our driver took us directly to our hotel where we ate breakfast and checked-in. Our hotel was part of an active coffee plantation. The room was a simple but good sized with tile floors, three beds and a bathroom. The views were spectacular. Everything was incredibly green, a deep kelly green, with bright splashes of color from the many flowers. Outside of our room was a pool and jacuzzi. The barn with horses, donkey, cows, bunnies and chickens was right behind the building where our room was located.

Parque Nacional del Café

The main attraction for the day was the National Coffee Park (Parque Nacional del Café). It was an incredible Disney-type park but on a much smaller scale. There was a tram, log ride, roller coaster, train, ecological walks and a show that featured the history of coffee in Colombia. The incredible part is that all of these things were surrounded by palm trees and guadua (a species of bamboo) forests.

We all had different favorite and not so favorite parts of the Coffee Park. AJP’s favorite part was the ride, “Red Barron”. In this ride, he got in a plane and he circled around moving the plane up and down. BLP’s favorite part was the carrousel. She definitely was not a fan of the log ride! She got drenched. This log ride even had two drops so she got double the wetness! Although TSP liked most things, her favorite was the tram. The views were incredible. She also liked the ecological walks because there were flowers everywhere that she had never seen before. She thinks that this part of Colombia is one of the most incredibly beautiful in the world. JTP’s favorite was the show that talked about the history of coffee in Colombia and the different regions of the country. This gave us an appreciation of Colombian agriculture and of the different regions of the country.