Manizales and the Eje Cafetera - Sep 29, 2009

WoooHoo! Coffee time!A not so quick trip from Cali got us to Manizales in about 8 hours. When we got there we weren´t really prepared or anything. We got the cab driver to take us to the only hostel listed in the Lonely Planet guide book. Which turned out to be full...so we had them inform us where the new one was located two blocks away.Our general lack of organization lead us to inquire at the hostel about how to take a tour at a nearby coffee plantation. How can you come to Colombia without seeing where the best coffee in the world come from? Apparently you can go to a sort of Coffee theme park, which we opted not to see. Instead we went to a real working plantation. We had to take a bus to the small town of Chinchina....it´s full of Chinese people(just kidding)....and from there take a bus to an even smaller town of Guayabal. A kind lady we met on the bus to Chinchina guided us to the second bus as well as offered for us to stay in her home in Manizales and take us site seeing. She is a great example of just how friendly Colombians can be.We lucked out and met the operators of the hacienda we were going to who kindly gave us a lift the rest of the way. Otherwise it felt a bit strange wandering around in the Colombian country side where only about 10 years before the FARC were running around disrupting everyone´s lives. I´m not really a big fan of coffee, but I sure did learn alot about it. And it was really interesting.They took us to see how the coffee is planted and germinated in sand in little outdoor greenhouses. How the plants are selected...they have to have a perfectly straight root, otherwise it is known as a Macho plant i.e. it doesn´t bear much fruit. Then they plant it. Every 7 years they have to cut it down so it has only the two main branches left.You can do this for a total of 28 years and then the plant is finished.They are quite delicate and can´t really be disturbed otherwise it does quite alot of damage. They remove the pulp and clean the seeds using some machinery unique to the coffee industry. The pulp is saved and used to fertilize the fields. The pulp is decomposed by California redworms....it takes about a year for them to complete the process. Apparently they recycle the worms too.....by turning them into wormburgers for the discerning palate of the public.And they are expensive! Brad tried one. The worst quality of coffee consists of the beans full of some kind of drill beetles and the beans that got too dried out in the sun. They are separated from the good quality of coffee by the simple method of flotation...the bad beans float. They are kept for the consumption of the Colombians themselves. The best quality beans are exported....to us. And the poor guys who pick the coffee beans and carry 30kg around their waists and 50kg in the bag they transfer them to.... well, they just work just to be able to eat in low season. And when times are good they save their money just to blow it on getting drunk on the weekends. They dry the coffee to 9-12% moisture content and ship it to coffee cooperatives who remove the outer husks of the seeds and sell it back to the coffee farmers to use as fuel for their kilns. And ship the coffee around the world, where it is roasted on location by the various suppliers. We learned that roasted coffee absorbs anything... so if you sat it next to some fish that is what it would taste like. They use it to deodorize their fridges here in fact. We also learned that it is better to freshly grind your coffee rather than buy it pre-ground. Pre-ground coffee only retains its quality for about a week once the package is opened. And it should foam when you pour hot water on it. See....we´re experts now! And we have a certificate to prove it! We finished our tour with a delicious typical Colombian meal. We shared our meal with a guy from Germany. We have probably met more Germans on our travels than any other country so far. Though we've been told that it is frowned upon in Germany to take extended leaves of absence from work. (Hi Hans!) The chances of getting my job back don't sound too great. Anyway, we managed to get back to our hostel in time to book a trip to climb up a dormant? volcano (Nevado del Ruiz) the next day. We left early in the morning and drove for about 2hrs up into the mountains over increasingly rough roads that I wasn't sure our tiny little Korean van could handle. But we got to the park entrance safe and sound. We were given an introduction from the park staff to the area that I mostly understood. Then, another 1/2hr drive over a moonscape to where we would begin the climb. At this point we were at about 4600m. The climb wasn't very long, but at that altitude, just walking is a bit tough. Luckily, this time we were both healthy (not sick) and felt we could do it without getting altitude sickness. Though this was a dormant volcano, it did erupt in 1986 and the resulting mud and lava flows killed about 23,000 people. It also smelled a bit sulfury. However, we were assured that the volcano is continuously monitored and was not a danger at present. We began our climb with a guide and about 6 of us climbers. Shortly into the climb, one lady decided it was too difficult. The rest of us continued on, stopping frequently to drink a bit of water and regain our breaths. Though we had been at a fairly high altitude for several days, it was surprisingly difficult. After only a few minutes, a rest was necessary. In this way, it took about an hour to climb about 500m. But we all got to the top, well as far as we could go, they don't let people go to the very top without permission. At this point we were at 5125m, which I was happy about, because I wanted to go over 5000m. It was a bit cool up there as expected, but the Colombians and Germans in our group though it was very cold. There was even a small glacier up there. It was more like crystally snow. But it was fun to see the Colombians react as they had never seen snow before. A large group of teenagers on a school trip followed us up and had a great time playing in the snow. Though none of them seemed to be able to make a good snowball, so I had fun throwing them at everyone, with little worry about return fire. We walked back down, back into the van and had a stop at a hot springs resort where we had lunch and a dip in the pool. Then, back to Manizales safe and sound.