17 August 2009
The Columbian buses are great, except for the movies shown at high volume (I've seen the first half of “the bank job” three times). What a scenic trip from Bogota to Armenia, in the Coffee district! The highway leads us over a mountain of 3300 meters! The buses here manage an average speed of about 40 km/h. On the uphill roads, we're sometimes stuck behind trucks which do not go faster than 10 or 20 km/h – and there is no fast lane. The slow traffic has some advantages for the kids from the mountain villages. On their bicycles, they just hang on to a truck and let it pull them up the mountain.
We break up our trip in Calarcá, where we stay in the most relaxing hotel: Hacienda Combia. There's a great pool, and views over the countryside. The hotel has six resident parrots which make a real racket in the morning, whistling and laughing. The hotel is part of a 34 ha coffee plantation. We get a great tour of the grounds and see the production process. We learn that there are three general degrees of quality: first class beans, second class beans, and the residual material like peel and very small beans. To my disappointment, the very best quality is reserved for export and shipped to the US and Europe. We now know what the super cheap street coffee Gaudi insists on drinking every day is made of... |
| Hacienda Combia, Calarca |
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