I am approaching day 9 here in Manizales, a medium sized city right in the heart of Colombia’s booming coffee region. But i’m not going to talk about coffee much this time. Rather, the 7 day Feria de Manizales that ended a few days ago. So choo choo, lets begin!

Many days begin with a cup of Juan Valdez coffee. Juan Valdez is like the Starbucks of Colombia, except it actually a coop owned by a union of coffee farmers.

These are some friends. Monica from Colombia, Jordi from Italy, and Diego from Buenos Aires.

The four of us hung out at Monica’s apartment my first night while Jordi cooked us one of his native pasta dishes, consisting of pasta with a vegetable based sauce of condensed milk, onions, peppers, carrots, mushrooms, etc.

Afterwards, the four of walked down the street for an electronic concert in the park. A quick observation is that this city is filled with soooooooooo many teenagers. Its ridiculous. Going out to discotecas or bars at night means hanging out with 15-17 year olds. The concert ended at 11 PM, just in time for the teenagers to get to bed.

Another day I was befriended by a Colombian couple from Bogotá.

They own a company that rents out musical equipment for concerts all throughout Colombia. They were here in Manizales to rent their equipment for huge sold out Marc Anthony stadium concert.

After chatting for a bit, they invited me and an Australian girl to come watch them setup for the concert the following night.

After an hour or so of wandering around the stadium, we walk directly outside to watch a car race around the stadium.

We met up again for dinner with a bunch of Colombians also staying at the hostel. This week has definitely been about practicing Spanish. My ability has definitely regressed from last year. My theory is that as I learned more complicated grammar is takes me more time to process what I want to say since I have a wider range of information to use.

By the way, I ate a pretty good chicken shwarma.

Walking back to the hostel revealed a very authentic looking US Army vehicle.

Wandering outside the hostel is a giant parade complete with beautiful Cristal Aguardiente (Anise flavored alcohol) girls dancing in a truck.

It is perfectly normal for Colombian soldiers with giant guns to help control the flow of pedestrians.

Another night some friends and I taxied it up to the city’s lookout point.

Of course we were not the only ones there as there was a widespread carnival going on, complete with games, clowns, etc.

Climbing this tower provides the view of the city.

Later that night I watched the Juanes & Miguel Bose concert. Juanes is arguably the most popular Latin American musician right now.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The following morning I watched even more live music at the Reggae, Reggaeton, and Hip Hop day in the park. One of my favorite groups, Dragon y Caballero happened to be playing!

Click here to view the embedded video.

They are pretty big, as you can see.

But before them, I and many others suffered through the performance of this reggaeton singer with a lisp. It was awful.

And finnally I am going to share a few random pictures from the park.

A bunch of Colombian soldiers huddled in the back of a truck.

Gambling with guinea pigs again.

About two years ago I visited Colombia for the first time. I really enjoy it there. One of the many reasons why Colombia is so great is because of its famous coffee. I, like most people, drink coffee everyday. Being in Colombia, there was no way I could pass up visiting the birthplace of Colombian coffee, the Eje Cafetero, also known as the Coffee Growing region in English.

The Eje Caferero is a region (Caldas, Risalralda and Quindío) in Colombia full of small towns and cities, where coffee is a way of life – the economy depends on it, and of course it’s what everybody drinks.

In May of 2008, I rode a bus from Cali to Armenia, followed by a small van to the town of Salento with a population of 4000 people.

We got held up on the highway because of a landslide.

But, we eventually made it. This is Salento

For less than $8 a night, I stayed in a hostel just outside of town

It was pouring when we arrived so we got dinner and then slept.

The local delicacy of Salento is trout from the river Quindío, which is served in most of the restaurants for as little as $4.

The next morning some buddies and I woke early in an attempt to go hiking. But on the way there we had a flat tire.

It started pouring again and so we canceled our plans and headed back into town, a 45 minute walk.

Not ones to waste a day, we opted to tour a few local coffee plantations.

The first plantation we visited was a medium sized coffee plantation. Most of the plantations in the area are part of a Coop that sends their unroasted beans to be sold abroad.

After walking through the dense fields we returned to the base of the plantation for an explanation of how the process the coffee beans.

A cup of freshly brewed coffee made from boiling hot water and pouring it through a strainer was handed to us.

The jeep was waiting for us after our short tour of the first plantation to drive us to the next one.This next plantation is owned and operated by one family and his 1-2 employees. If anyone represents the stereotypical Colombian Juan Valdez image, it’s this guy.

Drying the beans

I could smell these beans from 10 feet away. I was so ready just to eat them.

Mr. Juan Valdez himself grinding the freshly roasted beans

The following day we tried to go hiking again.

Instead of the jeep breaking down, it look a bit longer than usual since we got stuck in traffic.

I saw some other tourists hiring horses instead of walking so I chose to join them instead.

The scenery is absolutely phenomenal.

We were rewarded with this view once we reached the top

And after an amazing time in Salento I bused it to a small city called Manizales, to meet up with a friend.

Myself and my buddy Juan Valdez.

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We set off from Cali yesterday headed for the coffee region. By we, i mean myself, and two guys from England i met in Cali and hung out with the past few days. Neither of them speak Spanish and so i took charge and got us there. It was hectic. Neither of them had much money and none of the atm´s in the bus station were functioning. It took nearly an hour of walking about the bus station with all of our belongings on our backs to verify this.

Armenia was a scenic 3 hours away. Not bad compared to the 15 hour ride from Bogota to Cali. Once in Armenia, we transferred to a smaller bus for the hour ride to Salento, where we are staying now. But not before my wandering eyes spotted coffee soda…pretty gross.

We arrived at the Bombero Station (fire station)

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and were talked at non-stop by the hostel owner for the next hour while the three of us were eagerly wanting to order a plate of trout which Salento is famous for. It was an early night after dinner because there is not much to do here at night besides wander.

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If I could describe Salento in one word, it would be “classic”. It has an old feeling to it and makes me feel like I am living in the 50′s. Even the town’s gas station is classic and probably dates back to the 50′s.

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It rains. Every day.

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Today we set off for a 5 hour hike through the cloudforest. But about halfway through the ride in our dodgey, 30 year old jeep, a tire went flat.

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Meanwhile, the heavens started pouring and we made an easy decision to postpone the hike for tomorrow. We made it back into town after an hour of walking through the beautiful coffee region.

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Just an hour later we boarded another jeep, even doggier this time. The jeep looked like it was falling apart with the trunk rusted and nearing its end. Its not hard to imagine why the jeep is in this condition if it drives the rocky dirt roads every day that I just experienced.

The plan was to tour 2 different coffee plantations. A larger and smaller one. We began at the larger one with 30 employees who pick the coffee by hand. The coffee is ready to be picked two times a year in May and in the September. You can tell the ones which are ready if they look yellow or red.

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Green ones are still growing. Once the coffee is collected they clean it, dry it, and send it off to the next town as part of a coffee cooperative that roasts some and packages it to be sold locally. They send the rest off, unroasted, to other countries. At the end of the tour we received a few cups of coffee. The coffee tasted good but nothing exceptional.

At the other plantation, a smaller one, we received a tour by the owner. He, his family, and two employees pick and process the coffee beans themselves. They even roasted beans in front of us to serve a half an hour later. But they are also part of the cooperative and so most coffee they sell is unroasted.

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Coffee mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm……………….!