Zona Cafetera: The Coffee Region

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The semester is over, the open road beckons. The question remains: where, of the many incredible places to see in Colombia, should I go?

I decided to head to the Zona Cafetera (coffee region) to see some mountains, have a slightly warmer climate, and try some darn good brew. The other major contributing factor was that one of my former students from Georgia Tech, Julian, lives in Pereira. I sent him a message to see if he would be free, and luckily he was! Julian is in his last semester at the university and is about to start exams, but he has a week in between to "study"...and to entertain me. Don't worry, I was a responsible teacher and made sure he had plenty of time to do his work :)

I arrived on a Tuesday and Julian picked me up from the airport. We couldn't get over how crazy it was that the last time we saw each other was in Atlanta, and there we were in Pereira together! Julian took me to a small lunch place close to his university that is really popular with students. Afterwards, we explored his university campus and even found a music hall with a piano! I played half a song and he was dully impressed.

After a short rainstorm, we drove outside of Pereira to the top of a mountain that overlooked the city and had a nice cup of coffee. Julian explained that it was one of his favorite spots in the city, and I have to agree with him! Eventually, we headed back into town and Julian drove me to my hostel, conveniently located close to his family's home. I spent a relaxing evening chatting with an Argentinian about films, music, and books.

The next day, I explored Pereira on foot while Julian went to school. I walked to the oldest cathedral, and was sad the doors were closed. However, I saw an office that led into a cloister, and they let me in to explore! A giant Cathedral all to myself! That was really cool. After I relaxed in the pews and ogled the stained glass, I continued on to the main plaza. I got a little lost (on purpose) to see where I might end up. I found a really cool hole-in-the-wall used bookstore that was full of cheap Spanish editions. I bought a small volume of Colombian short stories and Bogotano poems. Let's see if I can read them!

That night I met a few other people in the hostel and we went to an English conversation club meeting across the street at El Barista, an adorable coffee shop. I had the best espresso I've had in a long time! It was really nice chatting with the small group- 5 Colombians, and Argentine, and an Austrian. We had such a good time we ended up finding an open-air restaurant to share some midnight snacks and beer.
Julian was free the next day, and we had a fantastic adventure! I hopped on the back of his motorcycle and we zipped out of town to Salento and Valle de Cocora. Holy....I cannot even find words to describe how beautiful those areas are! Salento is a little tourist-based town where all the buildings have different colored shutters and doors. However, its the surrounding mountains that really get all the attention. Huge wax palm trees dot the mountain sides in a very surreal, Dr. Suess sort of way. I was smiling so hard under my motorcycle helmet that my cheeks hurt! We did park for a while and took a short walk down to a creek, but we couldn't spend too much time since it was almost dark. I made a vow to return, and then we rode back to Pereira.

The Austrian and I had an adventure the next day. We took a bus outside the city to Santa Rosa to go to the Hot Springs. They were so, so, so wonderful. They are man-made pools at the base of a natural water fall. The views were so splendid, and the hot steam was perfect for my unfortunate head cold that I managed to catch. Seriously, if I lived close to a place like that...you would have to tear me away! The interesting thing was that I met a group of high schoolers from Philadelphia! They were doing an YMCA trip in Colombia for a week. Very random, but really cool to see young'ns experiencing the world.

Once we arrived back to town, I quickly changed and headed out to the bar for another edition of the Conversation club. This time, there was a group of 40! The club is mostly for Colombians to practice their English, but I did get to practice my Spanish a bit as well. We stayed and drank and talked until the place closed down. My kind of night!

The weekend began, and I hung out more with the Argentine, who was currently working in Pereria, but did not yet have a place to live. We wandered the town, returned to the bookstore, did some writing at El Barista, and played some English/Spanish Scrabble. Yep, I was happy! Some of our new friends from conversation club invited us out again, but this time we went to the clubs! We saw a live band play a lot of Argentine songs and a few American songs, and then we went to a reggae club. Again, I returned home in the wee hours.

Sunday was very relaxing. I drank more espresso, wandered the streets, and played more Scrabble. The Argentine and I went back to the hot springs that evening, and the hot steam was fantastic! I wanted to see Julian one more time, but unfortunately he was way too busy with school. Since I had been in Periera for almost 6 days, I decided to hit the road a bit on my own. Where, you wonder? Back to Salento and Valle de Cocora of course!

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