Coffee - Part 2 - Where It Grows
Coffee can’t grow everywhere in Colombia. It needs a climate that is neither too hot nor too cold through-out the year, moderate but regular rainfall, and fertile soils. Many parts of Colombia are too hot and dry, too cold or too wet to grow coffee. While there are a hand full of other acceptable locations to grow coffee scattered around Colombia, the Zona Cafetera is, by far, the most important coffee growing region. It centers in and around a triangular area between the cities of Armenia, Pereira, and Manizales. I found very little to photograph within these cities themselves though they certainly play an important role in the region’s coffee economy. These cities are hot, crowded, slightly ramshackle warrens of human activity. I’d rather show you the beautiful country that lies outside these cities. The rural parts of coffee country is greener than that found outside Medellin, and its air much cleaner and fresher. High Andes’ mountain tops pierce the clouds on the eastern side of this area, their summits occasionally covered with snow, while rolling hills made from fertile volcanic ash make up most of the coffee growing country that lies below. 
While this area is best known for growing coffee, numerous banana, plantain, and avocado fincas operate here. Locals also grow bamboo to sell as a building material, and cultivate numerous vegetable gardens and fruit orchards to sell in local markets. I was fortunate enough to view some of these less well known products grown in coffee country while staying at the Finca Hotel de la Rivera in Calarca which is a few miles outside Armenia. I won’t say much about the hotel itself except to say that I was the only quest all the time I was there. and leave it at that. It did offer some good photographic opportunities, however. At some point in time someone had put in a lot of thought about decorating the hotel buildings and their surroundings. Below is a sample:
The hotel was also located next to a combination banana/coffee plantation which I entered and photographed several times. The finca’s coffee crop had already been harvested, and I found nothing interesting to photograph in the fields growing coffee. (The pictures of coffee plants you’ve already seen in part one of this chapter are much better than any I could have taken here). However, the banana plants still wore the blue plastic bags that ensure proper pollination, and these provided some very good shots.
The finca also provided several bamboo groves and some exotic looking flowers:
I also explored another little known part of coffee country, the Cocora valley. This valley is a protected area, though somehow outside investors have found a way to open some big avocado plantations in one part of the valley. It is a beautiful area that is home to a few small dairy farms and, its star attraction, huge wax palms. These palms reach 150 feet in height and are considered the tallest palm trees in the world. (My guide tells me that palms are technically not trees. Maybe they are considered to be a grass like bamboo. I’m not sure. Possibly one of my reader’s will fill me in.) I am sure, however, that these trees are magnificent, and were a photographic windfall for me.
My guide, Ivan Dario, operates a bike touring business, but took a day off from work to show me some of the best parts of the Cocora valley. He lead an 80 kilometer bike trip from Armenia to this valley and back the day after I took these pictures. I, on the other hand, sat on a bus for eight hours heading back to Medellin. We paid a couple of dollars to a gate keeper from the farmer’s collective that maintains the trails and operates some horse back tours of the valley. The horses are expensive, and I like to walk, so Ivan and I are going to hike in instead, and start climbing up the little gulch behind the horse train in the picture below:
We continue to climb for about an hour or so until we come to an old farm where humming birds are often sighted. I saw only one humming bird and unfortunately was not fast enough to get my camera up to capture it on film. I did, however, get a number of shots of the farm’s beautiful flowers and views. See below:
On the way back from the farm I continued to snap away. I took so many pictures of the wax palms that I’m afraid my Facebook friends are going seeing massive numbers of wax palm pictures on my wall for years to come. Sorry, but I can’t decide which I like the best. Here are some from the trip back down the mountain:
On the way out of the valley we got caught in a cow traffic jam, but after some prodding made our way through to the coffee pueblo of Salento.
Salento is a village so adorable and picturesque that it has found it very profitable to shed most of its work clothes and to put on its tourist togs instead. For example, growers have traditionally transported workers to and from the coffee fields in old beat up Willy’s Jeeps. They still do so, but today more Jeeps are used here in Salento and in Finlandia to transport tourists to and from coffee tours, and other fun activities.
Most of the old Willy’s have been replaced by newer Jeep models, but you can still see some of the originals that have been restored to mint condition hauling people around.
I also visited Finlandia, another hill top village in coffee country. I liked Finlandia even better than Salento. I took a lot of pictures here that will also be showing up on Facebook in the future. Here are a few of my favorites at this particular moment:
The green hills and cool evenings in coffee country make it a refreshing place to visit. The main problem with the Zona Cafetera is getting there. I spent nine miserable hours on a bus traveling from my apartment in Medellin to Armenia. To put this into perspective, I could have flown from New York to Budapest in less time than it took me to travel the 165 miles between the two Colombian cities. It only took a little over eight hours for the return trip, but it was one of the most hair raising bus rides I’ve ever experienced. The driver was constantly passing tractor trailer trucks on double line hair pin turns, careening down hills to make up for lost time, and bullying any motorcycle or small vehicle that got in his way. The problem with travel in this part of Colombia is that the mountains are so numerous and steep that it’s impossible to move quickly between any two points. Tractor trailer trucks can often move no faster than 10 to 15 miles per hour up the twisting two lane roads. Colombia once had a healthy rail system that is now pretty much gone, and large cities like Medellin (3,000,000) are supplied almost entirely by truck. As a result, the roads are packed with them. If you want to visit coffee country, my advice is to fly in from Medellin or Bogota, ( if you can afford it). If you feel you must rent a car and drive into this area, I recommend that you develop an especially close relationship with God that will probably be critically tested several times during your drive. 🙂
