Eje Cafetero - the final 36 hours: Colombian coffee, thermal springs, sausages and two provincial capitals
(Eje Cafetero Photos)

It is not necessarily a given that you will always find good coffee in Colombia. It was once said that all of the high quality beans were exported, leaving the run of the mill remainder for the domestic market. Although, the meals served at our finca were pretty good, the coffee was lousy.

From my wanderings I get the impression that Colombians have become more demanding over that past decade or so (as is the case in the US) when it comes to their daily cup. I have not found a coffee bar on every street corner in Bogotá as I found in Buenos Aires. I have come across a number of new, trendy coffee shops in the neighborhood as well as the outlets of the two prominent chains, Oma (http://www.oma.com.co/) and Juan Valdez (http://www.juanvaldezcafe.com/), which all serve "100% Café Colombiano". Oma and Juan Valdez have an atmosphere and menu not all disimilar to Starbucks. They have a strong enough foothold here that I would think the US giant would have some difficulty getting a look. However, Juan Valdez has a couple of shops in Seattle, Starbucks' home turf and New York City.

Our third day started at the unholy hour of 4:30am, so a good cup of coffee would have been appreciated! The night before we were instructed that we should get up at this hour, that breakfast would be served at 5:30 and the buses would depart at 6am. As it turned out, and this will not be a surprise now, breakfast was served at 6 (even though the three of us had been patiently waiting for half an hour, watching the sun rise) and half the group did not appear until 6:30. I think we were doing well to get away just after 7am! I was starting to understand the method behind the guides' extreme scheduling - Colombians generally operate an hour behind. I wish I had had this realisation the night before when I was setting my alarm clock.


Today we headed two and half hours north, just passed the town of Santa Rosa de Cabal to the location of some of Colombia's best known thermal springs. The thermal complex is hidden away up a small valley and you could easily pass it if it was not for the presence of a small hut with a ticket window and a chain link fence. Once past the fence you walk about five minutes up a winding stone path, through a lightly landscaped area thick with flowering trees and bushes and plants with the biggest leaves I have ever seen. Then, you climb as small rise and, as if out of no where, you are faced but a small, but stunning waterfall. Everyone pauses for a moment, mesmerised, to taken in the view, and then they continue to the changing rooms and into the pools.


For one reason or another I had little interest in bathing. Perhaps it was the fact that I had submersed myself in various thermal springs in Argentina or Chile. I was quite content to lounge in a white, plastic chair away from the pools and splashing families and read, looking up every so often to take in the lush, damp scenery.


On the way back through Santa Rosa we made the obligatory stop for a sausage snack - "el mejor chorizo de Colombia" (the best sausage of Colombia) they say. I had two with a couple of arepas (cornmeal rolls). They were good to be sure, but good enough to support such a claim? I am not sure.

We continued on to Pereira, the capital of the Department (province) of Risaralda for our city tour. The city tour consisted of being dropped off near the main square and being told that we have two hours to do what we pleased. Pereira is a city of about 400,000 and does not offer much to the tourist. Its viaduct is a recognisable landmark to most Colombians.

During our final morning we were allowed some time to see Armenia, the capital of Colombia's smallest department, Quindio. The city was devastated by an earthquake in 1999, and so the architecture is modern. I did manage to find a good cup of coffee at a stand on the edge of the central Plaza Bolívar and watched the shoe shine men at work. This was then accompanied by a slice of cake, coffee cake of course!