Early the next morning, we hopped a one hour flight to Pereira in the coffee growing area. Pereira is a city of 450,000 plus, so we immediately grabbed a taxi to Salento, the oldest town in the area with only 7,000 souls, an hour into the countryside. This is holiday season in Colombia, so there are a few more people here now than usual. Still, it has a small town feel. And our accommodations are outstanding!
Our room overlooks Valle de Cocora--a full wall of glass.
This is the breath -taking view that greets us each morning. We have breakfast on a terrace just below our room, sharing this view with fellow travelers.
The only picture I have on the iPad of downtown.
The first two days, we prowled the streets, just to get to know the town. The specialty here is trout. We have had two trout meals already. Today we settled for chicken, rice and beans. Everyone is very festive since it was New Years Eve and then New Year's Day--lots of music, dancing and singing.
Today, we took a tour of an organic coffee plantation with 9 other English-speakers. We trekked down a muddy, narrow road to Don Eduardo's Plantation, learned about the major types of coffee, tasted two of the types he grows, and learned a little about how the coffee industry works in Colombia. Interestingly, Brazil produces most of the world's coffee. Colombia is the 4th largest producer. Another wonderful day.
Oh, I forgot to say that we are now enjoying temperatures in the 70s with some humidity. We can wear chaos and short-sleeve shirts. Obviously, we are muy contentos (very content).
Snopes says: Roger and Kathy are riding a bus alright...the previous mentioned 1967 VW Van Bus with the floral pattern painted on its side, but as for vacationing in Columbia,the tracking GPS shows them to have stopped in Portland,OR, spent an evening in a brew pub, and are now running along side the Columbia River headed for Tri-Cities and the Hanford nuclear waste dump to check out disposal and safety procedures.
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