Colombia 2019 – Day 07
Woke up to very dense fog all around.
Today the plan was to visit my relative’s farm (Finca ) near the town of Quimbaya. The town is located about 28 km (50 mins) from Circacia. On the way there we passed the town of Montenegro, which is another large town in the area.
We arrived at the Finca and were greeted with a great view of the region. The Finca was cultivated mostly in coffee, but it has been transitioning to a local type of avocado and plantains. Some coffee will be kept, but only for local consumption.
We went out for a walk along the edge of the land. Along the way, we found plenty of ants that you don’t want to mess with.
The avocado trees are about two years old and continue to grow quickly. They have begun producing avocados.
We learned that they also grow another type of coffee type called Castilla, when the beans become ripe they turn yellow and not the traditional red color as the Arabica type.
The land has a few mango trees and thousands of plantain trees. These trees are huge between 12 and 15 feet tall. To protect the plantains a specialist comes and bags each plantain bunch as the plantains are growing.
After our hike, we were greeted with a cup of the coffee grown here. I normally don’t drink coffee but when it is this close to the source how can I refuse.
I was shown the process and the equipment used to process the beans.
The beans are inserted through a funnel into the machine to remove the skin from the bean.
From there it is dumped into a pool of water and cleaned further. Some of the beans are not fully skinned and requires further processing.
Once clean the beans are placed on a flat silo to dry. The silo has a movable roof for sunny days and for those cloudy or more humid days they have a type of heater to help the drying process.
After our coffee tour, we went to Quimbaya for lunch. We stopped at a restaurant in the town square for some chuletas, which are thinly breaded pork chops. This also included soup, fries, salad, and rice. We also enjoyed the fresh fruit juices (lulo and mango).
We drove back to Circacia and were greeted by a beautiful and colorful sunset.
For our last dinner, we went back to Container City in Armenia and ate at El Cacharrito. We ordered the Callejera burger (Street burger) and the Super Callejera with double everything. To drink we had the delicious limonada de coco (coconut limeade).
We were stuffed and ready for the bed.