When we left Ibague there were more tears as we said farewell to Berenice, William and Carolina, and hopped in a taxi to the bus station to get the 12 o’clock bus to Pereira. Being the weekend before Christmas we should probably have anticipated it might be busy and we found the bus was full and the next one not for another hour at least. But several families making similar journeys adopted us and advised we get a bus to Armenia and change buses there with their assistance. So with that we found ourselves travelling in a merry group and exchanging broken Spanish for much of the journey to Armenia. We fielded several amusing questions including ‘if you are both from the UK why does one of you have dark eyes and one light eyes?’ and ‘don’t you think bull fighting is beautiful’ and ‘why don’t you have children, I have 7’!
Unfortunately we arrived in Pereira about two hours later than we had hoped and the owner of the finca due to collect us had been waiting around for us. To make it worse we later found out it was his birthday and so we felt really bad about messing him about – we should have known better with Colombian buses! However, we were warmly welcomed on arrival to Finca Villa Martha; both buy Martha and buy their three giant Alsations.
Gio and Mateau:
The first thing we were given, as you might expect at a coffee hacienda, was a cup of coffee. We can’t even begin to describe how good it was. The best coffee we have ever had. This was followed by a giant dinner and we crawled in to bed and fell asleep quickly. Sadly the sleep didn’t last long as a house just down the track was having a party, and when Colombians party they do so loudly and for days. This one lasted until Sunday evening and favoured techno music!
Still it couldn’t detract from the beauty of our surroundings, the land in the coffee zone is gorgeous,
Raphael gave us a tour of the coffee process from picking to grinding beans (and drinking of course) ..
He only makes enough to sell at the finca, but that needs to be a fair amount – for example the French couple with us bought 13 x 500gram packets!
We spent a blissful few days at the Finca, longer than originally planned, walking and swimming and studying Spanish. And of course drinking A LOT of coffee.
It’s probably just as well it was time to leave when it was as we rapidly started to reach the point where we couldn’t fit our clothes! Breakfast alone was made up of at least three carbohydrates (rice, arepas, bread), lunch the same and dinner even more plus soup and dessert!
Having a little rest after a walk around the gorgeous countryside:
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