It wouldn’t be a trip to Colombia without a visit to a
coffee farm, right? Although all the countries I went through in Central
America are coffee producers to some degree or another, there’s probably no
country as closely associated with coffee as Colombia . The country’s most
famous coffee region, three small mountainous provinces south of Medellin known
as the Zona Cafetera were not on the itinerary I drew for myself for this trip
in Colombia, but coffee is produced in many other mountainous regions as well.
I was surprised when Asdrubal suggested he could drive me to a coffee farm near
Bogota on my last day in Colombia. Bogota is too high in altitude and a bit too
cool for coffee growing, but there lower elevation areas not far from the city
where it is produced.

The small coffee finca is called Hacienda Coloma and is
located near a town named Fusugasuga (say that three times fast) about 40 miles
south of Bogota and about 2,500 feet lower in elevation (around 6,000
feet/1,800 meters). The coffee farm surrounds the private vacation home of a
wealthy Bogota family whose primary business in not producing coffee but
producing liqueurs, including coffee, herbal, and fruit flavored ones.

How exciting can a visit to a coffee farm be? Exactly, but
the alternative was staying in Bogota and trying to find things to do indoors
on yet another rainy day. In nice weather I’d have walked extensively around
the city to the wealthy northern side, but that’s not very pleasant when the
rain comes pissing down. I did get to see a little of Bogota’s other side by
taking the trip too. While the city’s north is middle class to wealthy, the
south side is a huge expanse of slummy self-constructed type housing where most
of the poorer among Bogota’s nine million or so residents live . Colombia is one
of those places where differences between rich and poor, first world and third,
is particularly glaring.

Anyway, back on the farm. I was one of three guests on the
tour today, one which started out with a coffee tasting of beans roasted and
ground the previous day, along with a sample of coffee and maracuya (passion
fruit) liqueurs. The farm tour included exotic plants and orchids as well as
learning about the coffee growing process and picking a few berries ourselves,
then demonstrations on shelling, washing, drying, roasting, and eventually
grinding the coffee beans. And at the end another coffee tasting of the day’s
ground beans plus a few more yummy liqueurs. OK, not the most exciting
excursion I’ve ever been on, but you have to go to a coffee farm when you’re in
Colombia!

Anyway, coffee was the conclusion to my twelve week trip
through Central America and Colombia. I spent the last three weeks of it in Colombia,
a large country where there’s probably as much to see as in all of Central
America combined . Being somewhat of an add-on at the end to what I had
initially planned from Guatemala, I considered it a bonus and didn’t try to
cover everything to see in the country. That means it’s a place I definitely
plan to come back to in the future, maybe combined with either Ecuador’s
Galapagos Islands or travel in Venezuela if and when conditions improve in that
country. Besides the Zona Cafetera, there are other historic colonial towns
like Popoyan and Villa de Leyva, archaeological sites at San Agustin and
Tierradentro, and supposedly very good trekking in the several spots in the
Andes. I’ll be back!