Hacienda Venecia Day 3 - volcanoes and traditional food

volcano

The third day at the plantation was a visit to the National Park called Los Nevados.  We wound our way up the side of the volcano.  The volcano is an active one but it is only on yellow alert.  Green is when it is dormant, yellow is active but not expected to erupt, orange is that an eruption is expected and red is an eruption.  The last eruption was 1989, but the worst one was in 1985, when the eruption caused an avalanche that went sixty km along a canyon in one hour, destroying towns and killing 20,000 people.  At the top of the volcano - or as close as we were allowed to get to it - we could see where the canyon used to be and the remains of a bridge that used to cross it sticking up out of the new ground level. 
 

last eruption filled the canyon

The road up the volcano was full of turns and switchbacks.  Out local driver knew the road well, but still there were a few hairy moments when it seemed that the bus that we were on lost traction or just simply when we were yet again right on the edge of a sheer drop.  We stopped off a few times on the way up. 

big plants

The first was to take a closer look at the plants that covered the hillside.  They reminded me a little of a pineapple.  The stem was a series of rings, and the heights varied from about a foot to about six foot high.  But the top of the plant had lots of soft green furry leaves and flowers that looked like little sunflowers.  They looked beautiful individually, but I found the sight of them all on the hillside really striking.  In particular, the low cloud meant that they had a slightly spooky look about them as they were just visible through the heavy mist.  Suitable for the day after Halloween.


excellent fresh water



Our next stop was to checkout the water.  We filled our bottles at a stream of water tumbling down the rocks, assured by our guide that it was the purest in Colombia.  It was icy cold and certainly tasted good. 

Further up the volcano we got off again to see the rocks and lunar looking landscape.  We sat for a while on the rocks because despite the chilly weather, they were nice and warm. Even the pool of water in one of the hollows in the rock was tepid rather than icy as it should have been.


warm rocks



We paused a few more times in the way to the top, and once there we broke through the layer of cloud into bright sunshine to see the peak of the volcano, covered in a glacial layer of ice and snow. We stopped for our lunch and a hot chocolate, before making our way back down.



sculpture in Manizales



 

On the way back to the finca, we passed through Manizales town, still struggling with its lack of water. From what we saw, it is a lovely town with fabulous views out to the surrounding mountains.  We stopped to look at the view and checked out a huge sculpture representing the pioneers.  It was most impressive depicting people and oxen dragging a city up the hill.  We also found a huge dead beetle.



sculpture in Manizales



Back at the finca, the girls cooked us up a traditional Colombian meal of a hearty chicken and potato, with corn on the cob, avocado, capers and quipa, which is a like a rice pancake.

big dead beetle

We set off for Guatape in the morning, and as we drove we could see how prevalent the landslides are in this area.  We later found out that after we left there was another mudslide in Manizales that killed 24 people.



Hacienda Venecia Day 2 - about the coffee

coffee plantation

Our second day was spent on a tour of the coffee plantation and a visit to Manizales town.  One of the staff, Alex, started by explaining about how the coffee is grown and the processing of the beans.  I guess I had never really thought about what coffee looks like in its natural form; in fact it grows on relatively small bushes, and the round fruit is about the size of a blueberry.  They start off green and turn either yellow, or more commonly red, when they are ready to be picked.

coffee



 The plant originates from Ethiopia and apparently the person who first 'discovered' coffee, did so when he noticed that the animals that ate these berries had more energy that the others, so he figured that it was good for them so it was likely to be good for us. He tried eating the berries and making a drink out of them, but they just tasted very bitter, so he threw them into the fire.  Then he noticed the aroma they made as they roasted, and he decided to try again with the roasted beans.  And coffee was born.

 

the good beans roasted



Because of the variable weather here in Colombia, they grow coffee all year round, although there is still high season for it.  The beans that they grow here are arabica beans as opposed to the robusta beans used in some countries.  Here they pick the berries and immediately remove the outer skin and then wash off the sweet white pulp beneath, leaving just the bean.  The beans are air dried and then oven dried at a low heat.  This 'green' stage is normally when they are sold in 40kg sacks, with the tops sewn up by hand.  The buyers want them at this stage so that they can be roasted as close as possible to the point of sale, for maxim 

bad beans

um freshness.

Alex showed us the different types of beans, in their the various stages of processing, before having us sort some green coffee beans into good and low quality so that we could roast the good ones.  After a cup of coffee for those who drink it, and a sniff of the oils that are used to train coffee experts, we headed off on the tour.  Alex showed us around the nursery where they prepare the seedling plants, and then walked us through the coffee fields and the processing stages.



seedling coffee plants



During the walk we had had to wade through a small river, created by the heavy rain from the day before, and so we had to dry of our feet and trousers back at the house.  The original plan was that we would go into Manizales town in the afternoon and evening to have a look around and have dinner, but we called that off because TJ reported back that the town was pretty quiet due to the water emergency.



bagging up the green beans



Almost two weeks ago, there was a big landslide just out of town that has taken out a large section of the water pipes, so the majority of the town has no water.  The military are bringing in tankers of water and distributing it in the main square, but it is still a huge problem that, if not fixed within the next few days, will be declared a national emergency. People in Manizales are proud to have good drinking water coming from the mountains that surround it, so they are especially unhappy about this, particularly as they say the mayor had been warned about the possibility of this landslide but had done nothing to prevent it.



So instead, we brought forward our dinner for a later day and stayed relaxing at the plantation.





Hacienda Venecia Day 1

Hacienda Venecia

We left Cali at 8am for the short drive to Manizales, arriving just after 1pm. We are spending three nights at a coffee plantation called Hacienda Venecia, and to reach it we had to make our way down a big hill along a narrow track, with steep drops on one side.  Those of us who have been on the truck for worse roads already were fairly relaxed about this, but some of the newbies were a bit anxious - and relieved when we arrived safely.  However as it had been raining and was clearly going to rain again, Izzie and TJ were concerned about mudslides making it impossible to get the truck out again, so took the truck up into town to be on the safe side.  Thankfully if they can't bring it down when we leave they have a jeep here that can take us back up.  I wasn't the only one who wasn't keen on the idea of walking back up that hill.



hummingbird

Noting the rain is likely to be pretty bad both here and at our next place, we decided to take up the option to upgrade to a room here.  Camping is fine, but I would rather not camp in the downpours we get here, especially for five or six nights.  We weren't the only ones.


the band



Hacienda Venecia is a working coffee plantation, so our view includes a large plot of coffee plants.  The surroundings are beautiful, and it was good to spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing in the hammocks and watching the hummingbirds flit around the trees, flowered and more lazily, the feeders. 



Nic playing the instrument



In the evening the staff made us fruit punch and did us an Argentinian style barbecue, both of which were very tasty.  Afterwards, we had a local band come in to play for us.  The music was the kind of traditional party music that they would play at a Colombian wedding or other celebration; it was very lively, generally quite fast, and a lot of fun.  I had a go at playing the thing which was like a big cylinder with metal beads in it, and another person tried out the thing that was basically a big grater?  We enjoyed ourselves, especially as this was an occasion where you felt that the experience was a genuine one, rather than something done specifically for tourists.