La Zona Cafetera: the coffee love triangle

After the excitement of the city, we headed for the cool hills of La Zona Cafetera – the home of muy rico (very tasty) Colombian coffee.

Paintbox streets of Salento

As we drove into the green abyss, we immediately noticed the hills enveloping farms producing coffee, cattle and silkworms. We walked to our home for the next few days, the Plantation House in Salento, glimpsing down the quiet roads to see the local, elderly men who spend their entire day chatting and drinking coffee.

We stayed in the midst of coffee plantations and tropical gardens, on the edge of this idyllic small town with its gorgeous, fading buildings, warm climate, backdrop of lush green hills, grinning local people, horses and carts roaming the streets and little gingerbread houses painted in all the colours of the rainbow.

Walking through the village of Salento was a treat for the senses. Sound of arepas (Colombian corn cakes) frying on outdoor ovens, people greeting one another in hearty shouts and the aromas of grilled trucha (trout) and roasted Colombian coffee beans wafting from every doorway.

The plaza here, like every South American town, is the hub for all this activity – a place to meet, relax, people watch and drink coffee. I could have walked around the plaza and its side streets for hours – admiring the colonial buildings coloured white with splashes of blue, green, yellow or red, perfectly contrasting with the green hills all around.

Vintage jeeps to take you around

The trees offer shade to the worn-out benches where people of all ages hang out: children playing with spinning tops, teenagers watching the gringos go by - examining their foreign clothes – and the beautifully wizened faces of those who are older than some of the coffee plantations here.

We took an old, vintage jeep to Cocora Parque Nacional and, with a friend, trekked to the bottom of this Andean valley surrounded by small coffee farms and horse and cattle ranches, moving up the canyon following the rushing stream. Cocora Valley is the unusual home of the tallest palms in the world, Quindio wax palms.

One of eight types of hummingbirds

We were both in awe of this and the hundreds of hummingbirds we encountered (there are eight different species in the park) along the route – oh and the local dog who followed us for the entire hike up two mountains. A very special place.

Now is the time to introduce Tejo, game of the Colombian gods. There are very few sports in the world wherein drinking is positively encouraged as you play. Darts is one.

Colombia, too, have their very own sport that is synonymous with getting intoxicated. In fact, often, it’s a sport that’s free to play providing you keep ordering more beer as you play.

Cocora valley with wax palms

Tejo involves getting a group of rowdy, drunk people together with lots of gunpowder and letting them throw metal discs (about 2kg) at a series of targets in a clay square. Within these targets is “mecha”, or gunpowder.

With a good shot, you’ll strike the mecha and most likely drop your beer in shock as the explosion rings throughout the building, cascading off your ribcage on its way.

Tejo should be an Olympic sport

Despite the initial shock of the explosion (I actually stuffed tissue in my ears at the start!), the satisfaction of causing the bang is addictive and, luckily, is the whole point of the game. The more bangs, the better your score, the more likely you are to win. Olympic Games 2016? Brasil, take note!

The following day, with a fun group of Aussies and Anjelica, a beautiful Colombian/American girl, we’d befriended over tejo, we took an even more “vintage” jeep through the misty mountains to see more wax palm forests, drink very milky coffee surrounded by hummingbirds at a remote farm and hear the tales of these hills that were once FARC territory in the 80s and 90s.

Ex-FARC territory amidst wax palm forests

Though FARC , the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (not to be mixed up with paramilitares – Colombia’s got them too), still poses some degree of threat to the Colombian population, the revolutionary force no longer has the clout it possessed a few decades ago.

The deaths of its rank and file members, its dwindling military power, and mounting rejection from Colombians leave little option for FARC but to reach a peaceful yet uneasy end to the conflict.

Wax palms

That said, as we arrived into Popayan, we heard news of a FARC blowing up a bridge 200kms away and isolating a small mining town from the rest of the country. FARC aren’t quite as silent as the Colombian tourist board would like you to believe.

We visited an old, rural school in the mountains that was turned into the FARC headquarters to survey the land. FARC claim to represent the poor people of rural Colombia, hence this location.

A list of names, killers (we were told by our discerning guide), was still visible amidst the graffiti and fire-charred paint.

Iridescent long-tailed hummingbird

We then heard about how corrupt army officials, not wanting to fight FARC, would dress homeless people up in FARC uniform on this very spot just to shoot them and hand them over to their chiefs. The words of our guide echoed off the haunted walls.

The children up in the mountains now have to leave their homes at 4am to catch the school bus at 6am for school in Salento. The burnt-out school stands untouched as a lasting reminder of what happened here. May it never happen again.

A school turned into a FARC base

In true backwards fashion, we toured the coffee plantation attached to our hostel on our last day in Salento, walking through the entire process from cultivating to roasting of the beans.

Fascinating stuff, too detailed for this blog. Our tour of Finca Don Eduardo culminated in the group sitting down for some delicious, freshly brewed coffee. I don’t even drink the stuff at home, but when in Colombia…

Coffee plantation

I think this muddy mixture of coffee plantations and mountains stalked by FARC tells me something about Colombia.

While the country still struggles with the inability to completely shed itself of its troubled past, the Colombia we have gotten to know in the last couple of weeks is differentiated by some of the happiest, laid-back coffee drinkers in the world and a diverse, bountiful landscape that keeps on providing for its people.

So, in Salento, I learnt about coffee and terrorism. It’s a colourful world...

Sunset over the hills of Salento