Los Nevados

Manizales is famous as a center of coffee production, buit it's also the gateway to Colombia's most-visited national park: Los Nevados. This basically means the snow-covered ones, and the park includes a few volcanos over 17,000 feet, some long dowmant and some tragically active. In 1985 Nevado del Ruiz erupted and over 20,000 people were killed. The high-elevation landscapes of the park are lunar: dunes of sand and ash, old flows from past eruptions, extinct cinder cones, snow and ice. All visitors must be accompanied by a guide, and the distance from town and logistics make visiting independently difficult. So I did something I usually avoid - I signed onto an all-inclusive, day-long tour.

We headed up into the hills early in the morning stopping for breakfast and enjoying the scenery. We were given an orientation talk at the park entrance, where we picked up our guide. Higher and higher, climbing through different slimates and zones of vegetation. Manizales sits at 2150m (7000ft) by the end of the day we would hike up to 5125m (16800ft.) Ten thousand feet in a few hours. The landscapes blew my mind with their starkness, and the physical experience of altitude made for a slow plod up the last leg. Standing up on the shoulder of Ruiz made everything worth it: the views were incredible. The rest of the tour wasn't bad either, with a fish lunch and a trip to the hot springs at El Otoño.

Extinct cinder cone on the flank of El Ruiz

The glacier-crowned summit of El Ruiz above volcanic desolation

While sipping coca tea, the milk donkeys arrived

Wow, cool. . .

Zona Cafetera

Two decades after seeing my first Juan Valdez commercial and twelve years after coffee became one of the lights of my life, I found myself in a jeep tearing down a valley in Colombia's coffee zone. Our guide, Viviana, chattered away and gestured at passing palms, birds, plots of plantains and the impossibly steep slopes covered in coffee trees. It was like entering a temple. Is this how believers feel when they arrive at Mecca, Varanasi, Rome or Jerusalem? All joking aside, it did feel like the successful conclusion of a long pilgrimage. . . I love coffee and was glad to finally be on a finca, one of the traditional farms where coffee has been grown for generations.

I visited Hacienda Venecia near Manizales, right in the heart of coffee country. This area in the mountains of central Colombia produces most of the high-quality export crop. Soil, weather, water and altitude combine to create ideal conditions for Coffea arabica, the premium variety prized for its mild, complex flavor and cousin to the low-grade robusta. While the cheaper robusta can be produced in huge plantations at low elevations (Brazil leads in production), arabica grows best between 1000 and 2000m elevation (about 3000 to 6500 feet.) The elevation requirements mean fincas in amazing settings and the zona cafetera is gorgeous. Mountains everywhere: steep, riddled with valleys and covered in a lush, green mix of farm and forest. Colombia has the highest number of different bird species in the world, and many call this region home: providing a colorful, melodious compliment to the coffee trees and scenery.

The story of coffee is fascinating, but far to much to relate here. I wanted to get a up a few words and representative photos. It was a great time out on the finca, seeing everything from the nurseries to the maturing trees to a few ripe cherries to the processing plant. And of course sampling the finished product. . .

Premium grade café pergamino beans, green and roasted

Coffee trees cover the hillsides at Hacienda Venecia

These green beans will ripen to red or yellow in a few months

Coffee seedlings at the nursery