Monday, December 8, 2008

Thanksgiving in zona cafeteria

I spent my Thanksgiving break traveling with my two roommates, Christina and Tina. We took a bus to a city about 5 hours south of Medellin called Manizales. It is in the heart of the coffee making region. We spent two nights in Manizales. We visited the downtown area, went to some hot springs and an orchid, butterfly, animal, coffee park.
We spent the next two nights in a town about an hour away called Chinchina. We stayed on a finca and had a wonderful tour of the coffee farms. I learned everything I ever need to know about how coffee is grown, picked, planted, processed and produced. It was very interesting. The town was beautiful, surrounded my mountains covered with coffee plants and other lush vegetation. It was quite relaxing and restful.
The only bummer is that it did rain a lot. It is officially the rainy season all the time now! But we managed to have a great time getting wet and relaxing as much as possible.


view of Manizales










The tram that took us to the top part of the park.....

...in the rain!


downtown Manizales
Gigantic nativity scene in the park


the governor's palace


The hot springs...

...in the rain


waiter carrying food at the hot springs...
in the rain

the finca in Chinchina

bienvenidos




coffee beans

the processing plant






Feliz Navidad