Two days after Christmas we said goodbye to Colombia and hello to Ecuador. We are now in Banos, Ecuador preparing to celebrate the New Year (and by preparing, I mean napping – or atleast I will be after I post this 🙂 ) Prepare yourself for the next blog post, because the New Years traditions here are pretty interesting and I can’t wait to post some pictures!
Our final days in Colombia were filled with fun and relaxing. I’ll tell you about our final favorite experiences there and save our Ecuadorian adventures for next time. Since I last posted we visited a Coffee Finca (Coffee farm/plantation); played Tejo, a traditional Colombian game; toured a nature reserve; and rode horses down the mountains to a waterfall. These are certainly all more interesting with pictures, so I’ll narrate while posting a few.
The coffee tour was very interesting, but not in the way we thought it would be. I LOVE a good cup of coffee and could hardly wait to go to a finca, see how the coffee grows and is harvested, watch (and smell) them roast the beans, and then have a delicious, incredibly fresh cup of coffee! Though we only visited one farm, based on the terrible coffee we had throughout most of our time in Colombia, I’m thinking that for the most part, growers of coffee are good at growing good beans, while specialty roasters and baristas are best at perfecting the actual cup of coffee. As it turns out, most Colombians are drinking what is considered lower grade coffees because the farmers export all the higher grade beans. At one point in our tour the farm owner put the freshly harvested coffee beans in water to soak and showed us how they all sank. He said that there are usually some beans that float and those beans aren’t as high a quality as the sinkers. He said that all sinkers are exported, and all beans that float are used in country and either over roasted to hide the lack of taste, or turned into instant coffee. No wonder we had so much terrible coffee in a place known for coffee!
Here are a few pictures to document the experience:
The life of a bean:
Green= not ripe
Red and yellow = ripe (different colors because they come from different coffee varieties)
Black= overripe
When the red and yellow pods are squeezed, the whiteish beans come out. The beans have a naturally occurring sugar on them that is taken out by being soaked in water several times (this is where you see the sinkers and floaters). The beans are then sun dried and after they are dry, the outer peel comes off, leaving green beans, which is what is then shipped out to be roasted (or roasted on the spot).
On a side note – though there are tons of varieties of coffee grown in Colombia, it largely boils down to two groups – modern plants and traditional plants. From what we tasted, modern beans taste more like Folgers, and traditional beans taste more like coffee from a specialty shop in the states. And if you ever go to Colombia and want a delicious cup of coffee, go to Jesus Martinez in Salento – 😍. Juan Valdez has some pretty good coffees too, and you can find them everywhere (even some places in the States now)
A baby coffee plant.
The actual bean comes out of the ground and opens up into two green leaves.
Lots of coffee plants growing in the shade of banana trees (shade grown coffee)
Bugs prefer tobacco plants over coffee plants, so random tobacco plants are placed throughout the farm to keep the bugs away from the coffee.
Beans drying – Tipica and Bourbon are two of the delicious traditional varieties.
That’s enough about coffee for now. On to Tejo! Tejo is a game that is kind of like corn hole in the States, but it’s played with heavy metal pucks instead of bean bags, and you are throwing at a clay/mud pit. In the center of the pit are triangle papers filled with gun powder that are placed on top of the center metal ring. If you hit the packets right, there is an explosion. There are a few more rules and ways to gain points than making something explode, but the explosion is definitely the most fun part! I posted a video on insta, or here are a few terrible quality pics of us playing.
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One Christmas Eve we visited a nature reserve called Kasaguadua. These guys are doing some really cool work to take care of the forests native to Colombia. They have a small eco lodge set up in the reserve that is focused on finding ways for people to have as small of an impact on the environment as possible. The guy who led the tour was so knowledgeable about the plants, forests, and history of the area. If you are ever in Salento, this place is worth the visit. It’s a beautiful reserve and a great learning experience.
Our group and guide in the forest. 
Us 🙂
The “bamboo” is huge (they don’t call it bamboo because its different than what we see at home, but similar!)
I think the moss that grows on everything is beautiful!
Onto our final activity in Salento – horseback riding. We went horseback riding on Christmas Day to Santa Rita, a nearby waterfall. I’ve only ridden a horse two or three times in my life and riding one up and down a mountain was terrifying, but a really wonderful experience! Though I was terrified when we started, I felt really calm by the end. Kirk, of course, was a pro. All our pictures were taken by him or our guide because I had a death grip on the saddle 😳😂. Here are a few pics!
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Through the river! I was thankful for the boots they lent us!
Through the tunnel! It was much cooler in person. This is an old train tunnel that was constructed, but the rails were never put in!
The river that waterfall fell into.
Some of the beautiful scenery we saw while riding!
Us at the waterfall 🙂
Overall it was a different Christmas than we expected, but filled with some really good memories. We originally planned on heading to the town square for Christmas Eve because we heard there would be a big celebration and the police would hand out presents to local kids (which I think sounds like a great idea!), but it ended up pouring down rain! We spent Christmas Eve with pizza and a bottle of wine at a nearby restaurant, followed by popcorn and a Netflix movie in our room, but it was wonderful all the same. Here’s a picture of some kid sized “Willys” and horses that kids could ride in around the square (before the downpour on Christmas Eve). 
Okay, that’s more than enough catching up for now! Stay tuned for our New Years Eve Adventures. I’m sure it will be quite a night!
The Yonderers 