I could not reconcile the fact that most coffee served in Colombia -- its "tinto" -- tastes like dishwater while the country itself produces the world's finest beans. I wanted to know why.
The bus zooms around hair pin turns along the mountain road from Medellin to Manizales. I am feeling increasingly queasy, the deep greens of the countryside reflecting the way I feel. (The last thing I feel like is a caffeine hit).
It's a landscape of deep ravines with thick stands of giant, fluffy bamboo, towering palm trees running along ridge tops, a dappled tapestry of coffee plantations and citrus orchards wrapped in low lying clouds.
The trip usually takes five or six hours. It has taken us just four. Our heads are spinning. We thank the deities that we have arrived in one piece. The bus deposits us near a roadside restaurant where we make a call. Soon afterwards a jeep from Hacienda Venecia, located a long way below us on the valley floor, arrives. The charming manager of this eighty year old plantation, J.P, gets out and greets us in perfect English, no doubt the product of an excellent education gained abroad. He has taken time out from the busy affairs of the coffee farm to drive up the bumpy, unpaved road to pick up two curious Australians. We will be staying for the next couple of days at the Hacienda which has recently started offering travellers acommodation.
That evening we get down to discussing the dishwater mystery."I refuse to drink coffee from a cardboard or polystyrene cup -- and as for those big, cheap mugs of slosh they serve in the U.S ..." I hear myself telling him in a tone of mock disgust.
(I quickly regret the impression this latte loving, pseudo-European, coffee-snob might be making.)
...Want to read the remainder of this story? It is available in my book, 'The House on Lopez Cotilla - A Journey through Latin America' (Kindle Direct Publising, 2012)
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