Eje Cafetero Destination Guide

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Why Eje Cafetero, Colombia

The Eje Cafetero, is considered the second tourist destination in Colombia, declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, has the largest number of Tourist Sites and attractions to visit, in a territory blessed by nature, where you can have the wonderful experience of staying in a traditional coffee farm.

You can choose from the traditional theme parks (Parque del Café and Panaca - two of the main tourist icons of the Eje Cafetero), to cultural tours of the Butterfly Park and Botanical Garden of Quindío, or Tour of the Coffee Culture (RECUCA) or through the Park of the Arrieros.

If you want to know the Wonderful World of the Coffee Farms, we invite you to take a Willys, a famous vehicle of the peasants of the region, to visit coffee plantations and banana plantations, and get to know the coffee process very closely. 

If you like extreme sports, you can enjoy flights over coffee plantations, with one of the best canopies in Colombia, and even enjoy an exciting paragliding flight.

 

Eje Cafetero Travel Directory

10 Reasons to Visit Eje Cafetero

1) Biodiversity ecosystems

The wealth of tourism in Colombia is patented in the Eje Cafetero, countless parks, botanical gardens, hot springs and even snow-capped mountains are the attractions that cannot be missed, this is a "yipao" of adventures, inhabitants use this expression to  refer  a lot number of objects

2) Gastronomical variety

Enjoy the beauty of its nature and its muleteers, however do not forget to pack snacks for the road; Arequipe de café,  arepita de choclo, wafers, solteritas and the buñuelito. When touring the region there are other regional   dishes such as sancocho, in Marseille; medallions and cheeses, in Sanctuary; buried chicken, cold cuts and orange, blackberry, passion fruit and coffee wines, in Apía; catfish sancocho, fish widower and fried bearded man, in La Virginia; angel buttocks (wrapped), carambará cold cuts, chiquichoques, frijoladas and lodging (chicha), in Quinchía; and in general, other typical dishes of Antioquia and Creole cuisine, such as the traditional paisa dish, which the visitor can savor in any restaurant in Risaralda.

3) People

Get on a "Willys" and go to visit this land of  passionate people  and with history,  lets make a good cup of coffee to join this trip full of color and Colombian culture  like the coffee beans.  When you weak up every morning, you will have a gift waiting for you, an irresistible morning coffee, because coffee is abundant in this region, the warmth, simplicity and nobility of its people can be found in every street of the small towns of this destination known as the coffee embassy.

4) Shopping and Nightlife

When it comes to shopping, you can find the best crafts in theme parks or nearby towns like Salento, Quimbaya, or Finland, to name a few.

 There are also all kinds of decorative and functional items created with incredible talent and designed by hand with natural elements such as fibers, seeds, guadua, iracas, etc. From these supplies we find the precious “yipao” (traditional jeep transportation) made to scale, chapoleras dolls, a good carriel, the aguadeño hat and dozens of other small works of art that represent nature and the customs of the coffee farms.

When the party comes every weekend, the coffee farmers have made their venues the best places for partying: club parties, traditional music clubs, salsoteca ... cafes that become bars, bars where after a few drinks you end up running tables and chairs to improvise dance floors.

 

5) The Nearby towns

The cities of Manizales, Pereira, and Armenia.   make up the "Coffee Triangle you can visit  from top to bottom all the tourist towns; Santuario, Belén de Umbría, Quimbaya, Montenegro, Aguadas, Salamina and Pijao, you will not regret it and on the contrary, you will want to extend your visit. Traveling through these generous and prosperous valleys, you can observe endless coffee plantations and their colorful wooden houses with balconies of wood and flowers, which make it a very picturesque landscape.

6) Transportation

The time has come to travel through Eje Cafetero. And how? That should not be a problem, because we will have a fleet of vehicles at your disposal: from chivas (ladder buses), jeeps, buses, horses, cable cars, articulated buses and other public transportation; To cross the trails and gain access to the best views from coffee farms, nature reserves and cloud forests, jeeps, chivas and 4x4s are the vehicles that cannot be absent, and then work out legs of steel because nature commands that these treasures should be follow on foot and with good boots.

7) Festivals

National Coffee Pageant, the Calarcá Festivities and the national coffee festivals. During these festivities, in Calarcá  take place the Yipao Parade in honor to the Jeep Willys  influence in the development of these lands as an icon of coffee culture.

Offering a tribute to the means of transport that helped to evolve the transportation of coffee, from the beginnings with the muleteers to nowadays, the Yipao parade is an event that for years have positioned as a tourist attraction in the coffee region.

8) Architecture

The Architecture of the Coffee Cultural Land is Creole architecture with a strong Hispanic element from Spanish colonial architecture, and expressed in the use of common materials in pre-Hispanic housing (bahareque).

Traditional architecture is complemented by many formal expressions, especially openwork and wood carving, both ornamental and structural and functional.

If you arrived in this area and the night fell  lets dream inside the lodging houses of indigenous architecture of the local coffee farmers, farms full of tradition, attended by beautiful chapoleras (female farmers) that in their hair carry the roots of this land and the smell of each coffee plantation harvested.

 

9) Weather

This land offers different thermal floors that allows you  to enjoy different weathers, it all depends on where city are you located  and the height above  sea level.

From 800-1000 meters above sea level are the areas with the hottest days, Pereira and Armenia average 20-26⁰, Otún Pearl is the urban center that  according to many visitors, the best climate in the Eje Cafetero; In contrast, the cultural city of Manizales can be consider Eje Cafetero  coldest capital (18 degrees C).

On the other hand, the coldest places (even reaching sub-zero temperatures) predominate the cloud forests which are eminently forested areas without human presence (except the rangers); Around these routes we find natural beauties such as the Otún Lagoon or  Los Nevados National Natural Park, where you most take with you all the equipment: scarves, mittens, ski masks, good coats and even a very good portion of energy foods. The other edge of the weather is represented by places that are significantly hot, so we have places like Cartago, La Dorada, La Virginia, among others, where it is better to hydrate well, wear sunglasses, a cap or hat and wear comfortable clothes and shoes not so covered.

10) Music

Listening to the music of the Eje Cafetero is a journey through its mountains, through that Colombian Andean folklore that sounds like the force of the river, through new sound lines.

In Colombian Andean folklore, the mountainous landscape plays an indispensable role in the construction of these sounds, the peasant memory; heirs of a sensitive mix of  regional artists, indigenous goldsmiths, tough slaves, architects, and colonial writers.

The Bambuco is one of the main exponents of the musical expression of Colombia. Due to its great dispersion, which covers thirteen departments of the Andean zone, it is considered "the national air" of Colombia. It  has a mixed origin and combines melodies of the indigenous tradition with European rhythms, possibly  from  Basque Country.