The next few days were spent in the coffee region of Colombia, hanging out at the Finca Steelhorse in Filandia.
This place is run by an English couple who have travelled on bikes and have now turned a small farm into a overlander guesthouse surrounded by a lovely garden with pigs and a horse. Josh and Johanna, our previous travel companions turned up so we got to have a get-together again, drink beers and work on the bikes.
Kate and Johanna went on a girls outing to a local coffee farm. The road leading there was a rough ride – sliding over lots of loos tiles and rocky boulders. But finally we found a nice cup of coffee! All the good coffee is exported and the Colombians end up drinking the low-quality stuff..which they try to make up for with looots of sugar.
One week to spare before our friend Basil’s arrival in Bogota, we headed up north to the Los Nevados National Park – for the first time on our own since Costa Rica! For the next days lots of rain was forecasted – not the best conditions for the planned expedition up to the Volcano Nevado del Ruiz. We decided to give it a go anyway. A gravel road ascended into the fog and rain to over 4’000m, where the air was filled with a smell of sulfur, followed by a rocky descent to the rural town of Murillo. In Murillo everyone was riding around on horses with cowboy hats, with only one guesthouse in town. After eating lunch surrounded by staring cowboys, we warmed up on some well-deserved “Brandy con leche” in the local store.
