By our second trip to Colombia, we’d figured out that a week or so with Juan’s mom was probably about my limit before I needed a little breathing room.<\/p>\n
I love his mom.<\/p>\n
But privacy is a little different in Colombia.<\/p>\n
If you’re in the bathroom, someone might be on the other side of the door talking to you.<\/p>\n
If you’re sitting somewhere, someone wants to talk.<\/p>\n
If you’re eating, someone is probably eating too.<\/p>\n
And sometimes I just wanted to have an English conversation with my husband without having to split my attention.<\/p>\n
So, on one trip, we decided to get away for a few days.<\/p>\n
We arrived in December, just in time for Christmas.<\/p>\n
That was my first mistake.<\/p>\n
Christmas in Colombia is loud.<\/p>\n
New Year’s is louder.<\/p>\n
And New Year’s in Colombia is, apparently, a completely different category of loud.<\/p>\n
It was also sunny and hot.<\/p>\n
In Canada, December means winter coats, snowbanks and wondering if your car will start.<\/p>\n
In Colombia, it meant sunshine, music, family and people talking through bathroom doors.<\/p>\n
I needed a little space.<\/p>\n
So we went to Salento.<\/p>\n
Salento is a small town in Quind\u00edo, in the heart of Colombia’s coffee region.<\/p>\n
I’d heard about the Cocora Valley and its enormous wax palms. I’d heard about the coffee farms. I knew we were in coffee country.<\/p>\n
We only had a few days, though, so we weren’t going to see everything.<\/p>\n
We took a bus.<\/p>\n
About three and a half hours.<\/p>\n
I get carsick.<\/p>\n
So by the time we arrived, I was already questioning some of our decisions.<\/p>\n
The bus dropped us at a gas station, where our host met us in a Willy’s Jeep.<\/p>\n
We climbed in and started up the hills.<\/p>\n
Forty minutes of winding roads and dirt tracks later, we arrived at the finca.<\/p>\n
Juan was having a wonderful time talking with the driver.<\/p>\n
I was trying to find good thoughts.<\/p>\n
The finca itself was charming.<\/p>\n
Old.<\/p>\n
Clean.<\/p>\n
Well cared for.<\/p>\n
The whole family seemed to be involved in running it.<\/p>\n
There was a bamboo forest on the property, fruit and vegetables growing around us, and giant banana and plantain trees.<\/p>\n
At one point, we stopped and I saw a pineapple growing.<\/p>\n
Growing.<\/strong><\/p>\n I had apparently never stopped to consider where pineapples came from.<\/p>\n I had assumed they just appeared in grocery stores.<\/p>\n \ud83d\ude02<\/p>\n The next day we headed into Salento.<\/p>\n Another car ride.<\/p>\n The town was colourful and lively, with painted buildings, little artisan shops and people everywhere.<\/p>\n I bought my first hat.<\/p>\n It looked wonderfully old-fashioned and handmade, which made me like it even more.<\/p>\n We found some great food.<\/p>\n We found coffee.<\/p>\n We found neat little caf\u00e9s.<\/p>\n And then we climbed the stairs to the lookout over the town and the Quind\u00edo River.<\/p>\n It was beautiful.<\/p>\n We sat for a while.<\/p>\n We drank coffee.<\/p>\n And I had what remains one of my favourite drinks in Colombia:<\/p>\n limonada de coco.<\/strong><\/p>\n I would happily go back for that alone.<\/p>\n We didn’t make it to a coffee plantation that trip.<\/p>\n The timing wasn’t right.<\/p>\n The growing season wasn’t right.<\/p>\n We knew we’d come back.<\/p>\n And we did.<\/p>\n But what stayed with me wasn’t the list of things we had managed to see.<\/p>\n It was how much there was that we hadn’t.<\/p>\n Everywhere we went, we met people.<\/p>\n We’d start talking.<\/p>\n They’d ask questions.<\/p>\n We’d ask questions.<\/p>\n And then, somehow, it would become difficult to leave.<\/p>\n We wanted another hour.<\/p>\n Another coffee.<\/p>\n Another conversation.<\/p>\n Another look around.<\/p>\n Juan was discovering things too.<\/p>\n He had left Colombia when he was young and had spent most of his adult life away from it.<\/p>\n And I think one of the things that surprised both of us was realizing that there was so much country in his country.<\/strong><\/p>\n Every new place seemed to give him another reason to be proud of where he came from.<\/p>\n And every new place gave me another reason to want to see what was around the next corner.<\/p>\n We weren’t really checking places off a list.<\/p>\n We were just taking in the days.<\/p>\n And there was still so much to see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Basic principles to help you pair wine with your favorite dishes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[225,229],"tags":[237,246,270],"class_list":["post-43","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food-pairing","category-wine-guide","tag-food-and-wine","tag-pairing-guide","tag-wine-pairing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/simplycolombiancoffee.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/placehold.jpg?fit=1290%2C945&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/simplycolombiancoffee.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/simplycolombiancoffee.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/simplycolombiancoffee.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simplycolombiancoffee.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simplycolombiancoffee.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/simplycolombiancoffee.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simplycolombiancoffee.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/simplycolombiancoffee.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simplycolombiancoffee.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simplycolombiancoffee.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}