Coffee time

In my coffee bath - part one

Café, chocolate and agua panela: these are the three beverages Colombian people enjoy along the day.

Panela: unrefined cane sugar

Agua panela

Coffee and chocolate, you know. Agua panela? I guess most of you don't. It's simple to prepare, as long as you can find panela, this block of unrefined cane sugar. Colombian people drink it just melted in boiled water, or add it in their coffee, chocolate, and even fruit juices when it's cold... Sugary - ow really - but delicious!

And where did we enjoy all of this the last two weeks? Around Armenia, amigos!

Below a recap of our path in the region of Armenia, where we arrived, if you remember well, after a crazy drive in a Bus Express!! We remember. Very well...!

Ready to take the Duntchies train? LET'S GO!

Circasia - Two nights around a cemetery

Aaaah... as the Offspring would say: "Time to Relax!"

Our night in the South of Armenia didn't convince us to stay longer. So, despite the obvious coming rain, we decided to hit the road again! But as we were cycling, the sky became darker and darker... Niet goed!!
That's the moment when Arthur decided to stop at a very nice building, all neat - with a very strange architecture though: there was a big wall made of empty squared holes from bottom to top...

Anyway, no time for thoughts: only for action! We need some square meters of grass to settle our tent NOW! And this place looks really good!

Hernando, the owner of the building, tries to explain us that here - like, "exactly here" - is not possible - ok, well, no time to ask why. However, his neighbor has a small field just above this cementerio (qué??). We understand half of his explanation but we don't care, we agree on whatever he suggests us: the rain is coming, we can smell it! So hop-hop-hop! We slam our bikes in the garden, set up our tent in 5 minutes aaaaaand... huge rain shower. OUTCH! Just in time!

Morning view in Circasia

So here we were, all happy with our beautiful view! What we didn't know at this time was we would move one day after to a friend of Hernando, living in a finca just... on the other side! We could see his lands from where we were.

Hernando sugested this to us one evening, while spoiling us with a delicious warm chocolate. The great thing in Colombia is that almost everything we eat is fresh: the meat, the vegetables, the fruits. And even the warm chocolate, prepared with pure chocolate, fresh milk and, of course, agua panela! In every place we went, they all have those two instruments to prepare a warm chocolate: a wooden stick with this specific form, vigorously rubbed in the preparation to mix the ingredients perfectly.

Warm chocolate, freshly prepared by Hernando :-)

The result: a delicious and creamy warm chocolate - mmmmhhh!!!!!

Very fresh milk!

Still in Circasia, from the opposite mountain - Gracias, una y mil veces, Orlando!

Orlando in his kitchen

Orlando is a 62 years old man, who works every single day as tenant of a finca.
And Orlando is also a Don Juan but recently had his heart broken... He was then all happy to share his days with two foreigners! We had great meals together and nice talks with him. He is very curious of the European culture - but agrees that he would have a hard time with the weather... ow really!?

Orando's house is made of two main parts: his bedroom and the main room, which is in fact mainly the kitchen. No table, no chairs!

That's why we decided to create a table for him, with the wood around. Well, with the tools we found, we spent one full afternoon to cut four shelves! In the end, we decided to make it easier: one piece of log and one piece of round shelve found somewhere in the garden.

Hop! Done.

And finally we could eat with the three of us.





Ah, we of course have some pictures with him.
As you can see, we look like giants! And for the record, it's the case with every Colombian! They are so much smaller than us! I would never have been in the forefront on school pictures!





Below some pictures of the finca, where we spent this very nice week in Orlando's company - also with Toby and Gitana, his two energetic dogs.

The owner house, absolutely empty: the owner doesn't live here anymore
The dog meditating in the sun? Toby!

As for many finca's, the owner has a house and the tenant another one. Most of the time, the owner doesn't live there. The house is not used and no one takes care of it... Shame since, as for this house, the original structure can be beautiful!

Orlando's house - with Gitana thinking about life, the universe and everything

Orlando coming back with fresh milk!!

Everyday, Orlando would retrieve the milk from the cows he takes care of. from this fresh milk, he would, among other things, create fresh cheese.

View of the finca

Other view of the finca

Bye Orlando and thanks again for this nice time together in Circasia!!












Next post, in a couple of days: we will share with you some amazing pictures of:

=> Our hiking day with Carla and Carlsten in and around Salento

=> Our journey to a little house on top of the trees - a coffee farm where we worked one afternoon to discover the first steps of coffee business!

Just a first taste of the next post :-)

See you soon!

A&A