Llano Grande

A sunny beautiful warm morning. Leisurely breakfast with good food - lots of fruit in this country. Sold on all street corners, pineapple, oranges, passion fruit, dragon fruit and many fruits I have never heard of. Planning on a coffee tour in Santa Rosa (believe it or not) today along with other sites along the way. Not leaving until 1PM so Robert and I took a couple mile walk down the road from the hotel/spa. Lush jungle countryside with lots of flowers and hundreds of different colorful birds everywhere. Anything grows here - rains/showers most every day and constant year around temperatures in the 70's daytime. Reminds me of a more rustic Hawaii.
Off at 1PM with our guide for the rest of the day, Alex. Alex lived in the US, Florida, for about 12 years and spoke excellent English. He is now back in Colombia and has 3 girls under 6. Off to Santa Rosa de Cabal, a city of about 70,000, a 45 minute drive from our hotel. Roads are mostly dirt and quite bumpy until you get to main roads that are quite good. So lots of bouncing around in the car. We stopped to take pictures in the main plaza of the town - the obligatory church, vendors, restaurants and bars all around the pleasant plaza. Then off to find the coffee farm - some road work so detour over more rutted dirt roads.
The coffee farm Fincadelcafe tour was really great. Only one other young gal, Carolina, from Chile - a dental student, besides us in the group. About a 3.5 hour "conversation" about coffee from beginning to end. The young fellow, the coffee process expert, only spoke Spanish so Alex and Robert were our translators. A long walk through the coffee field to see all of the processes up close and personal and to see all of the other things that they grow there - flowers and fruits. A finish with "home made" (roasted in a skillet, hand ground, placed in a burlap sack and hot water poured over it) coffee. All of this for someone who never drinks coffee!! The finca had a small 8 room boutique hotel replete with swimming pool so we decided to have some wine before we left. Lovely environment on a great afternoon.
Back to Santa Rosa for dinner - the city is know for its chorizo so Alex said this was the best chorizo restaurant in town. Picture of my food below. Dinner for 4 - $22 !!!
Then the final entertainment of the day and off toTermales Santa Rosa - the hot springs and baths. It is now almost 9PM until we arrive - 5 more miles of dirt roads to get there one comes out into this oasis of cars and people. You need to walk about a half mile to get to the bath houses,restaurant, bars and the pools. Hundreds of people there all having a great time. Bath houses spotless, rent a locker, change your clothes and go for a soak. Lots of fountains pouring water in the pools and, though too dark to really appreciate, the landscape was a huge rock side to the mountain with a dozen separate waterfalls coming down. Lots of fun. Home over the same road with one last crisis for the day - our guide Alex ran out of gas (or something happened to the car - about a 1/2 mile from our hotel. So we walked the last 800 meters at 11PM !! A really fun day.Read more