Trips to Colombia

TRIPS TO COLOMBIA: COFFEE ZONE

The coffee zone includes 62 municipalities of the departments of Antioch, Calda, Risaralda, Quindío and the Valley of the Cauca, 775,000 hectares altogether. Nevertheless, the main area is delimited between the municipalities of Manizales, Villa Maria, Chinchiná, Neira, Palestine, Marseilles, Dosquebradas, Santa Rosa de Cabal, Pereira, Filandia, Circasia, Quimbaya, Montenegro, Armenia, Calarcá, Ulloa and Alcala, 155,000 hectares where 654,000 inhabitants live.

They are the paradisiac coffee earth, that offer to their visitors an ample climate range, from ardent earth in the Valley of the Magdalena river to perpetual snows of Snowed of Ruiz and Santa Isabel.

Déjate to touch by the aroma and the flavor of the fruits of the coffee zone. Although you must consider, that not only the coffee cultures characterize this place, also make its customs, their people, her landscapes and the traditional architecture of his ciudaddes.

In the south, the traditional properties and coffee property paisas surround with their ebullient vegetation the city of Armenia in the Quindío, “the city Miracle of Colombia”. Finally, the last department that comprises of the coffee zone: Risaralda, with the majesty of its Park of the Snowed ones offers unique landscapes of lagoons, natural forests, cascades and by all means perpetual snows, framing the “trasnochadora and brown Querendona” Pereira.

It is necessary to remember that in the country, the coffee not only represents one of main products of export, but also that generates use in the field. This fruit has transferred its territorial borders becoming the symbol of the best coffee of the world and the hope of a town that is anxious to offer and to show the other face of Colombia.

The coffee zone is pending of being declared Patrimony of the Humanity by UNESCO. At the moment, Colombia has four places that are considered patrimony cultural of the world and a natural patrimony: the port, the strength and the monumental set of Cartagena, the historical center of Mompox, the national archaeological park of Tierradentro, the archaeological park of San Agustín and the natural national park the Katíos.

If UNESCO accepts to the Coffee Landscape like world-wide and cultural patrimony, for half-full of the 2006, the places will be increased to six that own exceptional a universal value, is cultural, natural, or both simultaneously.



TO EMPHASIZE:

National park of the Coffee
Like a tribute to the Colombian caficultura in 1982, the Coffee National congress approved the construction of the National Park of the Coffee, work that initiated its construction in 1991. It was inaugurated in 1995, becoming a true national and international success.

The park was constructed in the heart of the Quindío to ten minutes by highway of the population of Montenegro, in an initial area of 12 hectares.

In this zone the National Museum of the Coffee and the Ecological Footpath were located. Soon the second stage in an additional area of 24 hectares was developed. In this second phase of the project, was constructed the Cableway, the Hunting, the Way of the Carrier, the Train of the Coffee, the suspension bridge, the retort of the Place of Bolivar of Armenia, the Show of the Orchids and other attractions.

The National Park of the Coffee has been motor of tourist development of the Quindío and great generator of diverse companies in the region. In his first year of creation it was visited by 250,000 people. The tourism is becoming one of the great supports of the Quindiana economy, thanks to the opening of the National Park of the Coffee and to innumerable property and industralists who with hospitality shelter the visitor.

The National Park of the Coffee is located between Montenegro and Pueblotapao in the Department of the Quindío, in kilometer six. The schedule of opening to the public is: Enter the Park Of 9:00 a.m to 4:00 p.m; Mechanical attractions Of 9:30 a.m to 6:00 p.m


Reigned festival the International of the coffee
Maximum event of the Fair of Manizales, traditional already in the world, in which beautiful women participate representing to an average of thirty countries. In the reign it is fulfilled the rigorous regulations of the maximum international reigns of beauty.

It attracts mainly the resident population and great part of tourists. It is necessary to emphasize that not even the bullfighting event, in spite of its tradition and quality, attracts and gives as much category to the Fair, like the Reign the International of the Coffee. In addition during this great celebration, it is also celebrated the National Festival Folkloric, the Bullfighting Fair, the National Festival of the Trova and the Artisan National Market.