This day was what our tour company, (Overseas Adventure Travel), calls "a day in the life." We are in the coffee triangle of Colombia, and we visited a coffee plantation, which I would describe as a small family coffee farm. The family worked on this farm for 20 years before they were able to purchase it. The farm is five acres. They had to replant everything after they purchased the farm. Their son helped them with financing the farm, and he still helps them with that and with work on the farm.

This was another area of Colombia where warring groups were fighting each other, and this family experienced the violence on a first-hand basis. Our local guide said that the drug trade is still here but on a much smaller scale than the Pablo Escobar days.

They talked about how this area is so great for growing coffee with the temperature, humidity and so forth. But they sidestepped that these hills are high and steep, and the area is very jungle like. I thought it was a great area, but I don't do farm work there.

We were told that walking or donkeys was the only transportation here, until after the Korean War. At that point in time, the world had an excess of jeeps and this area picked up on them as a means of transportation up and down these steep hills. They are still in use here, as we found out.

Some people have businesses of using jeeps as taxis and our local guide said that if a person could get one foot on the jeep, they had to pay the fare. He said he once saw a jeep with 28 people in it. We managed to travel with fewer of us in each jeep. Seat belts? Not a chance.

Upon arriving at this farm, the mother of the clan gave us a nice talk about her family's life and how they had moved to this area to escape the violence of another area and ended up here, though not free from the violence. It was a moving story and made me feel incredibly happy for this family to have survived and be doing well today. The whole family was very nice and welcoming. Our guide is on the right.

Then they put us to work, out picking coffee beans. They called it a plantation, but I would call it a coffee jungle. We saw farms where the coffee plants were in rows, and a tractor could drive between the rows. On this farm, we had to fight our way through the jungle to pick the coffee berries. They have other plants growing on the farm as well, but we were only picking coffee beans. The dad said it takes 60 beans to make a cup of coffee. I may have picked enough for a cup or two, or an expresso. The red beans are not perfect; they want them slightly past red, like purple. You can notice my picker basket, strapped to my waist. I never filled it though.

After our group picked the beans, the dad walked us through the entire coffee making process. Vicky led the charge for the group with much of the work. He said that they process and sell their own best beans but sell the rest of their beans to the local co-op. We purchased multiple bags of coffee here.

We got to see other aspects of their coffee farm operation. For instance, they showed us how they start new coffee plants, from seeds - or beans. They start them in river sand and had somewhat elaborate procedures to insure good plants.

They had plenty of coffee beans drying for a small family farm. Two guys were picking out something from the lot, perhaps bad beans. They said that they call Starbucks coffee, "Pizza coffee", because they stack it like a pizza with coffee, cream, flavorings, etc. They said, “Good coffee doesn’t need cream, and bad coffee doesn’t deserve it.”

This farm has all sorts of crops and plants on the farm. We saw Cocoa, Plantain, Coffee, Avocado, Papaya, Oranges, Lemons, Cotton, Blueberries, Strawberries, Chiti maya, Soursop, Guava, Apple-guava, and for insect prevention: tobacco and onions. Most varieties are just a few plants, but they use them all.

We had a homemade lunch but first we started by helping the family make Platicon con Guacamole at their outdoor kitchen. They double fry plantain and make guacamole from fresh avocadoes plus fresh tomatoes and onions. This was absolutely the best snack – or food – that I ate on this trip. The freshness and taste just exploded in my mouth. Vicky helped prepare it, while I took photos of the process and ate the results, not strictly for quality control…

Lunch was lemongrass soup with potatoes, plantain, etc. We had rice, beans, beef, chicken, avocadoes, tomatoes, carrots, onions, and salsas. Drinks were lemonade, made of lime juice, cinnamon, and brown sugar. Dessert was chocolate cake and chocolate coffee beans. It was all very fresh and delicious!

I guess we wouldn't have been in Colombia without some dancing and partying...