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Coffee and Mountains: Eje Cafetero and Los Nevados | PrivateTour

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Outdoor ActivitiesHiking Vs TrekkingMulti-day & Extended ToursPrivate & Custom Tours

Coffee and Mountains: Eje Cafetero and Los Nevados

Pereira, Colombia

5 DAYS

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Duration

5 DAYS

Group Type

PRIVATE

Language

en, es

Confirmation

On Request

Overview

Visit a coffee farm in Chinchina. Trek the Santa Isabel glacier, páramos and cloud forests of Los Nevados. Hike in the Otún Quimbaya Sanctuary and Cocora Valley.

Highlights

Stay overnight in the town of Salento.
Hike in Valle del Cocora, home to hummingbirds and the tallest palm trees in the world.
Visit the Otún Quimbaya Flora and Fauna Sanctuary.
Sleep in quaint mountain farmhouses and get a taste of Andean farm life.
Hike through a cloud forest full of exotic birds and flowers.
Trek through a páramo, a unique environment of glacial lakes and succulent plants.
Hike to the Santa Isabel glacier at 4700 meters (15,420 feet) above sea level.
Visit a coffee farm and learn about the entire coffee process from the best growers in the world

What's Included

Inclusions

entrance fees
Guiding service
All meals from lunch of Day 1 to lunch of Day 5.
Accommodations
Private transportation (pick up and drop off at the Pereira airport).

Exclusions

Travel insurance.
Trail food.
Personal trekking gear (backpack, boots, poles).
Flights to and from Pereira.

Itinerary

Coffee farm

Your adventure starts at the Pereira airport where you meet your guide. From there you drive on scenic mountain roads to Chinchina and spend the day at a coffee farm. In the evening you drive to Manizales where you spend the night.

The Santa Isabel Glacier

The day starts early with a drive to Los Nevados National Park and the Nevado de Santa Isabel trailhead at 4000 meters (13,123 feet). The trail ascends immediately and you hike by headlamp light through a highland forest of dwarfed trees, mossy plants and small lagoons. As dawn breaks so do the dense vegetation and you get open views of rock cliffs and mountainsides. Patches of snow appear as you go higher, accentuating the barren but beautiful landscape with white. You pass a collection of glacial lakes and soon after you arrive at the border of the Santa Isabel glacier at 4700 meters (15,420 feet). After enjoying the high altitude scenery, catching your breath in the thin air and perhaps making a snow angel, you hike back down. 5 hours and 7 kilometres (4 miles) after you started you arrive back at the trailhead. You spend the night at Campoalegre, a farm inn at 3930 meters (12,894 feet) just outside Los Nevados National Park. There you get your first taste of hand-made arepas, farm-fresh cheese and Colombian highlands hospitality.

Otún Lake and the páramo

Today's trek starts on a wide mountainside trail with sweeping views of meadows and hills full of wildflowers. From the trail, you see El Ruiz, the infamous and highly active volcano that killed 25,000 people when it erupted in 1985. After an hour or so you reach Laguna de Otún, a lake fed by the Santa Isabel glacier that you hiked to yesterday. The lake sits at 3900 meters (12,795 feet) above sea level and is the source of the Otun River that supplies drinking water to the city of Pereira where you started this adventure. After enjoying the view of the lake and the waterfalls that feed it you leave the wide mountainside trail and follow a narrow path that takes you through a garden of exotic succulent plants. This is the beginning of your trek through the páramo. You spend the rest of the day walking through this unique landscape of frailejones (cactus-like plants that are said to resemble friars), colchones de agua ("water cushions"), rocky mountainsides and Andean eagles. In mid-afternoon, you arrive at the El Jordan farmhouse where you spend the night.