Into the Mountains of Manizales, Colombia

After a string of go-go-go travel and cuteness overload, we were ready to “settle down” for awhile (aka two weeks) in green and mountainous Manizales, which is one of the three mid-sized cities in Colombia’s Eje Cafetera, or Coffee Triangle. We liked Manizales…a lot. More than we thought we would, and in fact, surprisingly more than Medellin.

A lot of this had to do with how much we loved our apartment, which was thoughtfully cozy and had a terrific view on the ninth floor ($21/night). The other reason we liked Manizales? It was just a very cheap, easy and livable place to be. Easy to buy groceries, easy to shop, easy to take transport and super fast internet. It also is known as “The City of Open Doors,” which is highly accurate considering its friendly and welcoming people (but isn’t that true for the whole country of Colombia?)

For us, it was a bit of a blend between San Francisco and our former home of Portland, Oregon. The weather is definitely not fantastic. Although the temperature itself is copy/pasted everyday to the upper teen’s/low 20’s (upper 60’s, Americans), it’s mixed with a blend of rain, thunderstorms and lots and lots of fog. In fact, Manizales is so foggy that it regularly affects their airport, like San Francisco. It was cloudy the majority of the time we were there so unfortunately, we never got to see the nearby Nevada del Ruiz volcano in all its glory. (Kinda like Portland and its nearby Mt Hood all winter long.) Maybe this is good because apparently it’s puffing smoke right now and that might have just reminded us of our potential for impending doom. This volcano blew its top is 1985 and tragically killed 20,000 people.

In addition to the weather, it is hella hilly, like SF. If you owned a treadmill here or went to the gym, you would be seriously wasting your cash. Finally, it’s an incredibly safe major university town, so it’s got a quirky, progressive and hipster vibe that we really appreciated.

Our Accommodation

Our apartment, which we found on AirBnb. We would stay here again in a heartbeat and probably will for $450/month. It had all the special touches we rarely get in a home like bedside lights, a blender, a rainfall shower, ample storage and kitchenware and a super sleep-able bed. Not to mention two phenomenal hosts. This place ranks in one of our top ten airbnb apartments we’ve stayed in. We’ve stayed in 140 of them and just reached 100 reviews, in case you’re curious.

Night view. It was pretty fun to see the Christmas lights start multiplying during our time here.

Another way we got into the Christmas mood was by listening to the nightly band practice from the Seminary below. Recognize the song? 🙂

Exploring el Centro

Free stuff on the streets!!! Okay, now it’s definitely like Portland. When we saw this lovely piece of art on the street, it reminded us of a time in Portland when Greg literally played rock, paper, scissors with a girl who spied a painting on the street at the exact same time as him. He won. He’s a natural rock-paper-scissor-er.

Parroquia Los Agustinos in the center of Manizales.

More Portland flashbacks. Stores that sold puffy coats and fleece. Because, you know it gets in the 50’s at night here….

Avocado seller on the street. They cost $1000 pesos each (about $.25)

The Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Rosary, or the Manizales Cathedral, is a grand Catholic cathedral completed in 1939 and is undoubtedly Manizales’ token centerpiece, seen from everywhere in the city. It is the highest cathedral in Colombia at 106 meters, and one source we read said was the third tallest in Latin America. But you know how everyone likes to have a claim to fame…

A close-up of the clock. It definitely resembled a church that fell out of Europe.

It features colossal stained glass windows, which are not standard religious depictions, but much more abstract.

The remarkable free-standing dome, which you’re actually able experience first hand…if you pay for a really long tour which we didn’t have the patience to do. Funnily, however, we got to witness a nice butt shot of someone else on a tour who decided to sit on the window pane in the dome. Classy.

An eye-catching three-story statue in Plaza de Bolivar, in central Manizales. We couldn’t find any information on it. Also, unfortunately, free walking tours were not running in the city when we visited.

A fruit seller on the street selling healthy fruit cups loaded with sugar, salt and cream.

The main commercial thoroughfare in the center of Manizales. It would be a lot nicer if they made it pedestrian only.

The church in the square at Caldas Park. Cute!

Grabbing lunch at a street vendor. What else? Empanadas y jugos de naturales…mango, claro que si!

The Historic Railway Station of Manizales was constructed in 1926. Like in the States, the railway lines are pretty much decimated in Colombia.

Parque de la Mujer (Women’s Park) was a lovely vista overlooking one of the valleys near our place. From it, there is a public elevator that descends you about eight floors down to the valley. We haven’t seen many of these in our travels so found it interesting.

The wall of women in the park. No Mandy, nor the more likely, Amanda.

Riding the Metro Cable to Villamaria

It is definitely much easier to get around the layers and layers of mountain terrain of Manizales by riding the Metro Cable. It costs about $1 a ride and is a phenomenal way to see the city.

The view of the center as seen from the metro cable. See the cathedral? It’s actually pretty fascinating how the city has been built on a quite narrow ridge. As soon as you get up this massive incline to the center, you immediately drop back down on the other side to a different valley. Manizales is a creation of multiple ridges and valleys. We’ve never really seen any other city like it.

From the metro cable you can see sights of our first wax palms in the distance. Wax palms are the national tree of Colombia which we’ll be seeing lot more of very soon.

Arriving to the village of Villamaria on the outskirts of the city via cable car. Strangely, as soon as we entered the main square, we both immediately felt we had been transported to….Bavaria of all places. Perfect. It’s the season and we were just craving some gluhwein!

Some of the best coffee in the world will have to suffice.

Especially when we laid eyes on this church.

Still in Villamaria, you can see the roller coaster behavior of the Manizales streets in this photo.

Shops in Villamaria. We really liked this neighborhood. If we were gonna live in Manizales longer-term, it definitely has appeal.

Ecoparque Los Yarumos

It’s always a good day to confront your fears! Mandy allows a…quite sizable tarantula to take a stroll on her arms at the family-friendly BioMa science museum in Ecoparque Los Yarumos in Manizales. It wasn’t really something she planned to do. But when the guide asked her is she was interested, after watching a 10-year-old do it, she didn’t wanna look like a weenie so she valiantly said, “Por que no?” It was actually pretty incredible and made her feel a bit guilty for eating one in Cambodia. They get a bad rap, but are extraordinarily beautiful animals.

We also got to see some giant grubs up close and personal. BioMa is an acclaimed science and sustainability research center set in a relaxed park and provides a healthy burst of oxygen for the city. We ended up here by chance because it was only a 40-minute walk from our place and were more than surprised to be paired with an English speaking guide for the majority of the visit. And all of it was free! What a deal!

This park is a slice of tropical rainforest inside of not-so-tropical Manizales. A different Spanish-speaking guide took us on a 30-minute trail into the rainforest where she pointed out all kinds of plants, insects and birds we had never seen before. She also mentioned there were armadillos and sloths, but unfortunately those didn’t grace our presence. It was definitely a fun place to spend the afternoon.

Other Parts of the City

Torre Del Cable is the tallest of the wooden Colombian lattice towers used to support the historic cableway in Manizales from 1922 to 1961. It’s only a monument today, and serves as a common meeting point for the locals of Manizales.

Navidad is here and the shopping malls look fabulous!

Some of the produce selection at a regular supermarket.

More impressive is the MaxiFruvers… giant fruit and vegetable market wonderlands unlike any we’ve seen elsewhere in the country. Another reason we were very happy here. We generally walked out with giant bag of produce for about $5.

Among those items usually included a yellow dragonfruit, which are surprisingly much more delicious and juicy than their Asian pink counterparts, which are a bit lackluster.

This city is a natural glute enhancer.

Another thing that reminded us of our former home? Having a Bogota Brewing Company craft brewery across the street!! We couldn’t help but indulge on the $3 pints more than once. (NOT the same price as Portland for the record!) Among our favorites were a honey ale, and an English Special Bitter. Greg was even able to get a pumpkin pie variety just in time for Thanksgiving.

In the same location as the brewery was the Mercado Gastronomico, a trendy food court with a plethora of decent and “exotic” food options like Chinese, Japanese, Italian and Mexican. For our Thanksgiving dinner, we settled on sushi. Because why wouldn’t we?

The flower markets provided a lot of cheer to the often grey sky.

The San Esteban Cemetery, constructed in 1922, provided a lovely home for a ring of wax palm babies.

We loved how they closed off the main avenue to bicycles and pedestrians on Thursday evenings and Sunday mornings. It’s an incredibly family-oriented and well-planned city.

They even put ping pong and pool tables up on the streets

Chipre Neighborhood

In the Chipre neighborhood, you can find the most dramatic views of the Los Nevados Mountains, if it’s ever clear. Unfortunately, this is a pretty common occurrence.

We can see why the locals love coming up here, however. There are string of food cart pods, including some pretty Portland-esque ones that offer cookies and ice cream for canines sprouted from the bed of a jeep, and one completely devoted to succulents and houseplants. Geez.

The view. Haha.

Another adorable building…The Church of Chipre. No, that is not the official name.

The spaceship-looking contraption of Torre de Chipre is where we had hoped to see 360-views of the entire area. Ha. Fat chance.

Ecotermales El Otono

One of the other amazing things about the Eje Cafetera is the abundance of hot springs set amongst pristine mountains, which feel pretty wonderful when the weather sits in the mid-60’s most of the time.

We settled on Ecotermales El Otono, which was about a 30-minute bus ride from our apartment. We got there by getting on the white and orange Gran Caldas buses that went down Ave. Kevin Angel for $9200 pesos round trip ($2.35) and we mostly had them to ourselves.

The entrance fee was surprisingly steep for Colombian standards at $30,000 pesos/ticket or about $7.75. We visited specifically on a Thursday because we read in the guidebook it was buy one, get one, but that was disappointingly inaccurate information.