Take a horseback ride through the gently rolling, impossibly green mountains of the Coffee Region and it’s easy to see why it’s been designated a Unesco World Heritage Site. The volcanic earth that covers the Colombian cordillera makes for the most fertile of soil, literally anything planted in the ground here springs up full of life and colour. It’s no wonder most coffee fincas are almost as proud of their gardens, with a thousand varieties of flower, as they are of the little red cherry that is the finest arabica coffee bean in the world.
From the verandah of these gorgeous fincas, the vista is one of luxuriant foliage, a perfect combination of coffee bushes, banana trees, tropical flowers and colourful birds, rolling hillside stretching as far as the eye can see. It inspires a sense of calmness and tranquility and combined with the heat of the midday sun it’s enough to make you want to kick back in your hammock for the whole afternoon, sipping a cup of the black stuff and gently dozing.