The drive to the coffee region

Colombia’s geography

Colombia’s geography is dominated by 5 main natural regions

Andean region

Pacific region

Carribean region

Orinoquia region

Amazon region

Andes Region

Of this, the most populated regions are the Andean and the Carribean regions. Of the top 10 populated cities of Colombia, 7 of them are in the Andean region. So imagine the dominance of this region culturally and politically. The Andes region comprises 3 parallel mountain ranges - Cordilleras Orientales, Cordilleras Central and Cordilleras Occidental, simply translated as the Eastern Andes, Central Andes and the Western Andes. 

Coffee Axis

One sub-region in Andes natural region is the eje cafetero or the coffee axis region. Politically this comprises the 3 beautiful departments of Quindío, Risaralda and Caldas. There is so much coffee all around and in the culture that this is a part of the world heritage site called The Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia. For the record, a lot more departments produce coffee as well, however this region is the one that has the prestigious world heritage tag. This region is along the western slopes of the Central Andes region.

Route to the coffee axis

From Bogota, there are quite a lot of options to reach this region. There are regular flights and buses to each of the department capitals of Armenia, Pereira and Manizales. However, the road less travelled is my preferred mode - To drive.

Depending on the places that you want to cover, the suggested routes are the following:

Bogota - Villeta - Guaduas - Honda - Mariquita - Fresno - Alto De Letras - Manizales

Bogota - Soacha - Silvania - Melgar - Girardot - Ibagué - Cajamarca - La Linea - Calarca - Armenia

Mountain Passes - Some of the highest motorable and dangerous routes

The routes between Fresno to Manizales and Cajamarca to Calarca are the ones that travel through the mountain passes of Central Andes that are called Alto de Letras and La Linea respectively.

Alto de Letras is about 3679 meters above sea level and this offers an excellent view of the beautiful Nevado Del Ruiz volcano on clear days.

La Linea is about 3287 meters above sea level and this offers an excellent view of the Central Andes.

Recommended Route

If you are not travelling though Quindío, my recommendation would be to take the route through Fresno - Manizales (Ruta Nacional 50) as this road is less busy than La Linea. La Linea route is dominated by truck traffic as this is the Ruta Nacional 40 that connects Bogota to the Pacific port city of Buenaventura. The route 50 does not have a lot of truck traffic, hence it is a bit easier to traverse. However, ensure that the fuel is full when you leave Fresno or Cajamarca, as for the next couple of hours the route has little to no settlements along the way. I also recommend to travel during the day as the hairpin bends can be difficult during nights and at higher altitude, fog is a regular occurrence.

It is advisable to make this tour during a holiday weekend of atleast 3 - 4 days to enjoy and drive relaxed.

I always suggest people start early during the day as this is the only way to beat the outgoing traffic in Bogota. 

Most recent trip

The most recent time I travelled was during the holy week of 2019 and guess what we started really early in the morning. It was around 5:45 am on a thursday morning. As it was a holiday, the traffic was just about to build up, however, by 6:15 am, we were already out of Bogota through Calle 80. Just outside Tenjo, we stopped for breakfast. For the first time in a long time, I felt that I was really ahead of time. So we were planning to stop in Honda for lunch. After Villeta, the road is no longer a 4 lane road. Driving through Guaduas, the road takes you to Puerto Bogota which is a corregimiento of Guaduas and is the last town on Cundinamarca on the banks of River Magdalena. Just outside Guaduas, begins the scenic highway called the Ruta del Sol, which connects Guaduas to Cienega in the Atlantic coast. We skip that road though and we continue on the road to Honda. Honda is on the western bank of Magadalena and on this route, it is the first town in Tolima. 

It was just about 10:30 am when we reached Honda, and hence we continued. We reached Mariquita at 11 am. It was still too early for lunch, hence we continued after a short halt in Mariquita. 

Fresno, Tolima

We then decided to have lunch in Fresno and it was pretty much rainy along the route. Fresno is just about an hour away from Mariquita. We reached the beautiful little town of Fresno by noon. This town is one of the coffee producing towns of Tolima and we stopped for lunch in a nice little restaurant.

We spent about 2 hours in the town and exiting Fresno, began the hardest part of the drive, the drive to Manizales. 

One recommendation would be to have a coffee before starting the drive as now after Fresno, the road goes through the higher reaches of the central andes. In the center there are a few good shops that sell coffee from the region. This coffee shop is very small and cute in the center. The coffee called cafe campesino (farmer’s coffee) is made with cloves and cinnamon which adds to the spice and keeps the brain awake.

Again, filling the tank is important as there are no fuel shops on the way. There are tons of hair pin bends and the road is small. One wrong turn could be fatal. The road is divided with double yellow lines and please do not attempt to overtake crossing them. It is illegal and is dangerous. The temperature reduces  during the ascent and at one point we reach the highest point of the mountain pass - Alto de Letras. This is the point that a lot claim to be the highest paved motorable road in Colombia. The pass is at 3679 meters above sea level. At one point, the majestic Nevado Del Ruiz volcano appears at the right. Depending on the day, the view is awesome or not so clear. However on this day, the rains had just stopped and the sky was starting to clear up. Hence the view was wonderful. 

Further driving along the way, we stopped at another side stop near the road to Nevado Del Ruiz for another coffee and some refreshment. By about 5 pm, we reached Manizales. The destination though was not Manizales and we had another 2 hours of drive left. The final destination though will be covered in the next post. This drive from Bogota to Manizales is about 300 kilometers and including stoppages it took about 10 hours to complete with a lot of different wonderful views on the way.