Jardin. Manizales. Colombia

  We are ready to go again. Day before leaving Medellin, we met guys from England and Canada. Even the couple travelling with the bicycles has returned to our hostel. So we had a delightful dinner that day.
Next day we had breakfast and together with the Englishman went to the bus terminal. Englishman was traveling over a year already. Before Colombia, he´s been traveling in Asia, liked India and Birma. His spending average was  $5-10 per day in Asia. I would say it is pretty cheap. Englishman told us that to get to Tibet is a different story:  you need 5 people with the same nationality to apply for the group permit to Tibet and it is very expensive.

Anyway, we reached the terminal and turned different ways: the English traveller went to Manizales, and we went to Jardin. We noticed that buses in Colombia are very punctual, at least so far. We were leaving everytime with no problems on time.

Jardin is a small town, located in the Andes mountains. To get there you will need to pass a few mountains and the road is zigzag all the way for 3.5 hours. Bus was not full, but Jotvinge felt dizzy while driving zigzag.
When we arrived, we started looking for accomodations, which was very easy to find. To look for hostels in a small town is definitely easier than in a big city. We found one for 26,000 pesos ($15) with a private bathroom - LA POSADA FAMI-HOTEL. The owner Roberto was very nice, kept offering us different tours. The hotel was in the main plaza and above the bar, so it was noisy, but survivable. It was no kitchen available, but we still enjoyed staying there overall.

After two days of relaxing, we started exploring the town and its surroundings. We went hiking to the mountains. The mountains are fully cultivated: people growing bananas, mandarins, oranges, tomatoes, beans, lulos and, of course, coffee plants.  Lulos - fruit, that tastes like kiwi, but more sour, and looks like yellow tomato (they say it is very healthy). Anyway, to hike you need to go on the path, because there are fences everythere: private property. But we had nice hikes for two days.  Nature there is very beautiful. Town name Jardin means garden and it definately suits.


The town itself is very nice, too. We noticed a lot of colorful, beatiful houses, you can see that people there live pretty well.  On the way back to town from one of our hikes, we met a woman and her son. I was wearing Lithuanian t-shirt, and she recognized that I am from Lithuania. Originally Regina is from Belarus, but lives in England for many years, so her Russian is not very good. She is 74 and still travelling. We met them couple more times, had interesting conversations. Her son had travelled a lot, all over South America, so he gave us advice where to go.

Our travelling continues and we took the bus to Manizales. Travel from small town as Jardin is difficult: we needed to wake up early and beat the bus station at 6am. There were only one bus company, so they charged everybody whatever they wanted. So it was an expensive trip to Manizales. Our bus driver was very nice, he even knew where Lithuania is located and that Bogota´s previous meyer was Lithuanian. Somehow we could understand almost everything he told us in Spanish. He showed us Antioquia University and stopped to show us citrus trees.  Its fruit are not eatable, but the trees are used as a fense from falling rocks. We saw fallen rocks on the road a few times. Driver said that couple of days cars couldn´t pass them.

Manizales. We selected hostel from our guidebook. Found it very easy: from bus terminal took a cable car to the hostel BASECAMP, which was located in the center, cost - 60,000 pesos ($33). Receptionist did not want to bargain at all, although the hostel was empty. It was only us and another couple there. It was a lot of rules and responsibilities put on the walls everywhere and it was written in a very rude manner. People who work there did not even bather to open the front door when somebody was ringing, I was openning the doors. This hostel is owned by an American. At least there were non-stick pans (first time during our travels). We were planning to visit Los Nevados mountains with elevation of 5km, but the main mountain complex was closed due to resent vulcano activity. I think that was the reason it was very empty in our hostel.

In the evening we went to the center by the main Cathedral and asked some group of girls to take the picture of us together. Then we started talking with them (all of them knew English very well).  All of them were from different Colombian cities, visiting one girl who lives in Manizales. They all were chemical engineers, studied in Bogota together. They offered us to go with them to see the city. We agreed fast!
We went to the part of the city, called Chipre, where was a famous sculpture, and you can see the whole city.
Sculpture was dedicated to the Founders of Manizales- very impressive.  And to the west you can see seven mountains, after which there is Pacific Ocean, but you can´t see it.

Manizales itself is higher than Medellin, located on the mountain, as Medellin is located in the valley of the mountains.  We took a lot of pictures.

After this the girls offered us to go to another point.  At first we did not understand where we were going, but we agreed. We went to a bullfight Arena. Near the entrance we saw a lot of paintings on the outside walls. The man´s and woman´s portraits were among those paintings. It was one of the girls (from Manizales)  Maria´s grandparents. Her grandfather was raising bulls for fights, he was one of the first doing that and now her father is raising bulls, who we had an honor to meet. We spoke with  Mr. Miguel and his
wife, Mrs. Luz Maria about their business. It was great experience to hear and to see everything. It made our day! Their son is studying to be a vet and will be joining family business.

We went inside the Arena for the first time. It has around 14,000 seats there, but today it was only us. We got to get in through the main entrance where only bull fighters (matadors) go through. We saw the small chapel inside the Arena, where matadors pray before the fight. Also we saw, where they keep bulls before the fight.
Bulls are brought two days before the fight, that way they can rest. Bulls are supposed to be minimum 4 years old and at least 440kg, almost half a ton! Bull fights are only happening in Mexico, Venesuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru in Latin America. The family we met are raising bulls for all of those countries. Spain, Portugal and France - Europe countries where bull fight are taking place.

It was one of the most interesting and exciting experience so far! Next day we needed to move on early morning to head out of rainy Manizales...