Manizales and Parque Los Nevados

After close to a week in Pereira, I was ready to get moving again. Next up, Manizales. This is a small university town in the center of the coffee region. It is basically the Boulder of Colombia. It, like Pereira, doesn’t have much colonial architecture and is also quite modern. The town sits in the mountains and is full of steep hills and winding streets. It also has a very hip vibe to the town, much more of a European feel, the cafe culture here is strong. The town was also incredibly clean and the people here appeared to have more money that most places I have been in Colombia.

I didn’t spend much time in town as I came here to do some mountaineering in the nearby Parque Los Nevados. The national park has some of the biggest mountains in Colombia, the highest is Nevado del Ruiz, 5300 meters (15,900 feet) I booked a tour at the hostel and was leaving early in the morning.








The van picks me up, along with a few other German travelers staying at the hostel. My first clue that this wasn’t going to be the mountaineering trip that I hoped was the 50 something year old women, with a cane, already in the van. At first, I though maybe she was a local that was simply getting a ride up the mountain, but unfortunately this wasn’t the case.

We spent about 2 hours in the van, picking up another couple and driving into the hills. We get to the park, stop to take some pictures, back in the van for another ½ hour. We stop again for breakfast at a remote mountain hut. Typical Colombian breakfast of eggs and arepas, but they also served us all cocoa tea. This isn’t hot cocoa, it’s made from the leaves of the cocoa plant. The indigenous people have been eating and drinking it for years, it is supposed to fend of hunger, help with the altitude and give people energy for working in the high mountains. Basically, it was like drinking strong green tea, but it was nice to have something warm as it was getting pretty cold at this point.



Back in the van, a few more photo stops, the scenery was amazing. It would quickly change from lush, tropical rainforests, to high dessert scrub brush, to moon like landscapes, void of any vegetation, and finally to high altitude, snow covered peaks. We finally get to the point where we start hiking, we’re at about 4800 meters and the we’re going to about 5250 meters, not exactly the all day trek I was hoping for. The trail was steep, however, and at this elevation the air was thin and breathing was difficult. About an hour or so to the top and into huge snow fields. It was fun seeing snow in Colombia, especially knowing it was brutally hot in Cali just a few hours away.





On the way down we stopped for lunch at a hotel in the middle of the park. Nothing around but mountains and cows in sight. Typical Colombian almuerzo and then a soak in the hot springs. The view was amazing, even if the facilities were less then beautiful. Actually, the hotel would be a perfect setting for a horror movie or Stephen King novel. It was remote, cold, dark and run down. Regardless, the hot water felt good after a day of hiking.