Visiting the Parque Nacional del Cafe (Quindio, Colombia)

I added a song to this post because I can't think of Colombia without the appropriate music. This is Jorge Celedon a famous vallenato singer. The song is about the many great things about Colombia and it is called "la invitacion" which means the invitation.

Parque Nacional del Cafe

(Km 6 vía Montenegro Pueblo Tapao, Quindío, Colombia)

During my last trip to Cali in December I knew that one of the things to show my boyfriend about my Country was the National Coffee Park. He is not from Colombia, and since he loves Colombian coffee this trip was a must in our itinerary. 

The trip in December had been planned for months and even years with my family. We had all been back to Cali during the holidays after we moved to the US, but we never planned the trip together as a family. One of the reasons that we wanted to go back was "La feria de Cali". La feria is the end of the year celebration that happens every year from December 25th to December 30th. There are concerts, parades, the best full fighters from the world come to Cali, the country clubs have parties with the most popular singers and bands, and the whole City participates in a massive party.

We arrived December 25th and stayed until January 6th. I had planned the whole Feria week but for January we could just relax and recharge from the parties. On January 2nd, together with my family we rented a van to go to the Coffee park. Two and a half hours away from Cali is the Colombian Coffee Region. The Coffee Park is right at the heart of this region. This park is about the history and production of Colombian coffee and the culture, la cultura del cafe. I'm a coffee lover and I can drink it at any time of the day without problems with caffeine. I highly recommend this park for any Colombian and not Colombian. 

The land where the park is located is beautiful as well as the scenery on the way there. I visited the park first when it first opened over 15 years ago. It has changed a lot since then. My favorite part is the "Sendero del cafe" this is were they teach you how the coffee bean is grown and you get to walk though thousands of coffee trees. I also liked the replica of the coffee region town. This is a beautiful part of the park, there is replica of the Plaza de Bolívar from the City of Armenia in 1926, a colonial church, and many houses modeled after the typical architecture of the small towns in the area. There is one show that nobody should miss. This is called el show del cafe and it is a folk dance show about Colombia and in a way they also explain how coffee is part of our culture. The end of the show is very moving for those that live out of the Country. The song ends with a line that says something like: this is my Country and why will I live somewhere else? and of course there were tears in our side. Pictures and video were not allowed during this show. Make sure that your ticket includes the show because this is extra. 

The food court is in the middle of  a replica of a coffee town

the plaza with the food court in the back

small coffee trees

raw coffee beans. This is how they are sold and exported

The view

Taking a break at Juan Valdez

Enjoying a cup of the best coffee in the world

The coffee museum was also a highlight of the day. The only thing I don't like about the park is the kids zone where they try to imitate an amusement park. I understand kids getting bored, but I think the beauty of this park is to learn about coffee not to go to the bumper cars. I do not see a reason for having mechanical rides for the kids when they can ride horses, train rides, walk the trail with all the myths from the country side, and many other things. I am not complaining, I just had to do a complete review including the things I don't like. I just stayed away from that side of the park and enjoyed my day!

Typical coffee region house in miniature 

The jeep Willy's was an important part in the development of the Colombian coffee boom

This is how the coffee is stored and exported

The cost of this trip is approximately $100 dollars per person (including transportation, park entrance, and food). For more information visit: http://www.parquenacionaldelcafe.com/newpage/

Destination: Cali, Colombia

Cali es Cali!!

Cali River and Intercontinental Hotel *Image from Wikipedia

After creating my wedding website and trying to put a list of activities for my guests I have a better idea about all the good things that Cali has to offer. This is the same city that had the worst reputation in the 1990's thanks to the drug cartels. Cali is a city that most people love not because it is the prettiest place that you have visited but because of its atmosphere. Cali is the salsa capital of the world. The night life in Cali is incredible and there are many bars and nightclubs for every musical taste not just salsa clubs. Cali has a reputation of having the most beautiful women in Colombia and that could be the reason why so many foreign and single men travel to Cali looking for a wife. 

As the salsa capital of the world, Cali is very proud of having the best salsa dancers. Delirio is a show that combines the best dancers with acrobats. The performance is only once a month. The last friday of the month. If you plan to go, the tickets need to be purchased in advances because it is always sold out.  This is a video from the official website: 

A recent article from the BBC that speaks very highly of Delirio: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12485506

Growing up in Cali was like growing up in a bubble. Maybe the bubble was created by my parents but the best memories of my life are in that City. What I remember most is how nice it was to go out of town on the weekend to country houses with lots of friends and family. Cali is located in a valley so you can either stay in the valley and enjoy the nice warm weather, or drive to the mountains for a cooler weather.  There are many holidays thanks to all the catholic saints and their days. This is perfect for a nice long weekend at least once a month to get away from the routine. I have lived in the US for over 11 years, and I still miss Cali. I go "home" at least once or twice a year. The first thing I do after calling my friends is eat some manga biche. Manga is just a variety of mango, but the trick is to eat it while it is still green with salt and lemon.

My manga biche

For the tourists that need travel advise, I recommend them to go on the first night to the upscale restaurant and bar area is located in the Granada neighborhood. The area is located between the 9 and 9A avenue (north) between 10th and 18th street. I do not recommend going to the famous 6th Avenue (north) bars and clubs because there are insecure. Be careful while wandering around the streets at night and with your personal belongings. 

Recommended Restaurants in Granada

Trattoria Faro el Solar (Italian/International)

Clle 15 Nte # 9N 62

This is my favorite restaurant in Cali. The food is amazing and the live music in the patio make it the perfect place to feel the weather. I think that Cali has the perfect weather: hot but not humid during the day, and cooler at night. 

Carambolo

CL 14 NORTE # 9 NORTE - 18

Archies (Italian)

One of the best pizzerias in the City. This is a VERY family friendly place.

Juan Valdez (Coffee and pastries) 

Av.9 N No.17-11

Cafe Palo Alto (Coffee and sandwiches)
Ave 9AN #14N-73

Granada Faro (International)
Ave 9N #15AN-02

Segafredo (Bar, Restaurant, hip Italian coffee chain)

Av 9 #10-107

Ventolini Cafe

This is THE BEST place for ice cream in Cali. The best Ice cream with a hot brownie that I've ever had!! and I love my hot brownie with vanilla ice cream in many places. This is still the best. There are several Ventolinis around the City. My favorite is the one in the west side of town. One of the prettiest landmarks of the City is the cat in the picture below, el Gato the Tejada which is right across the Ventolini Cafe.

Gato de Tejada

Ventolini

Platillos Voladores (Asian/European)

Av. 3 Norte # 7 - 19 Barrio Centenario

This is one of the best restaurants in Cali. It used to be in Granada but it is now located a few blocks from there. It is next to the Centro Comercial Centenario, one of the City's newer shopping centers.

Make sure you order a Michelada

Some recommended Local attractions

-Museo del Oro - Gold museum

-Museo Arqueológico la Merced - archaeological museum. The church is the oldest in the City and it is beautiful inside.
-Museo de Arte Moderno La Tertulia - Modern Art museum
-Museo de la Caña de Azúcar - Sugar cane museum. This is actually outside of the City. I have never been but I will love to visit.
-Cali's Zoo
-Centro Comercial Centenario - shopping center

-Centro Comercial Chipichape - shopping center

-Centro Comercial Jardin Plaza - shopping center

-Centro Comercial Unicentro - shopping center
-La Ermita - colonial church
-Estatua De Sebastián De Belalcazar - City's founder statue

-San Antonio - Historical neighborhood - The church is the one in the picture

-Granada - local area with lots of boutiques, restaurants, and bars

-Peñon - neighborhood with bars and boutiques

Teatro Municipal *image from wikipedia.com

More information

There was an article in the New York Times about the 41 places to visit in 2011. Cali was featured as #10 in the list. This is the link to the article: travel.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/travel/09where-to-go.html

If you would like to read about the City please follow this link:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santiago_de_Cali

San Antonio Church *Image from Wikipedia

Some Recent Wedding Ideas

I've been spending a lot of time looking for the perfect details for my wedding. I've always been very creative and I used to be very proud of my skills. However, my results are not as good as they were 10 years ago.  My mom is a great painter and she has always encouraged me to practice. The lack of practice has made me be a mediocre artist. I have a good eye but my products are not so good. After high school the only thing I've done is scrapbooking and I want to get more into photography. The guest books that I found are plain and ugly so I'm working on making our guest book. I still have a few pages to do but I love how it is coming out. Since the wedding will be at an hacienda outside the city I want everything to look rustic and tropical at the same time. I also want to do a lot of things myself. I had my mom do a painting with his friend who happens to be one of my favorite painters. We will take this painting and print it as a banner background for fun pictures almost the size of a door. The painting is about Cali, the city where we will be getting married and also my hometown. For the cocktail hour, we will be giving lulada, empanadas, mango biche and chontaduros. All of that is typical food in bite size portions. I really love the idea of sharing this with the guests since most of them are not from Cali. Maybe some of the guests will consider this as being cheap but I really want to share that food with the out of town guests. Plus it tastes REALLY good and it might be the only chance for them to try it.



I don't know what to do with this bicycle but i love it



still looking for the perfect pillow for the rings.

some fun for the photobooth

not really a photobooth but i love the arrow

I love silly pictures and I hate posing "pretty" so these lips are perfect

I got about 20 pairs of old navy flip flops for the guests. I always end up dancing w/o shoes so I think most of the ladies will appreciate this

I got lots of kisses and M&Ms in red. I need to get the serving spoons

I love these type of pictures. It is the main reason why I'm wearing red shoes

I found this on etsy and I love the idea of this picture to send thank you notes

I also found this on etsy. I need to do a sign but i need to know where to put it first before making the arrow

This is the entrance to the reception site. I picked those flowers for the reception decoration.

This is my favorite flower. I had originally planned for the whole wedding to have them but I wanted something red to match my shoes. I will use them for my bouquet and the ceremony decoration. This picture was taken by the photographers that I hired. I need to ask them to take the same picture for me :)

Note:

The pictures from this post were not taken by me. I mostly get the inspiration from http://www.theknot.com/, http://www.stylemepretty.com/, http://www.etsy.com/, from my talented friend and photographer http://www.kylehepp.com/ , and the faboulous Colombian photographers that I hired for the wedding http://www.efeunodos.com/

Oldie Monday

This picture is the only proof that I have that I have seen snow!! I do not remember since I was about 2-3 years old. This was in an active volcano in Colombia that had a BIG explosion a few years after our family trip. Someday I will take a trip to the mountains to sky or snowboard. I will probably be the oldest person taking the classes but it is in my bucket list to visit the Alps and Colorado for a winter trip. 

My sister and I (1984)

My cousins and sisters at the Nevado del Ruiz
(Sorry for the bad quality but these pics were rescued from a box of forgotten pictures)

Sunset Sunday in Laguna Beach, California

The sunset pictures from today's post were taken in Laguna Beach, California.  This was a short trip that I took to California in 2006 for my 25th birthday.  I spent some days in Washington DC and then flew to LA for 4 days. As a birthday present, my sister gave me a plane ticket to Los Angeles.  She lives in northern California and met me in LA. We stayed with my friend who had recently moved to Laguna Beach. The plan was to go to the roof top restaurant of the Hotel Montage, but there was a private event that day. We walked towards downtown Laguna and watched one of the best sunsets I've ever watched in my life. 

Sunset in Laguna Beach

with my sister in Laguna Beach

Dinner in Downtown Laguna Beach

Sunset Sunday from Waikiki Beach

To follow the Hawaiian theme, the sunset pictures for today's sunset sunday are from my 2008 trip to Oahu. Enjoy!

Sunset in Waikiki Beach

For my friends

Deleting old emails always  is always nice because I end up with reading nice and forgotten messages. I wouldn't be the same person without my friends and for that I am grateful.
This one is from one of my favorite websites: www.dailyom.com 




May 4, 2009

Gifts We Give Ourselves
Friends 


Good friends enrich our lives in so many ways. Through a magical combination of similarities and differences, friends offer us the opportunity to know ourselves as we are and help us grow into who we want to be. Our similarities attract us to each other, comforting us with familiarity when we see ourselves in them. When we are drawn to those we admire, the same recognition is at work, unconsciously acknowledging that these people possess qualities that we ourselves possess. By acting as mirrors, friends help us define who we are by reflecting our selves back to us. 

Friends also help us know ourselves through our differences. Differences allow us to see other options and make choices about who we want to be. Sometimes we are drawn to those who appear to be our opposites, and we learn to accept the parts of them we love and the parts of them that don’t resonate with us, thus allowing us a valuable learning experience. By expanding our understanding to include others’ experiences, friends help us accept others. By understanding when someone’s life differs from our own, we can learn about ourselves in contrast. There are times when we see in friends what we don’t like about ourselves. That mirror reflection may be hard to take, but a good friend helps us find ways we can change and supports us in that choice. 

Part of the joy of friendship is the feeling that we are accepted just the way we are, with no need to change. It is a gift they give us, and one we can give back every day. Ultimately, we choose friends because they make us feel good about ourselves and life. Through tears and difficulties, friends help us find the laughter. When we find those special people who offer us that perfect combination of comfort and stimulus to grow, we are very fortunate. Friends, those wonderful companions that walk with us through life, help us define and refine who we are and who we choose to be every day.

Dreaming of Hawaii

For our honeymoon we decided to go to Hawaii! It was not our top choice for places to visit this year BUT since our wedding is in August a trip to Europe would cost a fortune, south america will be cold, staying in Colombia and going to San Andres and Cartagena was too expensive, and the caribbean will be in mid-hurricane season.

We will be flying to Honolulu using our beloved American Airlines Miles. I'm now looking for hotels in Maui and Honolulu. It is a challenge to find a decent price for a hotel in Maui. They are either a luxury resort for at least $500 per night or very old looking condos. The condo idea is good, but I want a nice pool!!!!!!! if I could have an infiniti pool I will be a very happy person. So if anyone can help me with a recommendation for a nice hotel in Maui it would really make my day.

In honor of Hawaii I will post some of my favorite pictures and a short video from the trip I took with my family almost 3 years ago. I can't wait to be in paradise again.

ALOHA!!

First day in Hawaii - We were so HAPPY to be there! 

Hawaiian green sea turtle

Waikiki Beach

Mom & Sister learning the Hula

my parents @ the Luau

Our last night in Hawaii

The hula dancers @ waikiki beach 

A good Sun-Day

Today was the first beach worthy weekend of the year. My sisters and my nephews called me at 10:00 am to pick me up! I wanted to go to the beach but I needed to sleep late today! I had lunch outdoors with a friend and we took the dogs to the park next to the bay. The sunset was beautiful. I only had my phone to take a few pictures. I love sunsets maybe too much. I might do a post of my favorite sunset pictures. Maybe I will start making "sunset sunday" posts to help me get in the habit of writing again!

Last week was a extremely busy and stressful week at work. I'm trying to blog more than once a week but when I had time I had to either go to the gym, or run errands, or plan the wedding, or just jump into my bed and wish that the night never ends.  Tomorrow I might have one of those all-nighters at work that I usually have before a project deadline. The deadline is on Tuesday so I'm mentally prepared for a 24 or 36 hr day at work. For doctors or nurses this might be normal but not for me. 

This was also the first weekend of 2011 that I felt productive.  I finally found my wedding shoes, I did my first spinning class of the year, I had the first manicure and pedicure of the year, and we took our first of four marriage classes. The class wasn't bad the only problem is waking up saturday morning to go to a class at church. We are not religious but our ceremony was going nowhere and we decided to do the classes and get married the way we were raised: catholic.  I have to many opinions about religion to fit into this post but all I can say is the class wasn't as bad as I expected it to be! 

Maybe next weekend I can go to the beach. I haven't felt this good on a sunday night for a long time! I always have the feeling that the weekend was not long enough to fit all the plans I had. Today I fell good that I did all that I had planned for and more! Sundays like today make monday a little less painful.

a quick update...

It has been a while since I last wrote in my blog. I've been non-stop and when I stop I just want to sleep.

At the end of December I was out of town traveling and I completely abandoned the blog writing. I went to Cali, Colombia with my family and my fiance for 2 weeks. It was a great trip! The Cali Fair was great!!! I hadn't been to one since 2004. It was definitely worth the high season price we paid to be there in December. We also coordinated some things for the wedding but there is a lot left to decide. The reception site that we picked has an on-site wedding planner and the one that knew EVERYTHING about our wedding quited (or got fired) the week after we went to see her. We picked the menu for the reception, flowers, and the band+DJ. I will contact the new planner when the date gets closer. Just in case they change her again.

As soon as I got back to Tampa I bought my wedding dress. It is very simple and delicate just the way I wanted it. I started an strict diet last week. It has been hard but I know it works. Dieting is probably the most exhausting task of all.

After months of trying to go to my friend's wedding in Buenos Aires we decided that it was too hard on our budget to take a trip less than 3 months before our wedding. I'm very sad that I cant be at her wedding. Plus I will also miss another friend's wedding in Paris. After stalking the aa.com website for a long time I found seats available on the dates that we need. We will be spending 10 days for our honeymoon in Hawaii. We booked the tickets with American Airlines miles! We also booked tickets for Cali today. Looking for hotels now. I also finished the wedding website. It was a lot of work but I love it! I'm making the guest book because the ones that you can buy are ugly! and I love scrapbooking so it is a fun project! Did I also mention that I've been working crazy hours? Also, my fiance and I started watching Grey's Anatomy since season 1 and we are totally addicted.

I'm back to the blog therapy. I might be driving all my friends crazy complaining about how crazy my life is getting. I will write more about Colombia and the trip in other posts! lots of pics to share :)