Pasto had just been another big town, and we saw little of it, apart from peakhour traffic as we arrived in the dark at the hotel, which was a rare occurrence. I did see a large shop opposite the hotel, called "Moon - Pyjamas and Accessories"!
We rode out at 8am, to what turned out to be the best day of the whole trip so far. And that is a tough call as there have been many great days. Colombian roads are now fantastic, with some dual carriageways, as they are trying to encourage visitors to drive north to south or vice versa, and there has been some real improvement as a result. We tucked in and hammered along, sometimes on long straights but mostly on very widing mountain roads, passing the slow trucks and buses in a trice. I stopped once with Rahn, JC and Paul and we had a long chat while a small shower passed by.
In the end we arrived at the (perfect for me and Sheryle) Hacienda SupraCafe, a property of about 30 hectares, that was once owned by a USA Company VP, who sold it to a Spanish business and they chnaged it from a cattle farm to a coffee plantation. The coffee is quite specialised and is sold to premium restaurants in Spain who cannot get enough of it apparently. the main house is huge and built around a Spanish quadrangle, now set up as a boutique hotel, and a good one at that.
Sheryle and I went for a walk in the plantation, and came back and asked the hotel manager for a formal tour, which she organised with one of the workers, a young women called Tania who turned out to be Equadorian, but had lived in Spain for most of her life and was now in Colombia researching all manner of things around coffee like how to increase the yield per bush. She took us on a full tour of the factory and also the innovation labs, researching better use of the pulp from the nuts, and how to use water more efficiently. Fascinating it was.
Sheryle and I then went for a glass of wine on top of the Chapel roof, then took the tour which was truly fascinating. There is just so much to know about growing and preparing coffee! Dinner was with the team in the main dining room and we drank some very good local wine with it.
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