Three cups of tea and climbing trees in Colombia

I think I mentioned early that Aaron and I are constantly saying yes to everything, we kind of have a "why not" attitude. People are so kind and inviting here. We are often be invited places and we just say sure with out asking too many questions. So when our downstairs neighbors invited us climbing of course we said yes....this is something we really do like to do but as usual we didn't ask any questions, just what time.

So early Sunday morning we yelled out the window down to their flat asking how much water we should bring and they said none...we thought weird and packed some anyway. So Daniela's Mother picked us up and we found out that they we were actually going to spend the day at their farm and that we wouldn't be climbing rocks but we would be climbing trees. Going to someones farm seemed normal enough.

It was a long ride and through some casual small talk with the mom we unearthed some pretty interesting information....yes we were going to the farm but many people from Cali have farms, we went to Cuaca to our other neighbors farm and swim in the river and cooked in a campfire in the dirt but this farm was a little different.....it was more like a plantation; a tea plantation. Okay Colombia's only tea plantation that produces Colombians only tea "Hindu Tea" and it was 15o hectors of the most beautiful land, with a tea factory and an amazing house.

In the back of my head I was thinking if some Colombians came to Boston for some exchange program and some nice college kid neighbors invited them to the beach for the day and they ended up in the Kennedy compound on the Cape - they would be feeling a lot like we were at this moment.

The tea trees and this is just a very small percent.

Juan Camilo leading the tree route. It is a cool tree that got taken over buy another tree eating tree- which is why it was climbable.




Making my way up, it was harder than it looked and gave a whole new meaning to the term "dirty route" nothing like sticking your hand deep in a tree hole....spiders? Snakes? Other annoying biting insects?

It was an amazing view, the tea plants really made a beautiful setting- I had never been to a tea farm before.

Aaron jamming is hands in the branch crack.

Aaron standing above the hugest vat of tea, it smelt amazing.

Bags of roasted tea leaves ready to be shipped to the packaging plant in Cali. I should mention we are about an hour into the mountains and that the people who work in the Fields and in the factory live on site. It is a super tranquil environment, they may use the word boring but I found it very appealing.

The machine used to roast the tea leaves.

Bin after bin of flowers used in the auromatica tea.

Back at the house, which was so cool (a very old rustic design with lots of cool wood, interesting windows and unique decor.) I didn't take many photos because I forgot my camera and thought it may be weird if I started taking tons of photos of her house with her camera.

Juan Camilo and Aaron slack line war.

All around the house is an amazing garden of exotic fruits and flowers. I am going to dedicate a whole post just about the amazing and unique fruits we tasted there and in Colombia in general.

Me on the slackline above the soft green grass....did I mention Cali is a concrete jungle?

Aaron and I teaching Dani to slack line