El Efe Cafetero: Bikepacking Colombia’s Coffee Axis
Words by Joe Sasada / Photos by Joe Sasada and Paskal Gosselin
In January 2023, Joe set out on what would be an incredible journey south following the spine of the Andes through South America. Starting off in Colombia with an extended fully-laden tour of Efe Cafetero – the internationally famous Coffee Axis – saw him combine his two great passions, dirt touring and speciality coffee.
Anyone with the dubious fortune of sharing the road with me for more than five minutes will recognise the disproportionate capacity I allocate to finding my next coffee. I carry a portable grinder, two different types of brew apparatus – a flat-pack v60 dripper, and a backup French Press in case I run out of filter papers – electric weighing scales and a couple of bags of beans. Usually a kilo or so. Overkill? I’d rather think of it as being well prepared.
I started my tour through South America in northern Colombia. Given the country’s reputation for producing some of the finest beans in the world, I had high expectations on the coffee front. Spending the first weeks riding through the coastal and low-land areas, where cafe-cultura has yet to permeate was an incredible experience. But not for coffee. The only thing on offer was the bitter, black sludge known as Tinto. Its only drinkable form being overly sweetened with Panella – raw cane sugar.
Imagine my excitement, then, when I reached The Coffee Axis. Spanning the departments of Caldas, Risaralda and Quindio, which run north-south through the higher altitude Central Cordillera of the Colombian Andes, this region represents the holy grail in topographical and climatic conditions for cultivating the world’s highest quality beans: High altitude mountains, consistent year-round rainfall, moderate temperatures with plenty of sun and rich volcanic soil. It’s also an epic place to ride a bike.
My ride through the region can broadly be split into three sections. While my loop around the Ruiz Volcano technically took me out of the main coffee-growing area, in my opinion, its inclusion for anyone riding in the region, is non-negotiable.
Medellin – Jerico – Jardin – Manizales
Pedalling south out of Medellin, one of the most densely populated cities in the world, through the region of south Antioquia, it’s surprising how quickly the urban landscape transitions into mountainous tranquillity and finca – farm– territory. In this part of the country, any available land is cultivated with something, be it coffee, bananas or livestock, the estates centred around iconic, brightly-coloured colonial farmhouses.
While most things in Colombia are loud and colourful, Antioqiua is especially famous for Chiva – hand-painted buses, each with a unique design. As I hauled ass up and down the narrow mountain roads, zig-zagging through the dense forest, nearly being mown down by these colourful juggernauts was somehow more pleasant than with the average truck.
After a couple of days I reached the pueblo patrimonio – heritage town – of Jerico, known as the ‘Athens of Antioquia’ such is its rich heritage of arts, crafts and architecture. I just passed through for the night, which in retrospect was a shame, given its score on the beauty vs. tourist population chart. In subsequent conversations I learned that it had witnessed some of the most horrific violence during the civil war years, and until fairly recently to venture there, even as a Colombian, would be to invite armed robbery or worse.
Meandering through this gorgeous town, with its 15 churches and mesmeric array of colourful architecture, it was hard to imagine the reality of the past. As with much of Colombia, the juxtaposition of beauty and violence is hard to comprehend for an outsider but over the course of several months’ slow-travel, the societal trauma I learned is still fresh.
The more well-known town of Jardin was supposedly one straightforward day riding southbound. By now, I thought I was accustomed to the challenging road and weather conditions Colombia can throw at you but was soon proven otherwise.
Persistent rain had rendered the road almost impassable with thick butterscotch mud, and in some sections completely washed away by landslides. Heavy rain mixed with the salty tears I cried for the drive chain of my poor bike, which really took a beating that day. I must have looked an absolute state as I finally rolled into Jardin, desperately seeking out the first auto-lavado I could find, for a proper hose down.
Despite the conditions, the riding was spectacular, especially given the road was only passable to bikes, motorbikes and horses. The following morning, sat in Jardin’s beautiful central square sipping an espresso from a local finca, was enough to justify spending a few more days there.
Manizales – Ruiz – Murillo – Ibague
A few days further south, looming over the city of Manizales is the Nevado del Ruiz, Colombia’s highest and most active volcano at a 5300m, one of several in Los Nevados National Park. Cycling up into the park you enter another world of unique biodiversity.
The coffee plantations, neatly ordered tapestries of textured green bushes, are replaced by the chaos of the Paramo. This kind of tropical tundra is only found in the northern Andes, in Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela. Among the many types of unique flora found here, the vast fields of frailejones – literally ‘big monks’ – are the most striking, appearing out of the mist scattered across the ridge lines.
With their spiral succulent heads sitting atop thick trunks growing at odd angles, they are the botanical equivalent of the alpacas found further south in the Andes. Known to grow only one centimetre per year, some of them must be at least 300 years old by my reckoning.
Higher still, above four thousand metres in the super-paramo, the greens turn to dusty reds and charcoal greys, as the dried lava fields and volcanic rock debris create a moon-like environment.
Traversing the volcano, the road passes around what at first looks like huge valley, but on closer inspection is the aftermath of a massive Lahar – a landslide of mud and debris carved out of the side of the mountain. In 1985 the volcano erupted, superheating the glacier above and triggering a Lahar which buried the 25000 inhabitants town of Armero below. With a mixture of awe, joy, sorrow and relief I enjoyed nearly 4000m of straight descending over two days to successfully negotiate what would be the first of two traverses across the central cordillera of the Colombian Andes in less than week.
Ibague – Salento – Buenavista
Further south still, joining up with Pascal and Ann, who I have since converted into elite-level coffee snobs, we tackled the legendary Linea route which traverses the Cordillera connecting Ibague on the east side, with the popular colonial town of Salento on the west, famous for it’s coffee production prowess.
The route is a must for any bike tourer travelling through Colombia, particularly considering its iconic wax palm trees, which reach over sixty metres tall, making themthe highest palms in the world. Whilst tourists flock to Salento to be bussed into the nearby valleys, the best section for the palms is on the east side of the pass, where recent landslides had shut the road even to motorbikes. Bad for the local tourism industry, good for greedy dirt tourers who want all the views all to themselves.
Descending from the pass, we entered back into Quindio where a change in landscape is immediately evident, as the palms giving way once again to the coffee fincas. Though to be honest, with the heavens open, it was hard to see further than our front tyres on that descent. The road turned into a literal river, and morale clung to only to the knowledge of a hot shower at the bottom of the track.
Salento is a beautifully quaint, colourful colonial town nestled in the foothills of Los Nevados and is justifiably a tourist hotspot. Surrounding the towns are hundreds of coffee plantations, which I was keen to visit. Finca Ocaso is one of the longest running producers of the area, and offer really detailed tours and classes in coffee production, brewing, mixology and more. I went pretty deep.
The plight of local coffee producers the world over is well documented. Where possible, we should all be buying fair trade and single origin coffee where the local growers get a fair deal. But what I hadn’t realised is that, for socioeconomic reasons, most of the best stuff produce is exported to foreign markets. But the culture is slowly changing, with a growing focus among local industry participants to develop internal markets, to promote cafe cultura within Colombia also. And wow, when you find some of these places, it doesn’t get any better.
Stocked up with a ludicrous amount of beans, the journey continued southbound where the contoured mountainsides gave way to the flatlands and heat of the Cauca valley, on route towards the Ecuadorian border.