it's colombia, not columbia

Chiroso. Cerro Tusa. Grenadillo. Cauca Viejo. Each of these words were foreign to me a few weeks ago, but the memories of each have now been seared into my brain. I wake up each morning and can't believe how lucky I am to be doing what I'm doing for my job. Earlier this month, I had my first coffee origin trip to Antioquia, Colombia. Our partners organized the entire trip from choosing the farms and farmers we visited, to the amazing food to the tranquil spaces for lodging all with heavy security detail and amazing drivers.

Our trip got off to a bumpy start. Due to bad weather in Miami, we were diverted to Tampa. After re-fueling, we were about to take off when another pilot thought he saw a bird fly into our engine. Unfortunately, that meant we had to return to the gate to have it checked out (there ended up being no bird) and then the crew timed out, so we never made it to Medellin the day we were supposed to arrive. Instead, we finally landed in Miama about 5 hours late and stayed overnight, leaving the next morning bright and early after sleeping for a max of 4 hours. However, the stress of unforseen travel woes was pretty much erased as we drove from Medellin to Cauca Viejo. The landscapes were lush and jungle-like as we drove away from the city and we pulled over to take in the breathtaking pyramid mountain, Cerro Tusa.

Cerro Tusa, the world's largest natural pyramid

Cauca Viejo, where we stayed, is a private town that was created to bring back the typical cobbled streets, town square and colorful houses in the style of old Antioquia between 1880 and 1930. It was like being trasported back in time and definitely felt like a safe space to explore. Training while traveling is always a challenge and in this case, there were plenty of streets to run on, however, with the style of raised uneven cobblestones, without anything in between the stones, I wasn't about to try to break an ankle running on these streets. I was able to find a 0.7 mile dirt road behind where I was staying to run up and down. The humidity was above 90% so that even with temps in the 60s, it felt like good heat-training. The Cauca River, steps away from where we were staying was an impressive sight to behold.

Cobblestone streets and colorful houses

The mighty Cauca River

We had breakfast and lunch underneath this enormous mango tree

After a great night's rest and a delicious breakfast of fresh fruits, coffee and arepas, we drove along windy mountain roads for a couple of hours to Concordia to visit our first farm. We met with a women's group that we are working with. These women were all so inspiring and so hard-working. Many were first time farmers or farm managers. One was a fourth generation coffee farmer. Many have children and are balancing managing up to 500 people and family life. That first day, we tasted Chiroso coffee, which is a relatively new varietal with complex and floral characteristics. The coffee was so delicious with notes of green apple and apricot. It was one of the most beautiful coffees I've ever tasted. After getting to know all of the women, we were able to walk around part of the farm. It was my first time seeing a coffee plant up close. I found a ripe cherry, picked it, tasted the fruit and removed the coffee seeds. The fruit tasted like a persimmon.

Coffee cherries, varying degrees of ripeness

New flowers coming

Coffee seeds removed from the cherry

I can only imagine how difficult it is for the cherry pickers. We stood on the mountainside where the plants were and it was super steep, approaching a 20% slope. Knowing that it takes about 2,000 cherries to yield 1 pound of roasted coffee, it really made me appreciate how labor-intensive just the harvesting phase of producing coffee is.

Does not capture how steep the slopes are where coffee is growing

On day 2, we visited the farm of one of the farmers from the Women's Group. Her husband was fertilizing the plants and he let me apply fertilizer to one of the plants. Their farm has about 150,000 plants and it can take 3 weeks to fertilize the entire farm with each worker able to fertilize 4,000 plants per day.

One of our camera crew capturing me fertilizing a coffee plant

We didn't get to hike around the farms as much as I would have liked, however, at our second farm visit on the second day, we did wander way down a steep road and then had to walk back up. I took this as an oppotunity to try to power-hike it as fast as I could. I was definitely winded at the top of the climb as we were also at around 6,000 ft elevation at that farm.

The last farm that we visited was pristine. The plants were grown in neat rows alternating older trees with newer trees. They also had shade trees called guama, with fruit which looks like a giant pea pod with velvety fruit inside.

Neat rows of coffee plants

Guama fruit from the shade trees

Doesn't look edible, but it was and it was delicious! Tasted like a kiwi fruit.

Beyond coffee, it was just so cool to see the abundance of fruits growing all around us as we explored the farms and drove in the mountains. We saw bananas, plantains, avocados, mangoes, guavas, limes and oranges. I'm sure there were other fruits out there we didn't notice. One bummer was that I really wanted to try guanabana. One the last full day, we were driving from Jardin to Medellin. The driver and I both shouted, "Guanabana!" as we spotted the spiky green fruit at a stand along the side of the road. We pulled over to check it out, but sadly, they weren't ripe enough for eating yet. All of the locals we talked to said that this was their favorite fruit.

The elusive guanabana

I guess I can't complain that much though, as we got to try another very unique fruit called grenadillo while in Jardin, as well as fresh mango and guava at the fruit market. The grenadillo feels hollow. It is cracked open and it contains individual sacs of fruit. It's related to passionfruit, but isn't as sour or sulfury.

Grenadillo

My last training run in Colombia was in Jardin. It was again quite humid an warm and it was hilly as well. Overall, I only got about 10 miles in a span of 4 days, but I did have a long ruck with my luggage at the Miami airport on a layover, waiting for my flight home. I couldn't resist buying multiple bags of coffee, so my bags on the return trip probably weighed at least 30 lbs. I was traveling back on a Saturday, which is usually my long-run day, so I got up early on Sunday and ran 13 miles.

It has been a busy travel year so far, but I'm feeling okay. I'm sometimes short on mileage for the week, but getting in all of my long runs so far. The main difference this training block has been adding in long sessions at the stadium and backwards elliptical to prep for the long downhill in the Canyon. Earlier this week, I did my longest session ever at the stadium, with 1,500 ft of elevation gain, which was double all of the stairs in the stadium (up and down x 2). This morning, I did my long run for the week. I moved it to Friday in order to accomodate my long run next week, which will be another travel week. Surprisingly, I felt pretty good the entire run. I kept a go-all-day pace for most of the run. I hiked some of the steeper uphills and pushed one of the longer downhills. My legs felt good enough during the last mile to add a few strides, which is always encouraging.

A couple of weeks ago, it was announced that the Bright Angel trail would remain closed through September. This is a bummer because that was our planned route to the North Rim. We will have to pivot to a South Kaibab to North Kaibab route, which means adding abut 4 miles to the start of our trip just getting to the South Kaibab trailhead. Pretty annoying, but I guess with that extra mileage and a short detour to Ribbon Falls, we might at least get a good marathon distance in. About 4 weeks to go until our big Rim to Rim adventure!