Colombia’s Central Andean region is extremely mountainous and includes two of the high Andean ranges (the central and eastern) with snowy peaks rising more than 5 thousand meters (16 000 feet) above sea level (Nevado del Ruiz and Nevado del Tolima); extensive sections of temperate climate with average temperatures of 18-22 ° C. (64-68 ° F.); and rolling valleys along the great Magdalena and Cauca Rivers running the length of the country from north to south.

The Central region’s temperate zone is one of the country’s most beautiful with exuberant vegetation and a wealth of flowers, bamboo groves, towering trees such as the ceiba and pisingo, and coffee plantations throughout, where the world’s most “suave” coffee is grown.

Amazingly beautiful coffee crops grow along hillsides and valleys and between rivers and streams.

There are many coffee-growing villages with characteristic town squares, enormous churches rising above the other buildings, and numerous cafes, bars, restaurants, ice cream shops, and traditional-style administrative centers.

Many of these small towns seem frozen in time and have preserved their late 19th-century and early 20th-century architecture including long cobblestone streets and spacious two-story homes built from guadua (bamboo) and bahareque (rustic stucco) featuring wide outdoor porches and interior patios typically decorated with flowers of all kinds and colors.

The coffee-growing culture is alive throughout the region: mule trains carrying sacks of coffee to collection centers and characteristic ladder buses and jeeps crammed with people and products are still seen on roads; carrilera music and Andean airs can be heard on jukeboxes; in Sunday markets all over the region village squares are crowded with people visiting the town to do business and shop; people are nice, friendly, open and fast-talking and witty.

Many coffee plantations have diversified their activities and some have turned their traditional estate homes with beautiful architecture typical of the coffee-growing region into comfortable and pleasant hostels and recreational resorts that can be rented to national and international eco-tourists.

The region features majestic mountains, peaks, ridges, canyons and hollows; big rivers, streams, and waterfalls of astounding beauty; lakes and lagoons; snowy peaks, paramos (Andean moors) and gorgeous landscape in cool, temperate and hot climates.  Colombia’s Andean region is anything but flat!

Major cities in the region include Medellín, Manizales, Pereira, Armenia and Ibague.