It was time to leave the city and head towards ZonaCafetero, a coffee growing region to the west of Medellin. We were taking a public bus to Manizales, it was a new, converted VW van with very comfortable seats and even WiFi onboard. It was lacking in luggage space though and we were delayed by 15 minutes while the driver tried to get all the luggage in back of the van. David was biting his tongue, despite not being able to talk Spanish, about how badly the luggage was organised. The locals pushed to the front to get their small backpacks in leaving no space for backpacks & suitcases even though there was heaps of space inside for hand luggage.

Eventually, we were on the road and driver seemed to be trying to make up for lost time. He was red lining the gears, using both sides of roads and overtaking on blind bends although the latter seems to be a standard practice in Colombia. And there was a lot of bends, we wound our way up through the mountains for nearly two hours.

We arrived on time in Manizales and headed towards the cable car, we needed to get from the bus station in the lower part of the town to the historic centre in the upper part of the town. It was a bit of a novelty to be in cable car without being in a ski field. We had some good views of the town and the surrounding mountains on our short journey. Once at the top of the town, it was a short walk through the busy town centre and past the cathedral to Hostal Kaleidoscopio.

On the first floor of the building, the hostel centres around a common area for dining and lounging. All the bedrooms are off the main room and ours overlooked the street with small standing balcony. The beds were nice and comfy and every bed had a locker - all very organised. Martha, the owner, couldn't be more helpful , she made cups of tea for our arrival and answered a ton of questions for us.

We headed out towards Catedral Basílica, it's acclaimed to be one of the most beautiful houses of worship in the country, with distinctive ghotic style with the added attraction of Corredor Polaco (Polish Corridor). Corredor Polaco is the name given to the central tower and a tour of the cathedral includes being able to climb up the tower.

The cathedral itself is an immense mass of reinforced concrete, with an area of 2500 square metres and height of 106 metres. It has seating for 500 faithful. It was decorated with a profusion of Italian marbles, windows designed by Gerardi and Bonarda, lamps and fine wood. There is a tower at each corner topped by images of St. Agnes, San Francisco, St. Mark and St. Paul in honor of its donors and the great central tower known as Polish Corridor.

It is the 5th highest cathedral tower in the world that can be climbed for outside viewing, we were up at height of 102m with amazing 360 degree views of the town and the surrounding mountains.

Afterwards we came across a Chinese and decided we would go in for dinner, we hadn't had Asian food in a while. The menu was a little confusing, it was broken up into full, half and personal portions. We thought a half portion might be enough to share after we were told a full portion would feed four. When the plate of food came out, we thought they got the order wrong, there was a mountain of food. Turns out it was a half portion and despite stuffing ourselves there was still a bit leftover for lunch tomorrow.