My Nomad Diary, Week 21:
Moments from the week:
- Finished the new blog (you’re on it now!)
- Finding another candidate city for living
- Visiting a working coffee farm
- I could be writing for a massive global news site (100 mill users kinda massive)
My favourite places this week:
It’s the start of a new week here in Manizales and damn am I happy to have left Medellín. First time I visited it, I loved it; it was my very first experience of LATAM and it conveniently had all of the comforts of home. Over a year later and after having visited over 30 different cities across LATAM, I can now confidently say that it’s a bit of a shit-hole really. Completely ruined by tourism and passport bros. Past its prime.
So a quick introduction to Manizales, it’s one of the major cities of Colombia’s coffee region, I had planned to visit two other cities in this region but I’m a little burn out from all the moving so I’m just staying put here.
The objective of this trip is to find liveable cities for the long term and I’ve identified Mérida in Mexico and Bucaramanga in Colombia. For now, those two are all I need.
So, agenda for today? I’m visiting a working coffee farm called Hacienda Venecia, you can watch a little video recap of it here.
After an action-packed Monday, my plan for Tuesday is to find a nice coffee shop where I can spend my mornings. After a bit of trial and error I finally found a nice spot called Cheesecake Shock. Not the best name for a coffee spot, but it’s really nice. An observation after three days: the cafe scene here absolutely sucks and I’m baffled. This is supposed to be one of the most important coffee-growing regions on the planet and their cafes are crap 😂 I’ve found two nice spots to be fair, but yeah, I thought it would just be crammed full of cafes. Manizales is really missing a trick here!
Mid-week, and I’ve got a little respite between my main project so I headed out for a long walk, which turned into a four-hour adventure. I walked the entire width of the city and back again. It might not seem like much, but a few months ago, I couldn’t walk for longer than 20 minutes, so this is a win for me.
Thursday and I’m back to work on my project, managed to get through quite a considerable chunk of the content. Aside from work, I’ve booked myself a little excursion to Cócora Valley next week, home to the tallest palm trees in the world!
Sorry guys, but these last two weeks have been a bit boring, really, haven’t they? Fun stuff is coming up soon, I promise 🤩
Final working day of the week and, shit, I’m just writing my entry now, I have genuinely sat at my desk since 9 am this morning and it’s now 10:15 pm. I haven’t left the house, haha. I went downstairs at 1 pm to pick up an UberEats 😂 and that is it. Anyway, some slightly more interesting news, decided I don’t like this city that much, it’s incredibly boring… safe but so boring and not many nice cafés (genuinely my number one requirement), so I’m heading to the next city on Sunday, Pereira, which conveniently is where my flight to Ecuador is from, and I’ve treated myself to a really boujee Airbnb with a pool, gym and co-working space hehehe. Lots planned for next week, woohoo!
It’s the weekend and I’m working a bit more on my professional portfolio. Soon my current project is going to dry up, so I need to get back to promoting myself. I’m going to give my brand and website a decent makeover. At the end of the day I packed my bags as I’m off to the next city tomorrow. Found a bangin’ apartment; two beds, pool, gym and a co-working spot on-site. Very excited! Colombia is so forward-thinking on co-working; I love it.
Sunday and it’s moving day… off to the bus terminal and headed down the road to the city of Pereira. £3 for a 90-minute bus journey, not too shabby huh? Fast-forward to my arrival, and boom, this city is the business. Within an hour or so I knew this is where I wanted to be. It’s too early to tell for certain, but I think this place will be joining the ranks of cities for living with Mérida and Bucaramanga 💃
See you next week!
