Food Tours · Tour

A Muleteer's Diploma in San Sebastian de Palmitas

San Sebastian de Palmitas is forty-five minutes northwest of Medellin and is technically still Medellin: one of the five corregimientos, the rural districts the city administers, made up of eight veredas and a small urban centre. It sits between San Jeronimo, Bello, San Antonio de Prado, Heliconia and Ebejico, which is to say it is properly in the mountains. Six hours there, on and off a horse. The coffee comes first, and the tasting is of special coffees rather than the house pot, with the guide going through the process that produces them. Then the riding, through the scenery, dressed as an arriero: the poncho and the hat of the Antioquian muleteers who moved coffee and everything else through these mountains before there were roads. At the end you get the diploma, which is a joke that people keep. Lunch is a fiambre, the field meal wrapped in a banana leaf. Up to fifteen people, in English or Spanish, with hotel pick-up and drop-off, the professional guide, the poncho, snacks, the tasting and the horseback riding. Bring your identity document, which the tour insurance requires. Comfortable shoes for slippery ground, not shorts and not flip-flops. Sunscreen and mosquito repellent. It runs in all weather and every day, with no minimum group size. Not recommended if you have mobility difficulties. Note that photographs and video may be taken for the operator's promotional use.