Full day Jardín coffee tour, optional horseback riding

I booked a solo tour to check out Jardín, which is a less touristic town reachable from Medellin, and one area to see the coffee farms without going all the way to Salento. Because it was off-season, in the end it was only me on the tour. I don’t think it was super economic for Tourguides Medellín, but they were happy to accept my booking anyway to give me a good tourist experience in Colombia. Julio picked me up at 6:30 from my hotel, and we drove out of Medellin in his car, and through amazing mountain terrain for about 3 hours, although we stopped on the way for a hearty breakfast at a roadside cafe, where we had our first delicious coffee. Julio was super easy going and spending the day together was very relaxed. He was also very knowledgeable, giving me a history of coffee producing in Colombia, and lots of other topics, too. The first stop was the Cafe del Alto coffee farm, which is a small family-run place on the side of a mountain, outside Jardín. The owner started with a coffee tasting, choosing from a collection of coffee makers - we chose the V60. We then went to discover the coffee plantation, learning how the coffee plants grow and are harvested, and i filled my own basket of cherries after learning about how to identify ripe fruits. We then processed the coffee and saw how they are dried and selected. The final part of the farm tour was a delicious lunch prepared by the family from food grown on the farm, and a second coffee tasting session. The family were clearly a well oiled machine, and their passion for the business shone through in the experience they provided. The last part of the tour was to explore Jardín itself, which is a colonial style town with a traditional town square. The main basilica is an interesting 19th century building. Again I learned a lot about the history, and we went and tried a couple of the more modern coffee shops in the town. It was clearly less touristic than some of the other day trip destinations, such as Guatape. Overall, I would heartily recommend the trip out to Jardín. Julio was a knowledgable and very cool companion for such a trip.

+5

We were a family group visiting Medellin in May and June of 2023. After we did the Coffee and Guatape tour with Tourguides Medellín, I looked at the other tours by Tourguides Medellín and saw this one. I was looking for another tour that would be more cultural and historical and to see more of Medellín that we still did not know about in our previous trips. As in our first tour, we wanted the entire tour to be in English, and so this tour was again all in English (other than asides, etc., in Espanol for the rest of our Spanish speakers). Everything from start to finish with Tourguides Medellín was great! Once we paid/reserved via Tripadvisor, we were contacted via What's App by Tourguides Medellín with instructions in English and Español that were very detailed and answered all of our questions but were also simple/clear. We were picked up on time, and from the beginning, our guide was Alejandro, and our driver were very nice, courteous, happy, and passionate about their jobs and Colombia, Medellin, etc. Alejandro was an excellent guide who gave information during our drives to downtown Medellin for our guided tours around downtown, including admissions to some museums, the large building that was renovated from a dilapidated structure to a kind of shopping mall, and an art gallery. We took the Metro Cable as well as the train. We also walked a bit around Medellín going to the Memorial building. Alejandro was extremely knowledgeable and passionate about Colombia and Medellin while also being very realistic and informing us about everything. We thought that our first guide Sarah was excellent and Alejandro was just as excellent! We highly recommend Alejandro and Tourguides Medellín! Both guides Sarah and Alejandro are a must!