The “National Coffee Park” was founded in 1995 by the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia and the departmental committee of coffee growers of Quindio; it belongs to the coffee culture park foundation and is a non-profit for the preservation of heritage culture and history of coffee in Colombia. It promotes cultural, recreational, and ecological activities and boosts ecotourism in the region.
Museum
One of the main attractions, if not the most important, is the National Museum of Coffee, which is distributed into 4 rooms illustrating different aspects of coffee production from botany to the human aspect, production and industrialization of the coffee bean.
The first room is dedicated to information about the coffee plant.
The second room is about coffee growers and shows their customs and traditions.
The third room provides a bit of history of coffee production in the country and the whole coffee-making process from germination to packing.
The fourth room is the processing and marketing where one can see everything that has to do with the quality of grain, global consumption, transport and industrialization of coffee.
Myths
The park also contains the Forest of Myths and Legends which talks about the following myths.
The Madremonte
Farmers described the Madremonte in different ways: Sometimes she appears as a woman who is mossy, rotting, and rooted in the swamps, and who lives in the headwaters of streams and near large stones. She usually appears in areas of tangles and jungles with lush trees and jungle regions.
Others describe her as having sprouted eyes, fangs as large as a peccary, with long arms and a stunning expression of anger, always dressed in leaves and vines.
Madremonte attacks during large storms, where winds and floods destroy the crops and livestock. Farmers have to hear her bellowing and screaming on dark stormy nights.
Single Leg
Some farmers believed that the Single Leg is the spirit of a mother who killed her son and was sentenced to roam the hills.
Another popular version says that it was a very beautiful, but wicked and cruel woman who was prone to debauchery, so they amputated her leg with an ax and threw it into the fire in a bonfire made from corn cobs. The woman died of mutilation and since then roams the mountains and bushes screaming piteously for comfort. She rages when she sees men, and dislikes seeing an axe, a cob or a candle and also hates combs and machetes.
The Mohan
The Mohan sometimes appears as a gigantic man with beard and long hair, glossy red eyes, like burning coals, a big mouth, gold teeth, a burnt old Indian complexion and overall a very demonic aspect. He appears very playful, loving, serene, and very accommodating. He is said to be the creator of the whirlwind, bambuco, corridor, and múcura and you can hear him play the treble, the fife and the maracas, in the old style. His singing is not known, is not attributed to ‘couplets’, and is a recognized and poetic language.
Farmers believe that Mohan is cannibalistic, because he likes the blood of infants, who he eats roasted in bonfires. He likes beautiful women and youth, primarily marriageable girls, and seeks to bring them into rivers. Around the puddles and the boulders where he lives, he keeps his treasures in gold, precious stones, jewelry, bracelets, nose rings and numerous jewels. Some say he has an underground palace with many treasures, gold and gemstones.
The Elf
The elf is a dreadful creature who emits a terrifying shriek. He is dedicated to teasing peasant families until they despair and he makes them migrate to the cities.
Most of the time he is changing or hiding things. The elf lives in caves located in ravines, where he usually hides the children and makes them eat horse manure or drives them crazy.
At night he throws stones at the roofs of the houses and chases girls of childbearing age.
La Llorona
According to the farmers and villagers, La Llorona appears as a woman with bony face like a skull, red eyes, unkempt hair, and long, dirty, frayed robes. Some say she carries in her arms a dead child, because of her great sorrow. Others say she’s looking for her son who has been lost.
She is distinguished by her deep anguish and macabre whining and screaming that cause immense terror. This woman weeps in streams, on full moon nights, in coffee plantations, cultivated fields, on the banks of rivers and on the edge of the mountains. It is said that this spirit goes into homes looking for children to take to heal her grief, but some say she does it to meet others in their misery, and having stolen a child throws it in a river or creek nearby.
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