The biggest knife (machete) in the wolrd in Santa Rosa de Cabal, Colombia

Santa Rosa de Cabal is a small city located 30 minutes away from Pereira. This town is not only famous by the chorizo that is great but also is known for different places, one of them is "El parque del machete" or Machete park

El parque del machete

This place is located in the urban part o the town, in this place we have the biggest machetes in the world, their length is 4 meters (13,12 ft) and their weight is approximately 400 pounds.

This is a memory about our ancestors, one of the reasons is because they needed to open or make countryroads to colonize, therefore the machete was so important for the foundation of cities like Santa Rosa de Cabal.

When you visit the park, you will be able to appreciate typical houses, handcrafts, a chiva (typical bus) and there are times that you will be able to listen our music, also you can drink a coffee cup and spend a great time with your friends and family.

Since the beginning: Pereira, Colombia

I was born in Pereira, Colombia, in a region called "Eje Cafetero", a place where the coffee is more than a drink, here it is part of our identity and I am so exited to tell you, who we are.

Our traditions are so influenced by the colonization that came from Antioquia (another department/state in Colombia), so we share for example food, accent, architecture and idiosyncrasy.

Gastronomy

If you want to eat big portions of  delicious food,  you must visit us, I assure you that you will not be hungry after you taste and eat our typical plates. So when you come to Pereira, you can order for breakfast an "arepa paisa" with farmer cheese and butter or also with scrambled egg that is prepared with onion and tomato that are finely chopped, this eggs preparation we called "perico". In lunch our typical food is "La Bandeja Paisa", when you see this plate, you will remember why we say that we have big portions of food, this plate has rice, beans, ground beef, sausage, avocado, arepa, pork crackling or as we say "chicharrón", eggs and more.

Also, you can try our arepas de chocolo that are cooked based on corn, in this plate you can join it with butter and farmer cheese, it is so delicious, moreover, we have our sancocho that is a soup that contains not only potato and yucca but also onion, carrot finely chopped and obviously beef, pork, in my house also we make sancocho with chicken and many other things.

We can´t forget our identity drink, the coffee, well, when you come, you will see everywhere places where you can taste one of the greatest coffee in the world.

Accent

Our accent is  known  in Colombia as Paisa, when we speak, I have heard that we make an extension in the last part of the phrase although I see that Eje Cafetero that is my region has a difference with Anitoquia, I have realized that they have a more marked accent than us.

Architecture

I am so exited to tell you about our typical houses, well, they are so big, you can find houses with 7 bedrooms at least, a big kitchen and something that I think is so characteristic of our architecture is a yard in the middle of the house, where the bedrooms surround it. When you come, you will see that the beauty of our houses lies in the flowers that are in the balcony and how colorful they are and how they connect with the mountains and the landscapes that are around, it is very beautiful, by the way the traditional houses are built with bamboo and cow´s dung, they are so resistant.

Idiosyncrasy 

I think that this is one of the most important elements in the culture because it is basically the way of being of the people in a determined place, about us, I can say that we are warm people, we try everyday to make feel like home the foreigners that come to visit, also we are considered as happy people, although we have a lot of problems, we try to see the positive thing and always have a smile, furthermore, we work so hard to get what we want and the family is first that all.

Thank you so much for reading this, I hope that you can come and fall in love with our culture and if you have been in Pereira or Colombia, let me know what did you like or was weird and also if you would like to come.

in this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ibq_qtksKo you can watch a video about our culture, video by Federación Nacional de Cafeteros