Pereira sits high in the Andes of Colombia's Eje Cafetero, about 1,400 metres up, and it feels like a city that was built on the profits of one small red fruit. It is the capital of the department of Risaralda, a busy, well-fed town of some 440,000 people, hemmed in by green ridges that are planted with coffee almost to the skyline. It was founded in the middle of the nineteenth century, young by Colombian standards, and it has the confident, slightly untidy energy of a place that has always been about trade.
In the main square you will find the thing everyone tells you to look at, a statue by the sculptor Rodrigo Arenas Betancourt of Simón Bolívar riding a rearing horse, naked and mid-charge. It startled the city when it went up and has been explaining itself ever since. A long viaduct leaves the centre and carries traffic across a deep gorge to Dosquebradas, a bridge that is worth the view even if you do not need to cross it.
As a base for a loop it is excellent, because the interesting riding starts almost at once. Roads climb out of the valley through coffee farms, banana palms and bamboo groves, then drop and climb again in a rhythm of short, tight bends. Surfaces are generally decent on the main roads, but landslides, potholes, slow lorries and sudden rain are part of the deal, and the tropical light fades quickly at around six. Santa Rosa de Cabal, ten kilometres off, has hot springs and a cold, forested upland above it, part of the same high country that leads to the national park with its snow-capped volcanoes.
The whole region is a protected cultural landscape of coffee, recognised by UNESCO in 2011, and the farms still use the old system of small family plots, steep hand-picked hillsides and mule-sized tracks. Drink coffee here as the people do, in small cups, black and sweet, and eat a bandeja paisa if you are hungry enough. Fuel is easy in a city this size, so start with a full tank and a charged phone, take the morning when the air is clear, and leave plenty of time for the unexpected, because the loop will not be hurried.