Salento and the Valle del Cocora

We arrived in Salento after long day on three different buses. Although the scenery was at times breathtaking, it was still a brutal day. Salento gets a little crowded during the weekends when locals from Cali, Manizales and Medellin come piling in this picturesque mountain town. There are a number of fine hikes in, and around the town. Some to the local Coffee Fincas (farms), and another to the Cocoa Valley (Valle Cocoa). The town is also famous for its trout. Every restaurant serve a variety of trout dishes that are all incredible.

We found an amazing place to stay. A small hostal called La Posada del Cafe. Six rooms situated around an amazing garden. Again, it's a little more than we wanted to pay, but we just couldn't leave. Another benefit to the place is that the owner, Maria-Elena, absolutely adores Annika. She even gave us a better price because she didn't want us to change hotels and take Annika away. It has been an incredible stay. We planned on being in town for only a couple days or so, but we may not leave for a week. Maria-Elena took us on a "twenty minute" walk to a local garden. The hike ended up being around 2 and a half hours, but it was amazing. She keeps joking that she wants to kidnap Annika. Probably not the best thing to joke about in Columbia with Americans. She has been so helpful and nice that we will be very sad to leave.

Our second day here, as I was taking my early morning walk through town, a woman approached me. She was trying to sell me something, but I couldn't quite understand what she was saying. I understood the word "tierra", but couldn't think of why I needed some land. I really nice guy, Oscar, was out waking with his grandmother and stopped by to help. It ended up that the lady wanted to sell me a parcel of land, 9 meters, by 10 meters. I said that I loved the town, but wasn't quite ready for a purchase. Oscar then invited me to coffee with his grandmother. We made plans to get everybody (He, his wife, grandmother, and all of us) into his small car and drive around the town. His family was so nice that we spent the whole time laughing and talking. We only made it to one place ( a beautiful look-out over a valley ), but the morning drive was very memorable due to the company. This sort of thing has not been uncommon. We can't walk down any street in the country without being stopped by one of the locals just to speak with us and thank us for visiting their country. The people of Columbia are so nice and sincere, that at times we just can't believe it.

The following day we decided to hike into the Valle Cocora (Cocora Valley National Park) with a couple of sisters (Nagida and Gloria) from Cali that were staying at our Hospedaje. They were incredibly nice girls, helping us at every opportunity in the town. Nagida even ran out to buy some pasta when we mentioned that Annika liked pasta, but we couldn't find any. All that aside, they were definitely city girls, and I think Annika actually hiked faster than they walked. We still had a nice little hike in the valley, and returned in time to take a bus out to the Parque del Cafe. It is a national park set up in honor of the famed Colombian coffee bean. The park was maintained perfectly, and the walks were very enjoyable. The attractions left a little to be desired. I couldn't exactly give the place a ringing endorsement, but it wasn't a total waste of time. There is another park called Panaca close by that we have since heard better things about, especially for children. We didn't come all this way to experience the theme parks in Columbia.

The next day we decided to return to the Cocora Valley to complete the hike. We had the generous offer from Maria Elena (hostal owner) to watch Annika for the day while we went off hiking. Patty and I had a fantastic hike through the beautiful valley, then into a mountain cloud forest (basically a jungle in the mountains), up to a little hostal/restaurant in the mountain. They served coffee and a block of cheese, but after the climb it tasted like a gourmet lunch. The other cool thing about the place was that they had about a dozen hummingbirds flying around the place. I guess they are known for that.

Annika had a rough first half an hour without us around, but after that she and Maria Elena had a wonderful day. They walked to town for icecream, made soup together, and played together in the front room with the windows open as friends from the town strolled by for chats. Maria Elena invited us out for a day around the area to visit with some of her family at a few of their small farms in the area. We had another fantastic day exploring the families small coffee farm, going out to see another family farm where we had lunch, Annika rode a horse and also got to play with two puppies. The last stop was at her brothers weekend home that had fish ponds, a number of large bird enclosures, horses, and a beautiful view of the valley. By now, our couple of days in Salento has turned into a week. It has been my favorite part of Columbia, and I could easily have stayed another couple of weeks. We will take a bus back to Bogota (8 hours) then a couple days after that we all head to Bolivia.

Jul 29, 2007

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