Day trips in Salento

Our two big day trips included visiting a small organic coffee farm and were impressed that we understood the tour given in Spanish (he did speak slowly for us) and the coffee was lovely. The farmers drink up to 6 cups of their strong coffee a day – one cup was enough to keep me buzzing for hours. The walk to the coffee plantation was part of the pleasure – it was downhill on the way there, and quite a bit harder walk uphill back to the hostel. On the way we bumped into some locals who had their music turned up and were playing this weird game on their Sunday afternoon. They were throwing 2kg stones from 20 metres into a clay pit trying to hit a target. I squeeled rather loudly (much to the amusement of the locals) when one lad hit the target and the gun powder exploded with such a loud bang. I was not expecting that. We were enchanted and watched the game for a further 15 minutes before heading down to the coffee farm. On our way back a few hours later they were still at it – but this time everyone was drinking beers and a crowd of men were watching. So we stayed for another half a hour to watch them. It was a wonderful afternoon.

Our second day trip (well afternoon trip) was to visit the Valle de Cocora – incredibly impressive sight – this valley contains the worlds tallest palm trees, and they are the second tallest trees in the world after the Redwoods/Sequollas in California. It had been extremely wet in the region so the bridge to cross into one of the paths was washed away – it was being re-built as we were there. That meant we took a steep hike onto some farmer's land (as everyone other visitor, Colombian and foreign, was doing) to get amongst some of the trees. We would have walked for longer except I kept slipping and lost my confidence on the trail – and a big storm was blowing into the valley. Catching the jeep back to Salento was quite an experience – the jeep was very small, so small that Bernard wouldn't fit in very comfortably so he stood holding on the back – much like how we used to hold onto the back of the ute on the farm. It made for a wonderful afternoon and fantastic time in the Zona Cafeteria.