Sunday, 18 July 2010

Salento and Valle de Cocora

On Wednesday I arrived in Salento, which is a small town in the heart of Colombia's coffee-producing region. Having tried to stay at Plantation House, which is the main backpackers' hostel in Salento, and found that it was full, I decided instead to try La Serrana, a new hostel about twenty minutes' walk outside town. Gunther, the owner of Pelican Larry Hostel in Cali, had given me a flyer for La Serrana, so I was about to set off on the walk to La Serrana when by a pretty amazing coincidence the owner of La Serrana drove past, recognised the flyer in my hand, and offered me a lift to his hostel, thus saving me the long walk with my big backpack on.

I met up with a few people at the hostel, and that afternoon we decided to go on a tour of a coffee plantation about a half-hour walk further down the road past some more mountainous scenery. It was a small plantation in which the entire process of harvesting and processing the coffee is done by hand. Our guide gave us a short tour around the coffee fields, where they grow two varieties, Colombiano and Arabica, and he then explained to us the process of picking, peeling, drying, roasting and grinding the coffee. He told us that they don't generally roast and grind the coffee themselves, but instead they sell the dried coffee beans to a cooperative, which then performs the rest of the process. However, for our benefit he gave us some coffee for us to try that had been prepared entirely by hand and on-site.

The following day I decided to go on a hike around the Cocora Valley, which was the main reason I'd come to Salento. I'd met Robyn, a Canadian girl, the previous day, and she also wanted to do the hike, so we decided to attempt it together. We set off in the morning, and were soon walking through some very green and tropical forest and crossing a number of rivers. However, before long it started to rain, and by the time we reached our lunch stop at a humming bird reserve we were both pretty wet. We had to pay a small entry fee there, and in return we received a bowl of hot chocolate and a big lump of cheese (apparently you're meant to dip the cheese in the hot chocolate), and we got to see a lot of humming birds very close up (some photos here, here and here).

After lunch the weather situation deteriorated further, and the rain started coming down very heavily and didn't stop for the rest of the afternoon. Here I am at La Montaña, which is the highest point on the hike - I'm standing in front of what might have been an amazing view, but unfortunately we could see absolutely nothing. The paths we were walking along soon turned into muddy rivers, and our shoes became full of water and mud. Once we'd reached that point, it was actually quite liberating - it was impossible for our feet to get any wetter, so we were happily wading through ankle-deep water.

Eventually we reached what I'd come to Salento to see - the wax palms. These trees grow to 50 metres and even higher, and are the tallest palm trees in the world - they're also Colombia's national tree. There was still heavy cloud cover, but for brief periods the cloud did break enough that we could see the palms. In the distance we got an eerie view of the trees poking through the mist (here and below).

We made it back to Cocora in time to catch the last jeep for the 11km ride back to Salento. These jeeps can comfortably seat six passengers, but there were about twelve people who wanted to get on it. In true Colombian fashion that wasn't a problem, so they crammed as many people as possible inside the jeep, and I was one of five people standing on the platform at the back. About halfway along we stopped briefly, and I was in such pain from clinging on with one hand that I decided it would hardly be less comfortable to get onto the roof, so that's what I did. I then spent the rest of the trip riding on the roof of the jeep in the pouring rain - it was absolutely the most uncomfortable journey of my life.

The following morning I'd just about recovered from that very cold and wet experience, and I caught the bus to Medellín, which is where I am now.

2 comments:

  1. Good to see the beard is back! You've been having some good luck recently with the astronomy and hostel lift - done any salsa yet?

    Can I borrow some of your luck and ask you to pick 6 numbers for me from 1 to 49? If it comes off I'll share it of course!

    Cheers!

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  2. The beard is back but it's already starting to irritate me, so it might not last much longer. I did one salsa lesson in Cuenca, but haven't done any since then. I'm not really planning to do any myself, because I'm not good enough - I just want to watch the pros do it, ideally with a live band.

    And 2,5,15,20,28,48. Feel free to thank me later.

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