When we arrived in Bogota we had no idea where to go next other than “head south”, so it was good to hear a number of people talk fondly of an area called the Zona Cafetera (coffee country), about eight hours bus ride south-west of Bogota on narrow twisty roads – great scenery and many a steep drop down to the valley floor. The road is quite startling if you’re in a large coach which is trying to overtake two 16-wheel lorries at the same time uphill around a blind bend: but this is normal for around here. They’re building a new (straighter) road, as this is the main road to the west of the country, so lucky you if you travel that way in the next year or three. When arrived at our accommodation in Salento we found they had messed up the reservation; after telling us precisely why their booking system didn’t work (it’s crap, I could have told them that), they suggested we stay at an alternative place down the road. After initial irritation, we agreed of course (it was getting late by then). When we woke up the next morning at “El Rancho”, a working dairy farm, we realised we were in the middle of the beautiful countryside, just the birdsong and the milk cooler to interrupt our thoughts. Such a change from the busy city.
After a couple more nights we moved into “town” to be nearer the main square, restaurants and bars. Just about every restaurant around here serves trout every day, so delicious that Diane has it four days on the trot. The tonnage of trout served every day in Salento suggest it isn’t all line-caught in the local river, the Rio Quindio.
There is a beautiful area near here called the Valle de Cocora, and the guidebook promised hummingbirds and 60m high wax palms. Transport is provided by local guys driving jeeps – although we’re not sure why they don’t run buses as it’s only about 20 minutes on a (mostly) paved road. The guys take enormous pleasure in packing as many tourists into each jeep as is humanly possible. About the only advantage we find to looking slightly older than many of the travellers round here is that we usually get shuffled to a seat straight away. Except for the one time when the usual 8-seater needed somehow to carry 13, and Paul and a couple of others had to ride shotgun hanging on the rear (don’t tell the insurance company!). It was so nice we made the jeep journey twice, then walked through mud, across the river on rickety bridges, past the wax palms and up into the cloud forest. The scenery and the hummingbird reserve more than made up for the effort and dirt!
Another day we visited a local coffee farm, where after lengthy explanation in Colombian-Spanish from the owner (not a hope for us to understand much, but luckily there were pictures) we were invited to pick some coffee – apparently experienced workers can pick up to 100kg in a day, but not much luck on our part.
All of this was interspersed by daily visits to our favourite coffee shop and, one evening, the cheapest meal around – £2.25 for soup, a main course, fresh juice and a banana (the latter we fed to the hummingbirds at our hostel). The main course choice included, of course, trout.
Salento is a beautiful, sleepy town except at weekends when city people descend to hang around, walk up and down the main street looking at souvenirs, drink bottles of rum and dance the salsa. That is, apart from the few who arrived on Sunday morning for a cycle race, most on new bikes with not a trace of mud to be seen. The 9am prompt start advertised on the posters ran a bit late, ahem. Oh, and ponchos are a big deal here for the men of the town, popular and practical when faced with hot days and cold evenings and nights.
All in all, we enjoyed Salento immensely: a lovely town in fantastic countryside. We’re off to Popayan soon on our way down south to Ecuador, but we’ll stop off in Cali for a day or two to break the journey.
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