Blogs from Salento, Quindío, Colombia, South America - page 5

So here I sit in Salento Colombia, the scene of the crime. This is where it all started for me. The gestation of a 14 month odyssey, trek, journey, sabbatical or whatever one would chose to call this thing I am on. Salento is in the Zona Cafetera region, the coffee region of Colombia, up in the mountains. About 7-9 hours east of Bogota depending on the bus. An hour north of Armenia if you can find it on the map. The town is very small and relies on coffee, trout farming, and tourists as it is the gateway to Valle de Cocora. Cocora has great hiking up a trail to the top of a mountain passing through grassy hills and palma de cera, or wax palms. Then the cloud forest until you reach the top ... read more

There was lots to do in Medellin, meeting lovely people and seeing the city. I got in trouble one night after walking home from a club alone. The man who owns the hostel said 'where have you been' and I replied that I had been out with friends. He asked me why I was alone and got very angry with me when I replied I had walked home. I promised I wouldn't do it again and realised I have no idea if it is dangerous here. It just feels so safe. I left Medellin with Ronnie from Switzerland and we shared the nicest room in Salento you can imagine in a hostel, it even had a double bed. We met in Medellin at the hostel Casa Kiwi, you kind of get to know everyone there as ... read more

We left Medellin's internationally tarnished reputation heading for an area of Colombia which is much more politically correct and for which Colombia is equally famous. The Coffee Country. This was both a convenient way to break up the long bus journey from Medellin to Popayan and a journey of love for someone who needs a litre of coffee just to start the engine in the morning (Felicity). It also turned out to be a great area of natural beauty to visit. Our first destination was Manizales a 5 hour trip South, with the driver being slightly more reserved at overtaking than most of his colleagues we'd experienced so far. It was probably fortunate that he was also very alert too as we had to break hard to avoid a large branch of a tree which filled ... read more

Tahlei Travelling in a country where tourism is an emerging industry, and on a budget as tight as ours, makes for some varying accommodation standards. We´ve had some damn uncomfortable mattresses, paper-thin walls, mosquito-filled rooms, the full range of cleanliness levels, previously mentioned barely existent bathroom walls and we´ve gone as simple as hammocks on a beach. But after Medellín we decided to splash out and spoil ourselves with three nights on a coffee finca. We did a fair bit of research on the internet and decided on Finca Villa Maria, 12 kms from Pereira in Colombia´s zona cafetera. We were told to take a bus to a crossroads outside of Pereira and then continue to the finca in a "jeep". They use this term loosely. We were ushered into an ancient Renault which we were ... read more

Now Salento was more like it! Everything we were hoping Manizales would be (and wasn't quite) Salento was! It's a teeny little town set in a hushed foggy mountain valley. There are only a few streets and one main plaza like in all the tiniest towns we have visited. It's quiet here, no moaning buses and screeching vendors and the views are so splendid you can spend all day just looking at them. All the men are genuine certified cowboys; donned in cowboy hats, ponchos and gumboots and riding horses everywhere! Plantation House, the only hostel listed in the Lonely Planet was full, but we discovered that there are about 30 other hostels in the town. We stayed one night at the republic artisans which was a little bit expensive but came with, I kid you ... read more