Colombia 2016: Salento

Salento was our little adventure during this trip.  We knew we'd go to Bogota, and we've been talking about going to Medellin for years.  But we wanted to explore the Zona Cafetera, too, so we picked a cute little town to spend two days.  Salento's population is only about 3500 people, but the tourism there is growing, thanks to the neighboring Cocora Valley, coffee plantations, and charm.

[This was actually the first place we've been in Colombia that's felt "touristy"-- meaning there are more backpackers around speaking English than Spanish.  Even when we went to the north coast on our last trip, which is a popular tourist destination, it was a lot of Colombian travelers.  The coffee plantations in the area give tours every hour in English, and once a day in Spanish.  There were people in our coffee tour group from Eastern Europe, Israel, Brazil, and Australia. Hyrum was the lone Colombian.]

Here are the highlights of Salento:

Our hotel!  This really was one of the best parts about our stay in Salento.  It's situated about 3 blocks up a steep hill, on the very edge of town, and overlooks the beautiful Cocora Valley.  I think it's one of two or three hotels in the town with views of the valley.  We were a little unsure of the hotel until we walked into our room and saw this view--complete with a rainbow:

Worth it! Since we were in 'vacation mode' we slept in (which unfortunately wasn't very late), watched TV, and got breakfast in our room.  With that view.

Wax palms!  The Cocora Valley is famous for it's wax palms, which happens to be Colombia's national tree.  This is a huge park, that you could spend weeks hiking through, but we had so little time to explore.  Our bus arrived later than hoped on Thursday, so to not waste the day we tried to see what we could of the palms before the sun went down.  My favorite picture of the valley was actually taken from my cell phone while riding in a bumpy jeep:

Overall, I think we had mixed feelings about our experience.  We read somewhere that you could get stunning views by hiking 30 minutes down the trail.  After 30 minutes, we hit a river, and everyone that passed us (locals) said there were no views on the other side of the river.  So... we turned around and went back.  We kept asking people where "the views" were--and we were told to hike up a farm (private property, gate closed) for an hour and we'd see "the views" of the wax palms.  Well, it was starting to get dark, so we figured it wasn't worth it.  And I'm not completely confident we would have found what we were looking for.  So we told ourselves to be content with all the beautiful things we did get to see.  Next time, we'll plan more time and do better research.

Jeeps: The most common mode of transportation around Salento is Jeeps.  But in Colombia they call them "Willys" or "yipaos".  They brought a bunch of American jeeps to Colombia over 50 years ago for Military purposes, but the coffee growers saw their value for transporting goods around the mountain roads.  So now you have some really old school jeeps driving around Colombia.  They are the taxis of Salento, because normal cars wouldn't be able to get to the places tourists want to go (ie: coffee farms, Cocora valley). When necessary, it's standing-room-only, to fit more people, and people stand on the bumper and hold on tight.  We saw a little jeep for kids that they sit in, while an adult walks around behind holding the steering wheel.  And in the main plaza, there's a coffee shop installed into the back of a "yipao".

Restaurants:  I'll just leave it at this, we at delicious, home-style food, and enjoyed having no kids or interruptions.  One night we ordered an entire pitcher of fresh limeade; what a good feeling, while traveling, to have too much to drink.

Color!  One reason Salento is so charming (and full of backpackers) is its bright colors.  It was fun just walking around taking it in.  We picked a good town to stop in.  From there, it was a bus ride back to Bogota for one more day.