The Vagrant Gypsy Life

260 Wed 18/5 – 262 Fri 20/5

I left early Wednesday morning. Well, at least, I left the hostel early. The bus continued the tradition of Colombian buses leaving late from the terminal. We left an hour late and made it to Armenia in good time. From there, it was a half hour collectivo ride to Salento.

Salento is a small town with colourful buildings set among mountains. It is coffee plantation area and green to boot. After getting to Salento, I was quite disappointed that I hadnt left earlier from Cali.

After getting to Salento, I walked around a bit, walking up the stairs to a mirador, which offered some lovely views before it started raining and I headed to the hostel (Hostal Tralala). The owner has a really nice collection of movies and I watched The Shutter Island that evening.

I decided to have a fairly relaxing day in Salento and after again walking around in the morning, spent some time reading in the main square before rain forced me back to the hostel. That evening was spent watching another Dicaprio movie, “The Inception”

This had to be one of my favourite days in Colombia and the highlight of my trip in Salento. I woke up early and took the jeep to Cocora and 07:30 am. The half hour ride deposited me and about another 10-12 foreigners in the village. The valley of Cocora is beautiful and the main attraction is the Acaime reserve. The hike there and back is about 5 hours. I liked the trail so much that I extended my hike by a couple of hours by walking up the hill, past the reserve, to a mirador where I could see almost nothing, thanks to the clouds. The reserve has a lot of birds, especially hummingbirds. The price of entry also included hot chocolate.

After a shower, I settled down to watch “The kids are allright” and then had a nice long chat with a couple of fellow travellers – from Turkey and Poland. They were really a lot of fun and I wished that they had got to town a day or two earlier. We sat late into the night chatting and drinking some wine – my first cup of wine since I left Chile!

Valle de Cocora photos

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 25th, 2011 at 07:38 and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.