Salento and the Valle de Cocora

The Eje Cafetero (Coffee Axle) is the central Andean region of Colombia that produces the majority of the country's coffee. It is lush area full of green hills that look so, well, Colombian. We chose this area as the major destination for our trip because we had read so much about the region's natural beauty.

View from the bus while speeding over the Andes Mountains from Bogota.

Salento


Salento, the tiny but adorable town we stayed in for a few days, is a real gem. The people are kind and the streets are safe enough for kids to roam around after dark. Buses take people to the bigger cities of Armenia and Pereira but the best way to get around town is by jeep (basically the town's taxi system) or motorcycle. Farms, mountains, and lush landscape surround the town on all sides.

Valle de Cocora

Valle de Cocora and the classic wax palms.

The Valle de Cocora is is a valley located just a short drive from Salento. This picturesque landscape is full of wax palms, the tall skinny palm trees that are the national tree of Colombia. We arrived in the town square for our 7:30 a.m. departure and loaded up into several jeeps with other travelers for the ride out to the valley. It rains regularly here and the ground was extremely muddy.

Normally we enjoy hiking on foot, but we decided to try horseback riding for half of the hiking loop. We had a guide (who was interestingly on foot rather than on a horse). He walked behind us the whole time, making whistling and clicking noises the whole time that somehow guided the horses.

Randy the Horseman

The horses were good sports, crossing rivers and ascending steep mountain trails. Randy's horse got stuck in the knee-deep mud and nearly bucked him off when he tried to get out. A nearby Australian tourist commented on Randy's impressive horsemanship.



The Quindo River runs through the valley. The beautiful valley has farms on either side where cows graze. As the trail went up into the mountain, the landscape changed into a dense forest. At the top, we entered a nature reserve where an older couple runs a little camp and serves snacks to hikers. Once we got really high up, we were in the clouds.

The "cloud forest" needs no further explanation.

The area has wonderful trout. We had one of our best meals of the whole trip at Rincon de Lucy. It was delicious and marvelously cheap. The meal included soup, a banana, locally grown trout, rice, beans, vegetables, and blackberry juice.

All this food for two for just $6!