The highest palms in the world can be found in Salento 🌴

After our 7-hour drive from Bogota turned into 10 hours - the extra 3 hours on the last 30km 🙈) we arrived in Salento.
Since we are running out of time towards the end of our trip, there was no rest day, but we jumped out of bed at 7 o'clock the next morning - no young deer on that day - and took one of the jeeps at the market square in Salento to the Valle de Cocora.

So, how many fit in the jeep?? 🤓🚜

Here you could either take a short trip to the highest palms in the world or walk through the jungle beforehand. Since we had no idea, we joined the other clueless ones and ended up on the way through the jungle. This round was probably much more challenging than the other way around, as you have to climb up the entire mountain instead of walking on a gravel road - and then climbing down the mountain.

We walked the lower path 🤓

The path led over many rickety suspension bridges, past cows and through the river.

There was also a waterfall 😁

And a lot of butterflies in one place 😲

The first major stop was the Kolibrihaus. Since there were several sugar water containers hanging here, many of the little birds were attracted and were buzzing noisily around us.

A hummingbird with a particularly long tail 🐥

Yes, we were not the only ones here 😅🙋

After that, we walked in the wrong direction for half an hour, as the signposting was not quite clear.. The instruction was always to follow the red arrows ↔
Unfortunately, it led us astray 🙈 The red arrows ultimately sent us towards 'Agua de Estrella', which is a 30km circular route that we definitely did not want to take.

So, we walked an extra hour in total 😥, which was not so nice, as it was also steep uphill.

Eventually, we found another path which was not signposted (there wouldn't be anything like that in Germany 😝😂), but luckily we met people coming towards us who were walking the route forwards (or backwards?).

Well, at some point we finally arrived at the viewpoint, that's when we knew we were actually right 😅

Already slightly sweaty 😂😥

But after a short break, we continued 💪

After that, it wasn't far to Valle de Cocora and from now on it went downhill 🎉🎉

The palms were really impressively tall! 🌴

Who can see us? 😉

Here we enjoyed the time a little bit, until it became quite windy.

We still had a few kilometers ahead of us.
Finally, there were two viewpoints in the palm forest and from the second one, you could walk the remaining path between the trees.

In the end, we took a shortcut and ended up in front of a locked door 😅

Then we were exhausted and went back to the town, all squeezed into one jeep - there was a small queue on the way back 😲

In Salento, we had a small portion of Nachos 😅 and then back to the hostel.

For the next day, the coffee plantations were planned. So, we got up early again..
4km outside the city is the first coffee plantation of Salento, you can walk there comfortably, as everything goes downhill - back then easy peasy with the jeep 😎

We had a companion for the entire 4km 😁

The tour was super interesting, even though I'm not a coffee drinker 😝 we got to try our hand at picking - much more strenuous than picking blueberries, as the coffee beans hang more firmly on the bush.

Good hairstyle 😎

Planting our freshly squeezed coffee seeds 🌱

Yes, before breeding new coffee plants, you would have to climb into the trees to pick 🐒

The coffee sorting machine used was invented by a German 💪

First Class Coffee

Not so good coffee - only for the locals 🙈

Tom grinding the coffee powder 🙋

All in all, a great excursion spot 🖒

Next stop: Guatapé, Colombia