After 34 hours, we finally arrived at the hostel. Salento is a small village in the mountains of Colombia. It is a colorful village with many beautiful buildings.
It is quite hilly, somewhat like in Appenzell. The village is also similar, if you want to walk 3 streets further, you have to go downhill first and then uphill again. Our hostel was relatively new and we had a great restaurant attached to it. We stored our 7 things and went to test the restaurant. I had a beef carpaccio, I can't remember the last time I had such a good carpaccio. The whole thing with a fresh lemonade for 3 francs.
Afterwards, we were able to rest a little. After the nap, we went to have dinner.
The next day, we headed early to visit the famous "Parque de Cocora". It is a large national park with very tall palm trees. We planned a 7-hour hike there. The journey there was made by jeeps.
As soon as no one else could fit, we started. We had to stand inside and hold on somehow.
Apparently, this is normal in Colombia, I found it really funny and it was a very beautiful ride.
We arrived at the park after 30 minutes. There were free-roaming cows, horses, and donkeys.
We also saw parrots flying around. We started our tour.
The trail ranged from easy paths to climbing and crossing rivers. We even did all of this on horseback.
After 3 hours, we arrived at "Casa de Colibri" and we were able to observe many hummingbirds.
There was a special hummingbird.And they had unusual colors.Until this point, we had already gained quite some altitude, a total of 800 meters from the starting point. We continued walking from the house and conquered the last third of the ascent. Almost at the top, Muriel had a sudden thought that she had lost her scarf somewhere. I (a bit frantically) held her backpack and ran back down. This was because the last jeep would depart between 17:00 and 18:00 and we didn't want to miss it. Luckily, we found the scarf almost at the entrance of the hummingbird house. I picked it up and ran back up. Muriel was already near the top and we didn't waste much time. We were rewarded with beautiful spots where we could admire the palm trees.
We continued walking until we reached the heart of the palm trees.
It was very special.We had time to sit down and admire the panorama.
Finally, we arrived back at the jeeps and had a truly beautiful 7-hour hike.
During the night, we had a visit from a young lady who didn't like to sleep outside alone. She was a house cat, but she had to sleep outside at night. Muriel, of course, couldn't say no.
The next day, we walked through the jungle for about 1 hour. There, we visited a traditional coffee farm.
We took a tour and learned about the history of coffee, the production process, and where it is exported.
For the first time, we held raw coffee beans in our hands, they were quite slippery.On this large area, the beans are dried and made ready for export.We also saw a very special type of palm tree, which has a function similar to a sponge.Finally, we had the opportunity to taste some coffee, and it was one of the best espresso I've ever had, incredibly strong.
I felt like I wouldn't be able to sleep for a whole year. They also had a very mean guard dog.
Those are not scars, just remnants of the ice cream he had before.In the evening, we met with friends we had previously met in Buenos Aires. We played "TAJE" together. It involves throwing a metal part onto a clay platform. On this platform, there is a metal circle (about half the size of a horseshoe) and there are small bags with gunpowder all around it. The goal is to shoot the metal part onto the bags so that they explode. It's not easy, but it's a lot of fun. You can constantly hear explosions throughout the place and the whole crowd cheers. We played 4 against 4 and we almost won. When we go back home, we are going to play Bowling, which is also a lot of fun.
On the next day, we spent some time planning for the next week. We need to book several flights, including from Colombia to Panama (as there are no roads between the two), from Costa Rica to Cuba, and finally from Cuba back home to Zurich. Officially, we can say that we will land in Zurich on Tuesday, April 17, 2018, at 17:30. We now have more than 60 days left, which we will spend mostly on the Caribbean coast, soaking up the sun. In the afternoon, we met again with our colleagues at their hostel, where they have three amazing puppies.
Yes, he really enjoyed himself, as you can see.We had fun playing with them, although they left many small holes in our clothes with their sharp teeth. We also played cards and exchanged information about the northern part of Colombia.
The next day, we continued our journey to Medellin. I am currently sitting in a beautiful garden, writing this blog. But more about Medellin in the next blog.
