Salento, the city of reunion 🙏

After the bus dropped us off at Plaza in Salento, we went to the hostel to drop off our things. We also inquired about what else we could do today, as it was only noon. And so we decided to visit a coffee farm :) We had a delicious sandwich before that and then took a Jeep (info in advance: normally, without squeezing, 8 people fit in these) with 6 other people and drove for 30 minutes to the Buenos Aires coffee farm. Here, they explained the complete process of coffee cultivation from a small seedling to a roasted bean. Coffee grows on shrubs and there were two different types of coffee on this farm. The small 'fruits' are red or yellow (depending on the type) when ripe, and when you open them, there are two small coffee beans with a slippery coating. We were allowed to put them in our mouths and suck on them a little, and they tasted really sweet :D If you were to plant them, little seedlings would grow after a few weeks, which would be transplanted when they have two leaves. We were also allowed to do that :) Then we went into the field, where we were allowed to be real coffee pickers and picked some ripe beans. These are later separated from the beans' red or yellow husks through a kind of meat grinder. Then the beans are fermented for 12-14 hours and later dried in the sun for 2 weeks. Before roasting, all the beans are hand-checked again, and the bad ones are sorted out and processed into second-choice coffee. After roasting, the beans are slightly larger than before and ready to be ground :)
In the end, we got a taste test and the coffee was really disgusting.. It was like they mixed vinegar into it :D The return trip was a bit crazy because, as mentioned above, the Jeep normally only fits 8 people, but in the end there were a total of 15 of us who rode together :D 5 people stood on the back of the Jeep and 2 squeezed onto the benches :D But we all arrived in Salento safely :)
In the evening, we went to the Plaza to eat and now I'll tell you why Salento is the place of reunion. We were sitting outside, just finishing our meal and having a beer when someone from our hostel in Santa Marta walks by, whom we had also seen in Jardin :D His name is Paul, and he joined us and also had something to eat. After that, Max walked by. We also knew him from Santa Marta, where we were last 2 or 3 weeks ago :D. Really cool, and in the end, a bus arrived in the evening with two guys from our hostel in Medellin, with whom we had gone out to party :D It's amazing how small the world can be :D Max and Paul went to a bar with us, where we played Tejo, a typical Colombian game. You throw stones at a clay slab, and in the middle, there are 4 paper triangles with some kind of gunpowder, and if you hit the paper triangles and it explodes or briefly burns, you get 3 points, and if the stone just sticks in the clay, you somehow get a point, and apparently, you play until 21.. I don't think we played it completely right, but it was fun :D After that, Paul lost a round of pool against me, and we went back to the hostel to sleep :)
The next day, we took the Jeeps to Valle de Cocora at 7:30 am. Here, there are wax palms, the tallest palms in the world, and they can grow up to 60 meters tall. We walked a circular trail that took about 6 hours and was 12 km long :) really nice hiking there, and we saw a lot of hummingbirds :) and at the place where the hummingbirds were, there was, of course, another nice reunion. We met Anette and Christoph there. :) Together with them and a few others, we did the Ciudad Perdida tour :D We could hardly believe seeing them there, and for old times' sake, we walked back to the park entrance together :) If you two are reading this, it was really nice to see you again :) In the evening, I went to play pool with Paul, Max, and Naomi (our roommate), and then went to bed.
Yesterday, Naomi and I went to a hot spring somewhere near Santa Rosa. It took us two hours and three buses to get there, but it was very nice. The hot spring is located in a valley, and there is a natural waterfall flowing down a rock wall where you can also cool off, and the water in the pools was super warm and yes, it was just very nice to relax :)
And this morning, we went on a one-hour horseback ride, and initially, I didn't want to go, but in the end, I'm very glad I did because it was a lot of fun and the horses looked much better than in Tayrona Park, and the owner is really nice and treats his horses well :).
And now we're sitting at the bus station in Pereira, waiting for our bus to Bogota. By the way, there was just a police exercise going on here in case of an attack. With sirens and sniffer dogs :D
Well, if nothing else.. :D we're going to be on the bus for 8 hours now and hopefully arrive in Bogota around 11 pm :)
Until then, hasta pronto
Laura and Chrissie :)