Salento

Salento is a very pretty, colourful town of colonial style. Unlike similar towns I have seen on my trip, this one has not been spoilt by tourism. Locals are still very much the main occupants of the beautiful, traditional houses. It was really lovely to observe them milling about their days, some trotting through the town on horse back. The town is surrounded by large coffee estates and also neighbours the impressive Cocora Valley. The valley is home to the world's tallest palm trees. Some are as tall as 200 feet.

Accommodation:
-Coffee Tree Hostel. It was very pretty with two massive St. Bernards. I booked my initial two nights here and then came back for a further two nights.
-Viajero. I moved here as I knew a lot of people who were staying here. It was nice but was let down by the weather. It had a beautiful garden that overlooked the hills. It poured the whole time I was there so we didn't get to use it to its potential.

I ended up spending a week here. This was longer than necessary. Being at the end of my trip I wanted to relax in one place and not waste another day on public transport. The days are a bit of a blur between rain and thunder storms.

I arrived after a full day travelling from Medellin. I had Chandler for the bus journey so at least I had some company. I met back up with Jess, Tiger and Emily. It came as a surprise to have them in my hostel and I loved being back with them. Chris and Stanley were also here for the first few days. We spent the first night back together out at a suboptimal Italian and then headed on to play Tejo. Tejo is a Colombian game where you throw rocks at gun powder propped up on a clay pit. Obviously the aim of the game is to get the most explosions. During the week many games of Tejo were had. When we got sick of that we moved onto playing pool and card games.

I explored Colca Valley with Emily and Tiger. Unfortunately Jess was sick with the typical traveler infliction and also had to go on the hunt for her missing phone (surprisingly she found). We panic bought some sun cream but we nedent have worried as is soon started raining cats and dogs. Then came the thunder and lightning which had us blacked out in the hostel for the rest of the day.

The most exciting outing was mountain biking which actually had more impressive views than the valley itself. It was pretty tough, a few people came off but no serious injuries. Poor Stan had it the worst and had to get back into the jeep half way through as the nerves were a little shot. Will came off his bike at one point and the bike went straight into a ten foot drop off the path. Will was our celebrity for the day as he plays for Harlequins.

Our last hurrah with Chris and Stan was a night out in a local bar. Locals danced salsa and we met our biking guides who fed us plenty of shots. Salento isn't known for its roaring night life so we did pretty well to have a rager.

Salento is a huge coffee region so it was high on my list to do a coffee tour. Evie and I did a roasting class in a local coffee shop. The owner was amazing at explaining everything and warned us to never buy a dark roast. We ground the coffee ourselves and tasted three different varieties.
The following day I ventured to a farm. Unfortunately it poured so we couldn't go out to the fields. They also had a power cut for the first hour so we couldn't even drink coffee. It was a tad miserable.

A very big and delightful surprise to was meet my friend Ellie again. I had met Ellie in Guatemala and I had been keeping up with her trip on insta. She had flow straight from Nicaragua. It was great to catch up and get to hang out for a few more days.

Lots of final goodbyes were made. Some were more emotional than others. It was sad to see Evie and Ben go as I had been with them for a little over a month. However, I've promised to see them when I visit David in Liverpool.

Recommendations:
Do the mountain biking
Cocora Valley
Coffee farm
Play lots of Tejo. There are two places you can do this. Las Amigos is my preferred place. They also have it downstairs in the pool hall
Brunch de Salento - good food and great coffee. This is where I did the free coffee class.
La Mafia - food truck with a very friendly owner
Jesus Martin - good coffeeRead more