Toss a coin to your witcher, oh valley of plenty…palm trees! It was time to get into the famous coffee region of Colombia and visit the famous Valle de Cocora.
Long, long drives
Let’s start with something we probably will never get used to during travelling: Long, never ending bus rides. Some people wrote in their blogs that they love this. Enjoying the nature go by and just relax. I think we are both over this point as we are very happy when we finally arrive.
Long story short, we had another one of these rides from Guatapé to our next destination Salento. Normally from Medellin to Pereira (a stop before Salento) it should have been around 5 hours. But of course we ended up sitting in the bus for 8 hours straight. The only upsides on these long journeys are that you see a lot of Jason Statham or Vin Diesel movies in Spanish…
Ending up very late in Pereira we still had to get to our final destination. At this daytime we had to pay a lot for the taxi that drove us for 30 minutes to Salento. But we were “lucky” as we got a little adventure out of this trip. The taxi driver was stopped by the police and had somehow one document missing. So he begged us to tell something to the officers that we must go on fast. It was a weird situation as we were both overstrained. Finally the taxi driver came back and he just told us: “Corruption everywhere…”. So he probably just paid them off. 😅
Coffee region
Within the coffee-triangle, the Zona Cafetera, lies one of the most colourful colonial towns of Colombia: Salento. It is well known for its coffee production, the picturesque streets and of course for Valle de Cocora. We decided to stay there for 2 nights to enjoy this small town and the nature surrounding it.
Valley of plenty…palm trees
One of the most exciting activities around Salento is the visit to Valle de Cocora with its huge palm trees. And when I mean huge, then they are absolutely crazy tall. It is said that these are the highest palm trees in the whole world. 🌴
The adventure already started in the main square of Salento. You have to take a jeep to get to the valley. Together with a lot of tourists cramped into the car we drove into the nature.
When we arrived we were stunned by the beauty of this place and just enjoyed walking around and taking a lot of pictures of course. As you can see for yourself it is well worth the trip!
On our way back Christian decided to stand on the outside of the jeep while driving back into town. Quite a windy and exhausting experience but also great to see the nature on each side.
Although we only had 2 days here we loved this place! Next time we definitely have to stay longer…
