Salento - Days 64-67
We woke up to that stupid baby crying again. At breakfast I glared at it a bunch but it’s a baby so it probably didn’t realized how dumb it was being. The hostel workers brought out our breakfast at 7:50 and we basically shotgunned it and ran out the door to find our 8 o’clock bus! We walked over near the bus stop and there seemed to be a circus and or party bus blocking the street, so we headed over to the ticket stand and asked where to bus to Riosucio was. He pointed to the circus bus, oh good! I don’t even know how to describe this bus – it was painted with all sorts of colors and designs, it was blasting some sort of Hispanic circus music, it had no doors, just handholds up to the seating area – a bunch of benches. It seemed too wide for any roads in town as well. Apparently this was our bus, so we climbed up and stashed our packs under the seats and the bus lurched away.
We somehow navigated town without scraping any buildings and made it to a real road, complete with asphalt! That was exciting since it meant the drive would be relatively smooth, but the road turned to dirt pretty dang quickly. The road wasn’t too bumpy, and there were no other vehicles around as we winded up the side of the mountains, passing some phenomenal morning views of Jardin in the valley below. We stopped to pick up some people every now and then, and the bus got more crowded and more chilly as we gained altitude. We eventually entered the clouds and lost our valley views, but it cleared up again after about 90 minutes driving when we hit the pass. We stopped at a lone building at the top and took the opportunity to stretch our legs. On the second half of the drive, back down into the next valley where Riosucio was we took the opportunity to break out our cheese tris which were wonderful and nearly perfect replacements for Cheetos. As we neared the next town we stopped more frequently to pick up more passengers including some cowboys who sat next to us.
We finally pulled into the Riosucio station which was really not much to admire and went to the window to buy our next bus tickets – what fun. Fortunately there we two other non-local (read: gringo) couples there also buying the next leg who helped us translate as the lady at the counter spoke no English and we didn’t exactly know the best bus route to Salento. We did know that going this way over the mountains was faster than the alternative though, that is busing all the way back to Medellin for 3-4 hours then taking a bus to Salento from there, 8 more hours.
So we had our tickets for the next two legs and hopped on the next bus bound to Armenia. This was also a 3 hour bus ride, but quite a bit flatter than our first one. The bus was way more boring but it had real seats and windows and things like that. This ride was pretty uneventful and at Armenia most everyone got off except the 3 gringo couples, and some more folks got on for the hour long ride to Pereira. This was really turning in to quite the day! At Pereira we found a bus stall with a sign reading “Salento”, and they told us there was a mini-bus in the lot about to depart, so we all boogied to the bus and climbed aboard for our last bus ride of the day! It was about 45 minutes but very scenic ride so it went by quickly, and just like that we had made it from Jardin to Salento! Just like that! Like a damned snail.
I wouldn’t describe the buses as “fun”, except for maybe the first half-hour of the circus bus, but we made it in decent time, it was around 6 now – and we still technically had one last leg left, the walk to our hostel! We weren’t too mad about this one though since our butts were sore and our feets were ready to walk! The town was small but considerably more touristy than Jardin, there seemed to be a hostel on every corner, and of course ours was the furthest! We eventually made it to Coffee Tree Hostel and were shown to our room. Now, I know the last two places we stayed weren’t particularly comfortable, but sweet little baby jesus was this bed comfy!! Ohhhh baby (I am sure I cried out as I hit the mattress). We showered the bus grime off, got some recommendations from the dude at the front desk and walked into town t
Tired from the long bus day we didn’t really feeling like exploring town too much so we headed to the first place that was recommended: B&T (beer and tapas) – we had some sliders and wings and cocktails but it wasn’t great; the wings were breaded. Strange. Oh well. We stopped off at another place on the walk home and had a beer at their outdoor firepit area which was quite nice, but that was about all we had left in the tank, so we went back to the hostel and were sleeping in no time.
End of D64 cribbage score: Ben 90 (14 skunks) – Meg 68 (15 skunks)
After yesterday’s bus bonanza we decided to have a chill day today. We decided that when those lovely mattresses made us sleep on them until 10! This hostel had free breakfast and free coffee all day, so we moseyed downstairs for our breaky – a pretty good toast, eggs, fruit and cereal display as well as some fairly fantastic coffee! The hostel had massive windows and a nice deck where we basked in the sun as we looked over coffee country while eating. After a pleasant morning of drinking coffee we decided to head into town to try a coffee shop I’d read about. Cafe Jesus was the name, and cappuccinos were the game, and oh man were they a treat! We played some cribbage in the quaint little shop and headed out to explore the town a bit around noon.
We stopped at a little hole-in-the-wall for lunch and ordered bandeja paisa. Turns out it’s a massive dish everywhere, but we enjoyed the 4 meats and our fresh fruit juice and made our move towards a trekking outfitter. We were considering doing a trek into the paramo region – a high-altitude ecosystem unique to South America – it would be a 3 day trek with some serious elevation gain. After much back and forth we decided to just relax for this week and move slow and drink coffee. That afternoon we wandered around the shopping street looking for a bag to store some coffee for the journey home. No luck.
We gave up and headed back to the hostel where we extended our stay at the hostel one more night since we weren’t going to do the paramo trek. We also met a couple cool guys there – James from England and Wally from good ol’ Wisconsin! What a world!
We grabbed some excellent burgers with them in town then we were off to find a tejo bar. We succeeded. We had 4 people so we were given 4 beers and some packets full of gunpowder and we entered the arena. The gunpowder packs were placed on a metal ring in the middle of a clay filled board. Our objective then was to take turns chucking metal discs at the board. The discs would usually “thwock” as they hit clay, or “BAM” - 3 points for exploding a gunpowder packet! It was like awesome, explosive bag toss!
We ran out of packets and I ran to the front to get more (and mas cervesas). The lady took her pen and marked four tallies on her paper next to our group name: gringos. Nice. Meg and I were partners and we took both games because of our awesomeness, also because James was god-awful and kept trying new techniques like the discus toss and a baseball pitch. Those didn’t work.
End of D65 cribbage score: Ben 92 (14 skunks) – Meg 68 (15 skunks)
This morning we packed our day packs for a day of walking, had our hostel coffee and breakfast, and walked out of town on the road towards the coffee plantations. The plantations were some 6 or 7 kilometers away, so it took us an hour to walk there but all the plantations were next to each other. We skipped the first farm as it was touristy, and headed to the smaller Casa Don Elias – not touristy enough; no English going on there. So we headed back to the bigger one, El Ocaso. The grounds of the plantation were pretty and nice, we played some cribbage there and did the tour. It was fairly similar to the one we did in Minca, no new information, though they had us pick some beans here. I thought I had really picked some good red coffee beans and then Meg peered into my basket and laughed - “you really got some nice green ones there buddy!”. Colorblindness strikes again. At the end we were able to taste the coffee though, always nice and frankly needed since our caffeine tolerance was becoming a caffeine dependency. When in Colombia.
We stopped on the walk back into town for lunch and I had a really good steak, and Meg had some really mediocre to bad salad. Then she ate some of my steak. What a mistake. We had missed steak. After a brief coffee pit-stop we were back at the hostel where my task was to figure out Meg’s issues with her phone and photo storage. So while I delved into the depths of random message boards, Meg went and picked up some groceries for the hike tomorrow, some empanadas for dinner, a backpack she found for toting coffee home, and hit the ATM. And I figured out her phone! Just like home! After the successes we enjoyed our empanadas which were phenomenal and watched some tele before bed. Big day tomorrow!
End of D66 cribbage score: Ben 92 (14 skunks) – Meg 71 (16 skunks)
Very exciting morning as we had been looking forward to this hike since before the trip started! The hike was a gorgeous loop in the Valle del Cocora! First things first – getting there. We showed up at the town square around 8 and found a bunch of Willies – I think that’s just what they call jeeps. They looked like they seated maybe 7 people including the driver, so we naturally squeezed 14 people on, including the 4 standing on the back. The drive to the Valle was quick and we had our hand drawn map, so we got right to it!
The natural beauty of the valley was stunning – steep sides, a river meandering through the middle, beautiful grasses and palms all over… wow. We hiked into the valley and enjoyed the first hour of hiking in a meadow before entering the jungle. Not long after entering the jungle did we hit our first sketchy suspension bridge. It wasn’t very high and the water wasn’t dangerous but it sure looked rickety! We crossed that bridge and a few others before the horse path started intersecting the human path and it got muddy. Stupid horses and horse-riding people. Just walk. We hopped around the path avoiding the mud for a solid hour before making the turning point of the hike.
Just at the turning point there is another path that continues up about a kilometer to the Casa de Calibri – a hummingbird house! For a couple dollar entrance fee you get some hot chocolate and cheese and a seat to relax and watch dozens of hummingbirds zinging all around! It was super cool, and we were able to get within a foot of them as they were drinking. We also so a tejon (some sort of Colombian badger guy) while up there. A really cool detour all-in-all.
Back to the main trail we were about ready to start the main ascent – 40 minutes of walking straight up – pretty grueling but nothing we couldn’t handle! At the top there was a stellar view and some benches where we enjoyed our bologna sandwiches and cheese tris. After the steep ascent it was a gradual decline back to the starting point, which we tried to do at a reasonable pace to keep ahead of the annoying Aussies who were idiots and also behind us. 45 minutes later we entered the field of Cocora palms!
These were suuuuper tall palm trees that looked totally alien, and they were just everywhere. They really seemed unnecessarily tall! There was a little foot trail off the main path that we found and took that led us into a perfect grassy field where we were alone and surrounded by the Dr. Seuss-esqe trees. Turns out our footpath didn’t reconnect with the trail though, so we climbed under some barbed wire to try to re-connect.
Just on the other side we found another couple who had found a selfie-stick. Now, we’ve never wanted one of those. Buuuuttttt my arms are always in our selfies and they said we could have it for free. Not going to say whether we did or not but be on the look out for some phenomenal selfies.
Back at the drop-off point we boarded a Willie – though this time it was us who were hanging on to the back for the windy drive back to town! Back at the hostel we rested our weary feet and did some blogging, then walked out to town for dinner where there was evidently a food-truck sanctuary. We food these trucks and we did get the food from them. The food was mighty tasty – we both had shwarma wraps that really hit the spot after a long day of hiking. Sadly it was our last night at Coffee Tree but appreciated the comfort of their beds one last time.
End of D67 cribbage score: Ben 93 (15 skunks) – Meg 71 (16 skunks)
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