Salento

Tuesday: We spent the whole day on the bus travelling to Salento, in the heart of Colombia's coffee region. The views on route were stunning, huge green valleys with all manner of vegetation & wildlife, and fincas (farm houses) occupied by their poncho & cowboy hat wearing farmers!

We book into Plantation House, a hostel owned by a British gent who also runs the neighbouring coffee plantation.

Wednesday: We spent the morning walking around the beautiful town, before having a tour of the coffee plantation. The town is a world away from Medellin, a very sleepy non touristy feel. The locals are extremely friendly & proud of their colonial town. The tour was very interesting and we learnt the whole process of how coffee is made, from bean to mug.

We befriended a French lad who was travelling on his own and we decided to cook together....i.e he did all the work and we enjoyed it! The local speciality is trout, fresh from the trout farm in the National Park Cocora, we had this a couple of times whilst in the region.

Thursday: Up at the crack of dawn to have breakfast and catch the jeep from the town square to take us to the entrance of the National Park Cocora. We opt for a hike following the river through the park; this takes us 4.5 hours at a good pace. Similar to Park Tayrona, the 'path' wasn't as easy as hoped; having to cross the river 5 times across makeshift bridges, muddy & waterlogged trails and no signs to let us know if we're on the correct route - we loved it though!

On the way up, the sun gradually disappeared under a shroud of cloud cover, which was a shame as we hiked from near 2000m to 2900m so we didn't manage to get the full view of the valley from the top.

We refuelled at the top of the mountain with coffee/ hot chocolate & cheese supplied by an old couple who live up there with no electricity and no access other than foot....quite random!

After a hot shower, we packed up and took the night bus to Bogota, the capital of Colombia.