Halloween in coffee country

  Salento, Quindío, Colombia Friday, October 30, 2015

The bus from Medellin the next morning, took us to Armenia - the Capital of the coffee region. The bus was a good bus, very comfortable, big reclining seats and loads of leg room. We were going to need it as it was going to take about 8 hours to get there. The bus steward also organised a pick up of lunch en-route and even ordered a vegetarian option for Jody. Whey hey! But as with all things vegetarian, it never works out and they delivered chicken. The poor steward was gutted. We could tell he felt embarrassed and realised this meant Jody wouldn't get anything to eat for 8 hours. NOT a good situation for anyone else around her! There was a lovely lady named Andrea on the bus who we thought was from Scotland as she had such a lovely soft Scottish accent. It turns out she was Colombian and was married to a man from Edinburgh so had picked up this lovely accent. She was brilliant at helping to translate about the meal (our Spanish isn't up to much yet) and put the stewards mind at rest that we didn't blame him. Then this lovely lady proceeded to produce fruit and crisps and biscuits for Jody to much on to keep the hunger demons at bay. She was a life saver! She was travelling with her family to a Finca (small farm) in the mountains for the holidays. Halloween in South America is a big holiday. Everyone gets an extra day off so they can visit the graveyards and pay their respect to dead relatives.We arrived in Armenia as it was getting dark, we said goodbye to Andrea and her family and got a taxi to a local hotel just for 1 night. Armenia is not a pretty city and we didn't really want to stay here any longer than necessary, just get some rest for the night before travelling to the small mountain village of Salento tomorrow. It was hilarious checking in as our Spanish clearly wasn't understood and the receptionist spoke no English. The Google translate app on the phone proved indispensable and it has a feature where we got her to speak what she wanted into the phone, then google app translated it for us. She was loving it and was getting very carried away and google couldn't keep up with her. We walked around the corner to the city centre, it felt a little bit edgy to start with - being dark didn't help. But then as we were looking for a restaurant that didn't exist, a security guard with a gun came over and in perfect English asked us if we needed any help. He had lived in England for a bit so again we were rescued. We chatted to Juan Carlos for a bit about England, then he invited us to the party going on inside the building we were stood outside. It was a costume party for Halloween and we were extremely underdressed - even though he did suggest we came as two travellers - and decided to just go grab some food instead. Its amazing how individuals can completely change your opinion of a place!The next day we jumped on a small local bus to Salento which sits 2000m high. It was just 45 minutes away in the mountains outside the city and was very picturesque. We found the hostel we had decided upon, just as it started to rain. Our Host Tim "Don Eduardo" Edwards from Brighton, is quite a character. Him and his Colombian wife Christina run the Plantation House which as it suggests was an old coffee plantation. They then explained that occasionally they get tarantulas at the plantation and that was it. Jody's heart was racing and she could not stop looking everywhere, every minute. She was terrified! Tim got us coffee made from beans grown on site and told us it was available all day every day - just help ourselves. Perfect! We took a walk into the village centre and being Halloween today, all the kids were dressed up. Not in scary costumes as you might imagine, but as Batman, Spiderman, Cowboys, Princesses, Ninja Turtles and Puppies. It was hilarious. Every time you turned a corner there was Spiderman or Batman.The streets are very pretty here and you can see why it is a tourist place. Colombian tourists as well as backpackers. There are no non-Colombian nationals here just for a holiday - not that kind of touristy, so it's lovely and completely unspoilt. In the evening we walked back through the town and we tried to get some photos of the kids as their costumes were great. We felt a bit pervy though, going round taking surreptitious pictures of children so in the end we went and bought a big bag of sweets and at least we could be upfront about it and they stood still for us as Bryan handed them out. It still didn't feel quite right though but eventually the little kids went home to bed and the big kids came out to play. And their costumes were fantastic! They had really made a huge effort and some of them were quite scary. We had run out of sweets so just reverted to going up to people and asking for their photograph. They loved it and were only too happy to oblige. Once again though we felt terribly underdressed. It was a great evening and luckily it had stayed dry too so no one had make-up dripping down their faces either. They sure knew how to party.Most days here it rained. Really rained. We were up in rain forest region so that's only to be expected but it kept us indoors quite a bit as it was cold too. Proper socks and jumpers cold not just a bit chilly. We did managed to pop along to town for a coffee though most days and most evenings we spent watching a film from our huge library of films we carry with us. Our room has a huge fireplace in it and we had some wood for it but it was all too wet. However one evening we decided it had dried out long enough so armed with a good film at the ready and a bottle of red wine, we thought we would have a nice cosy night in. The plan was a good one but the fireplace had other ideas. We got a cracking fire going, then the room just filled with smoke. We were coughing and spluttering, our eyes were watering, we had all the doors and windows open to let the smoke out so the room was freezing. In the end we gave up on it and just drank the wine and watched a film - Lucy. Have you seen it? Very weird. Don Eduardo gives coffee tours here. We got 20% off the price of the tour for every day we stayed at his Finca. So 5 nights = a free tour - bargain!We set off in a large group down the track which he explained at one time was the main road to Bogota. Incredible to think of it really, everything moved by mule down slippery muddy track. Hard work. The farm wasn't quite what we were expecting. It seemed a bit ramshackle and all on very steep land, but it seems to work well and Tim certainly loves to talk. He has lots of stories and could point out lots of interesting plants. He explained how growing tobacco amongst the coffee plants, attracts the midges that might otherwise eat the coffee leaves. He also grows pineapples on site and bananas which he happily shared with us. It's fair to say he was very thorough and explained everything very well. Much of which we had learned in Sri Lanka when we visited a coffee plantation there. Then taking some fresh coffee cherries, we went right through the process and finally had a cup of coffee with the beans we had just roasted. You cant get any fresher than that! The main reason this town attract tourists, is a long mountain/rain forest trek through the Valle del Cocora. This is a 15km trek (10 miles) but it is tough going. It takes an average person 6 hours to walk it so with Jody in tow we were expecting it to take a bit longer. So on a gloriously sunny morning we checked the weather forecast - this was going to be the only good day for a while but only until 2pm when it was expected to rain again. We set off early and were in the town square by 7am to catch a Willie. A Willie is a small jeep that can take up to 10 people and they shuttle hikers to and from the start of the trail which is about 5 km away.We were in a Willie with a German lad Kiun and his mum and another German couple and we all had travelling in common and a passion for seeing new places. We all started off more or less together but soon we drifted into different walking paces and split up. The walk was hard. And remember we were at 2000m or 6,600 ft so the air is a bit thinner. To start with we were walking level along muddy tracks, then the trail started to climb, not so steeply but a tough gradient on the legs. And the muddy train disappeared to be replaced with muddy rocks and stones. And the sun was out. Expecting it to be chilly we had worn layers but layers of warm clothing so before long we were stripping off too. More to carry in our backpacks! We had to cross many little swing bridges over the river and it was so so pretty. Many people had elected to go by horse and so we had to stop to allow groups to pass but it gave us a good excuse for a rest. The walk got harder. Jody was struggling with her breathing a bit - so was Bryan but he wouldn't readily admit it! Eventually we came to the sign that told us we were 1 km away from the rest area named Acaime This is what we had really come for. A 5000 pesos entry fee per person (£1) and another very steep hike through jungle. Luckily there were paths and we didn't have to cut our way through, but at the end of this track lay a little oasis. The lady that lives here provides refreshments - included in your entry fee - and we ordered the hot chocolate served the traditional way with cheese. And as we sat and drank our hot chocolate, we watched dozens of humming birds zipping around our heads. Although the area is filled with flowers, the lady also puts out humming bird feeders to help them along (and to keep the tourists coming). It was just the most tranquil and special moment of our time in Colombia. See the humming bird video we made here And then the Germans turned up - all of them. How on earth had we got here before them??? Kiun had actually decided to take his boots off and complete the last stretch barefoot - he must be mad! Well it was good to catch up with them again and then after a final few snaps of the humming birds, we set off for the next bit. An almost vertical walk which we knew would take a good hour even with the hot chocolate fuel we had taken on board. The views from the top were very rewarding though and now it was time for lunch whist we watched more humming birds. Spectacular!Rested for another half hour, we decided our luck had held with the rain but we didn't want to push it. The last 5km was all down hill and it was just as beautiful but very different. 2000m up in the mountains are the tallest palm trees we have ever seen, wax palms. Very surreal but they looked perfectly in place some how. We got to the end in 6 1/2 hours and were soon joined by Kiun and his mum again so we all hopped in a Willie back to Salento. We were exhausted and muddy and sweaty but all very contented. The rain had held out and we were so glad we had done it today. Any other day we would have been drenched. We had no problems getting any sleep that night for sure! Our last day in Salento was spent resting. Our legs had gone to jelly after the walk yesterday and we really didn't need to rush about anyway. We found a great little bar called Betatown and the chap there showed us how to play Tajo (pronounced Ta Ho). It is the Colombian National sport as decreed by the government, and it is definitely different. You stand some distance away from a target which is at a 45 degree ish angle and its covered in clay. In the centre is a metal ring to which you stick small packets of gunpowder. Yes gunpowder! Then you throw a heavy metal weight at the clay and if you hit the target right, you hit the metal ring igniting the gunpowder in the packet and create an explosion. Fantastic! And drinking beer whilst you play is compulsory so who were we to argue. We had a great time. You can see a short video here. Salento has been fabulous and the slow pace of life here has been wonderful. The walk was amazing especially the humming birds and not a tarantula in sight. Bogota next - the Capital of Colombia - we think it is going to be a little different there!   [gallery columns="4" ids="11745,11754,11756,11764,11775,11784,11798,11814,11830,11843,11858,11868,11891,11902,11909,11918,11929,11951,11967,11981,11993,12007,12020,12034,12049,12065,12081,12100,12114,12128,12143,12157,12161,12165,12174,12182,12189,12195,12199,12205,12210,12215,12220,12223,12225,12228,12232,12233,12236,12239,12241,12246,12250,12253,12255,12258,12261,12264,12268,12272,12273,12280,12282,12287,12291,12296,12300,12304,12309,12312,12314,12316,12317,12319,12320,12322,12324,12326,12330,12333,12335,12338,12340,12342,12344,12354,12355,12366,12368,12370,12372,12374,12376"]