Salento

Day 176 – How could we miss the ‘Coffee Zone’?

When we sat down and tried to work out where we were going next we realised that we had two places picked in opposite directions. What was worse was we had passed within an hour or two of one of the places on our night bus the other night, but hadn’t realised. The town we had missed was Salento in Colombia’s Zona Cafetera (Coffee Zone), and between Erin’s love of coffee and the great sounding hostel we decided to backtrack.

Apparently that’s how you spell Matthew van der Peet in Spanish – I have a new alias!

We made the most of the afternoon on the bus to get the blog up to date and for Erin to finish her book (“Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”). We got into Salento just as it was getting dark and the Plantation House’s British/Australian owner Tim showed us to our room. The Plantation House is in fact a collection of houses and farmland on the outside of town, including a 120 year old coffee plantation house where our room was, a collection of other old buildings with dormitories and private rooms and 7 hectares of farmland growing coffee, bananas, plantains, avocadoes, pineapples, bamboo (for construction), berries, citrus, etc.

We tagged along with a whole group of others for dinner to Rincón del Lucy (Lucy’s Corner), a local institution selling fresh local food for a pittance. First you get soup of the day with a banana to put into it (nicer than it sounds, try it sometime!). Then for mains you get a choice of trout, chicken, sausages or vegetarian (egg), and a choice of sides, beans, potatoes or lentils. To top it off you get a glass of fresh juice. The total bill is 6,000 Colombian Pesos, which sounds like a lot, but is actually just A$3.50!

Day 177 – Hummingbirds and the world’s tallest palms

After stopping to fetch Erin a cup of the local brew and some snacks for later, we and 13 other people piled into a tiny little Jeep for the 30 minute ride to Valle de Cocora. Thankfully when one more person tried to pile on the jeep was declared full and we split into two jeeps of eight, meaning only two people had to ride on the back bumper!

The colourful shops in Salento’s main square.

The Jeep getting loaded up.

From where the jeep dropped us we walked through farmland, dotted with Wax Palms (Colombia’s national tree and the world’s tallest palm) for about an hour, before heading into the forest towards a private nature reserve.

Surprise, surprise, Erin made a canine friend!

Lots of cute bovine friends in the fields below.

A small waterfall just by the track in the forest.

At the reserve, ACAIME (not sure what that stands for), we paid a small fee and were given a drink each. While we sat there hummingbirds buzzed in and out of the nearby flower bushes and bird feeders. In twenty minutes we must have seen about 5 different varieties.

A Long-Tailed Sylph feeding from a flower.

Golden-Breasted Puffleg.

Collared Inca.

From ACAIME we hiked steeply uphill to a viewpoint which turned out to be a little disappointing, but good exercise at least! The walk back crested a large hill called La Montaña (‘The Mountain’) before winding back along the top of the farmland with spectacular views back over the palm studded fields.

Blue-Crowned Motmot with its mate perched in the background.

We managed to grab the last jeep heading back into town and once back in the square we stopped for a beer at one of the quirky little bars we had been eyeing off. Then it was back to the hostel for a shower.

Matt and I hanging on the back of the jeep.

Our new favourite drinking hole. Inside there was all kinds of weird (for Colombia) memorabilia and wall to wall records.

Lacking inspiration and unable to beat the fabulous meal deal at Lucy’s we were back there again with a couple of the people we had met during the day. We had also wanted to join the locals for a round of “Tejo”, but unlucky for us the courts are closed Thursdays so we settled for a round of pool instead. Matt and I didn’t even get pantsed, despite Matt being on my team – one each against the Poms. The highlight of the evening however was by far the old boys’ urinal in the pool hall!

Day 178 – Coffee with Jesus

Yesterday I stopped by the local coffee house “Jesus Martin” (pronounced Hey-Zeus) for a take away on the way to the wax palms. As you would expect in coffee country, it was the best coffee I have had in a long long time. So it was back to Jesus this morning to sample some more! Shaking from the caffeine, we went for a walk around town and then stopped in back at the square for some food (other than at Lucy’s!) Matt had the “local plate” consisting of rice, beans, meat, banana, yuka, sausage and a deep fried piece of fat (seriously!) and I had a somewhat less oily option of salad and fried yukas (essentially yummy potato wedges) and all for twice the price of Lucy’s.

At 2pm we were due back at Plantation House for a tour of their relatively new acquisition, a coffee plantation about 500m further down the hill out of town. Tim took the group down to the farm which he has only owned for 2 years and which he hasn’t produced enough beans from yet other than to keep backpackers in supply at Plantation House and to sell locally. He purchased the plantation from a 70 year old local lady who asked him to purchase the farm and so fell into the whole deal so to speak. He seems to be enjoying it though, has leant a lot about coffee over the last two years and has a lot of untraditional ideas about what to do with the farm, including selling rows of his plants online so that people can own their own coffee!

The farm is uncertified organic and still operated completely by hand. The plantation produces entirely Aribica beans and the four varieties have been kept separate as part of Tim’s plan to turn the farm boutique, so that customers can make their own blend. Almost all other farmers mix their beans, including mixing Aribica with Robusta, a lesser quality bean, and receive a set price at market by the size of the bean as until the bean is roasted, you can’t tell what quality or type it is, and most farmers don’t roast their own beans.

Looking down over Tim’s plantation and the half finished tasting rooms.

The building Tim has put up is made of bamboo and recycled timber from the site.

Coffee plants start by planting a bean! So simple… and unlike the old ‘watermelon’ wives tale.

Coffee berries ready to be picked.

The raw berries were quite sugary and slimy and had to be skinned and soaked before they could be laid out to dry.

Some of the other produce on sight.

Coffee beans drying and waiting to be roasted.

Hard at work, although it seems like a very therapeutic kind of job. I wouldn’t envy them picking the beans by hand, in the rainy seasons, on such steep slopes though.

Some of the process, this contraption skins the berries before they are soaked to get rid of the sugar.

The view over the neighbouring hills from the roof of the tasting rooms.

After the coffee tour, and sufficiently caffeinated once again, we headed back into town to meet up with The Dutchesses, Hanneke and Maaike, who we had been travelling with in Bolivia. Together with Kate and James, the Poms from last night, and a few others from the hostel, it was off to finally get to play a round of Tejo, the local game.

Tejo involves chucking weighty hockey pucks at a metal ring set in clay on a 45 degree angel. See below:

The two white triangles are packed with gun powder and bang if hit by a puck! Landing in the circle gets your team six points, hitting a triangle and making a bang gets you three points and other than that the closest puck to the circle gets one point. One of the locals showed us the ropes and we were designated the ‘kids court’, or so we thought, given our pucks were half the weight and the two ends set half as far apart as the locals, who had to take a run up to chuck their puck!

As long as you drink beer the courts are free! Needless to say it was a bit of fun and may be featured in the vdP fun house shortly (if it weren’t for the illegal gun powder bit, which technically is also illegal in Colombia!).

You can probably guess where the gang wanted to go for dinner…. so it was back to Lucy’s and she didn’t let us down, third night running. Then we had a few beers and caught up properly with Hanneke and Maaike at the quirky bar in the square!

Day 179 – Couldn’t leave little paradise just yet

The plan today was to walk up to the lookout over town, have some lunch, check out the market and other local happenings that had sprung up for the long weekend in Colombia and then get on a night bus for the 9 or so hours to Bogota.

That was until we heard for the um-teenth time “How nice it was at Omar’s farm in the Eagles Nest”… “Lovely family”… “Spectacular scenery”…

So we packed up nice and early and got the first few things done, we climbed the steps all the way to the lookout over town, whilst being reminded of just how unfit we are, I bought some more bits and pieces at the market and we had a nice crepe lunch at a trendy cafe near the lookout. Then we went back to the hostel for what we thought was going to be some reading, internet, blogging time and generally enjoying the Plantation House scene until our night bus.

Omar had stopped in to Plantation House to set up an overnight stay with another Australian/Brazilian couple, Ricardo and Sally and overhearing the arrangements and the fact that there was space for two more … we just couldn’t resist!

The view over Salento from the lookout.

The coolest coffee machine I have ever seen!

Outside Plantation House with Max and George.

The scenery from around the veranda of the hostel.

So we did do all the things we planned to do today, although we didn’t get on the night bus. Instead we went out to dinner with Ricardo and Sally, Noreen a Canadian girl and Hayley, another Aussie who had just come back from Omar’s farm saying how great it was, followed by a stint at one of the local outdoor bars and then into the square for some Aguardiente (the local liquor which tastes like black jellybeans!) and salsa lessons with the locals who were well and truly into fiesta mode for their long weekend. Matt got a bit of a laugh telling a lady that “These hips do lie” before accepting her invitation to dance and lucky me got a lesson from her sweaty husband.

There wasn’t any space at Plantation House given we were supposed to leave, but they gave us a bed down on the coffee farm with the workers! It didn’t matter as we were pretty pleased with our arrangements to visit the Eagles Nest the next day and it was more comfortable than the night bus.

Enjoying our Aguardiente, pre-Salsa dancing. Me, Matt, Hayley, Sally and Noreen. Ricardo had tapped out at this stage, so it was Matt and his ladies!

[There is some photographic evidence of dancing… just not on our camera. Coming soon to a blog near you!]