We couldn’t go to Colombia without visiting a coffee growing region. We took a 9-hour bus ride from Medellin to the little town of Salento, which has become a very popular spot for just this reason. It is one of those towns where you’re more likely to pass a tourist on the street than a local, which I can’t say we loved but the town also had a lot of charm and was peaceful so we enjoyed our time there!

The Town

We stayed at a hostel on the edge of town located on a little coffee farm. It was a very sleepy place and we barely ever saw anyone else, but there were always a few dogs around to say hi! There are many restaurants all around, but we ended up cooking for ourselves at the hostel for most meals. All of the buildings in town are painted really fun colors and have charming windows and doorways.

There’s not much to do in the town center itself, but there is a mirador (view point) that you can climb up to get a wonderful view of the town and the surrounding hills. We climbed up our last night in time for sunset and marveled at the views that we would never have associated with Colombia before.

Coffee Tour

There are several coffee “fincas” or farms about an hour walk from the center of town. Typically people take Jeep collectivos, but it was such nice weather we decided to walk to the coffee tour that our hostel host recommended to us. We lucked out and the finca was starting an English tour of the farm 10-min after we got there! Our tour guide walked us through the coffee plant fields, which were also filled with plants of other fruits like bananas and oranges. Our guide told us that planting other fruit plants along side the coffee plants keeps the bugs off the coffee because they are more attracted to the other fruit. Smart!

He then walked us through the drying and grinding process for the beans, where everyone on the tour had a chance to freshly grind beans that they then brewed and we all got mugs full. I have to say, I was not particularly impressed. The coffee was incredibly acidic, and we learned that that’s true of most coffee that is grown in the area. I’m not sure if I’m a coffee snob (probably) or if it’s just not to my taste, but let’s just say I was planning to buy coffee to take with me somewhere in Salento and I ended up changing my mind! Even so that coffee finca was beautiful and it was interesting to learn about their specific process and see how it varied from previous coffee tours we’ve been on.

Cocora Valley

Aside from coffee, the other big draw of Salento is its proximity to the Cocora Valley. It is part of the Los Nevados National Park and home to the national tree of Colombia, the Quindio Wax Palm. We took one of the “buggys” – really just jeeps tricked out with seating in the back – from Salento and spent the day hiking the classic loop through the valley. It was beautiful and gave us the picturesque giant palm tree in the clouds views we had been promised. We have never seen palm trees that tall before, and we’re not sure why they grow that way there!

The hike up was through the palm tree forest, and the hike down was through a more typical forest with lots of river crossings and fun foot bridges. They tell you at the start it will take 6 hours, but we took our time and it only took about 4!

Salento was a great little stop on our way back to Bogota. I wouldn’t personally recommend it for the coffee, but everyone can be their own judge of that 🙂

Christine