Activity Summary
Monday 14th August - Day 314
Travel to Salento
Chiva bus experience
Dinner at Serendipia Encuentro
Tuesday 15th August - Day 315
Luke: Hike Cocora Valley loop
Nicola: Cocora Valley miradors
Coffee at Café los Andes Cocóra
Walk around Salento
Mirador Alto de la Cruz
Mirador de Salento
Wednesday 16th August - Day 316
Hike to Reserva Natural Santa Rita
Santa Rita waterfall
Sendero El Silencio (in reverse)
Lunch at Restaurante Andino Salento
Dinner at Veggie Garden
Summary
Salento
Salento is a lovely small town that is quaint, jovial and very much a safe place. The nearby Cocora valley is the main attraction but the various coffee tours and safe hikes nearby meant we could properly stretch our legs.
It would have been a great gateway to the Los Nevados national park but sadly the recent activity of Tolimo meant the park had only opened 5 days previous. It also meant we were a little on edge in going anyway so decided best be safe and skip. We had planned a lot of fun things in Ecuador but then the presidential candidate got assassinated so South America is requiring a bit more monitoring and potential fluidity than we are used to.
Transport
Salento
Bus (Chiva - Cootransrio) to Riosucio. It takes 4.5 hours on an open air Chiva bus along dirt tracks and up and down a mountain
Bus to Salento (Flota Occidental) - tickets purchased from the booth when the Chiva bus arrives. Tip: one get the bags, the other buy tickets
Arrive at ‘Terminal Buses Salento Terminal de Buses de Salento’ and walk to hostel (900m)
Accommodation
Salento - Hostel Mural
Number of nights - 3
Price per night per person - £9
Positives:
Triple room so lovely separate beds
Luke’s single was super comfortable
Kitchen
Private bathroom
Hot water
Temperature of Salento is mild so no need for fans or AC
Nice host let Luke cut his hair
Good location from town
Decent price
Negatives:
Nicola’s double bed less comfortable
Bit of an annoying road in town due to loose gravel and steepness but it was fine really
Recommend?
Absolutely - the best place we’ve stayed in Colombia
Diary
Monday 14th August - Day 314
Our bus left at 8am but expecting the Chiva and then a free for all on seating we got there 20 minutes early.
Sure enough we were Chiva’d.
Nicola was not happy but we did manage to secure seats near the front and on the left hand side where the wall and railings meant falling out of the bus was pretty challenging.
We did however meet someone who was arguably less enthused about the Chiva than Nicola. We got chatting to a retired American couple, who had been sailing around the world for 3 years, when the lady publicly well and truly threw her toys out of the pram by being Chiva’d. Whether Nicola was more upset or not it was hard to tell given she is usually the silent rage type until food, dehydration and headaches combine to Fuego the pot. That was expected once deep in the day's travel rather than the first action of the day.
Luke found the Chiva rage absolutely hilarious, along with her husband who was an endless ball of positivity, energy and chattiness. So Luke had a pretty fun start to the day.
The Chiva bus was hilarious. The bus was essentially the love child of Joseph and his technicolour dreamcoat with a monster bus. It had a speaker system throughout which the driver would DJ while navigating dirt tracks that were narrow, in parts had some pretty steep drop offs and potholes that would swallow a car. Fortunately for us the entire journey was sunny with no rain so the lack of sealable windows only caused so much of a problem with dirt as the air was super fresh up in the mountains.
It was a wobbly and bumpy journey but the views from the ride were amazing. The air was cool so everyone ended up wrapped up in a layer at one point or another but (Luke would say) it wasn’t cold but rather fresh.
The vibe on the bus was hilarious. It seemed predominately overrun by frenchies, whom we had seen very little of in Colombia so far, but everyone was loving life. When banging out ‘I’m blue’ by Eiffel 65 and turning on the disco lights things really kicked off. Well as good as it could after 2 hours being thrown around at 10am.
The halfway stop had a free to use toilet (very rare) and a chance for everyone to stretch their legs with a cracking view over the surrounding from up high.
It took 4.5 hours to get to Riosucio but Luke actually enjoyed the ride. Nicola less so.
At the station Nicola got off the bus and immediately bought tickets from the Flota Occidental terminal while Luke dealt with the bags. We had an hour and half in the station before getting into the bus and off to Salento.
This part sucked so much more than the Chiva. The bus had no aircon and it was sunny so opening the windows only did so much with the curtain pooled. Nicola resorted to pouring water over her chest and back to stem the flow of sweat.
Eventually the sun did go down and we were up more in the hills such that a breeze could flow but this took a good 2 hours. Just as things started to feel a bit nicer, we pulled into Pereira and it got wam again. Everyone got off the bus for 5 minutes to use the toilets but no one looked happy.
The remoter drive to Salento plus a spot of rain well and truly got rid of the stank in the bus but we did arrive both with headaches and not feeling overly fresh.
The walk from the ‘Terminal Buses Salento Terminal de Buses de Salento’ through town was easy enough. The apartment was not so easy to find, Google deciding a road existed which was more like a hill climb through someone’s front garden.
Check in was simple but the owner really put Luke through the ringer with his Spanish when communicating that Salento had gone through a very hot summer, that it was likely the water would be turned off and there were buckets of additional water to assist with flushing and washing. He was doing quite well until the latter part.
Shortly after getting settled we were up and out the door to get some food, stretch our legs and wander around town. We had dinner at Serendipia Encuentro which served us some decent veggie burgers and then strolled through town.
Salento felt super safe, it was a nice cool temperature and everyone was chill and enjoying themselves. For probably only the third time, we were happy and relaxed in a place in Colombia.
Tuesday 15th August - Day 315
Nicola didn’t feel well at all the night before, not able to get to sleep because she was freezing and having full body aches. Conversely Luke had the best 11 hours of sleep he’s had for a long time after getting a bed that was soft enough his shoulder wouldn’t hurt and the temperature of Salento is a dream.
Nicola did feel a bit better in the morning but not great. But rather than stay in bed all day she decided to carry on with the Cocora valley day plan but limit her walking.
The valley is super easy to get to. The central square had a double sided booth, one for Cocora tickets for P9k each and one for a number of potential coffee tours. We joined the queue and after a slightly longer wait to ensure Nicola got a seat on the jeep, we were off on the 25 minute journey to the valley.
From the jeep parking spot we started our walk along the Cocora valley. We reached a point where we either carried along the road or cut into a paid reserve and after a little confusion over the P15k each price we entered and parted ways when we had a falling out; Luke off on the full loop and Nicola completing the paid-for park.
Luke story time:
All of the Cocora valley miradors and tall palm trees are within the reserve. We did the loop in reverse to allow Nicola to use her energy to see the only things that were really worthwhile, being the big ol trees. But if we were to do it fit and healthy, starting from the other end and finishing with the lookouts is much more enjoyable.
On my own now I took the hike as a chance to get my heart pumping a little bit so went pretty quickly up to the valley miradors, had a short break to take some pictures of the Cocora’s and then carried on up the hill.
The park finished with a small coffee place where a number of people were chilling and l, if it hadn't been so foggy, would have taken in some nice views.
Once I’d hit the highest point on the loop the path narrowed quite considerably as it descended and became more rock, root and mud. Naturally a large queue kept forming and no one was ever aware enough to let me by so I ended up having to burn them when I could.
An offshoot of the loop on AllTrails tried to take me to the Acaime National park and specifically a place called the Hummingbird house. After walking up the river and having a minor confusion about a route that seemed to take me into the jungle (AllTrails here was not my friend) I eventually made it to the entrance of Acaime / the route up to Tolimo and the Los Nevados National park. A large group of people were here eating lunch so informed me Acaime was closed and going left would be a multi day hike.
So a bit disappointed with the unnecessary effort, I turned tail and carried on with the loop.
The latter half down to the jeeps was a bit more rough and ready, walking along the river which had numerous bridge crossings and some slippery parts.
One bridge crossing was particularly spicy, being a few pieces of uneven bamboo and no hand holds. The main bridge upstream took people up and down so I went across the easier route with a couple of Germans.
Eventually the river / jungle walk ended and the path opened out into farmland with the Cocora’s off in the distance. This part wasn’t so much fun and after paying the required exit fee of P6k to go through private land, my walk was over.
Nicola walked in a smaller loop of about 7km and then headed to the cafe for a hot milo.
We were reunited at Café los Andes Cocóra which had some nice views over the hillside. Luke smashed a coffee and then we were back at the jeeps for just after 2pm waiting for a ride back. Seems we timed this fairly well as the queue behind us got monstrously long over the 45 minutes we had to wait.
Once back in town we went back to the apartment to freshen up and then had a walk around Salento, through the square, main streets and shopping area.
We ended our stroll at the top of Salento’s lookout points. The first was Mirador Alto de la Cruz which had lovely views over the town so we sat and relaxed for a little.
The Mirador de Salento had some great views over the valley behind the town.
Wednesday 16th August - Day 316
We would have quite liked to have gone to the Los Nevados national park for some hiking but we struggled to find a day tour and we’re not in the mood to try and find one in town the day before. So we opted for a walk to the Santa Rita waterfall.
The route from town was easy enough. Rather than walk along the long and windy road to the start of the track, there was a cut through that would be more direct.
This started off all fine but ended with a fairly long stretch where we were walking in a fairly deep canyon with terrain that required a little more concentration than expected. Nicola wasn’t very happy with it.
It led out onto the road so we had a short stretch here but there was plenty of curb side space we could jump into if needed.
The walk up to the Santa Rita reserva didn’t get much more interesting. We had the river for company for about 100m before it was a dirt track walking up to the ticket office, which we actually didn’t expect.
Turns out the Santa Rita waterfall is part of a private land area which has a number of other waterfalls and walking tracks that AllTrails had absolutely no clue about. We paid the P10k entrance fee and had a brief explanation from the ticket guy. When he said the park would take 2 hours to complete we were a little perplexed based on AllTrails and the shoddy map. We weren’t really prepared for a longer hike water and food wise.
We started walking through the grounds on what appeared to be the only obvious path. We did bump into our apartment neighbours who had just finished walking around and confirmed it didn’t take them 2 hours at all. So assuming the timings were for slow people we carried on.
The area was alright, some nice green and tree landscapes plus the odd occasional bridge over a river and tunnel through rock. It was all pleasant enough.
Eventually we found two of the bridges that allowed us to get our bearings, because the map was not to scale and turned in all sorts of weird places.
It was pretty easy to find the Santa Rita waterfall and cross the nice shaky bridges. The waterfall was fine, apparently freezing cold based on the kids in the water and there was a family that was just in the process of setting up a BBQ for the day.
Post waterfall we opted for the Sendero El Silencio path, thinking this would be reasonably easy given we didn’t have all that much information to go off of. We were well and truly free roaming at this point as apart from the starting sign for the trail, we saw nothing else and AllTrails had no route as we kept climbing and climbing up a hillside trusting that the seemingly man made steps meant we were going right.
Just as we were debating turning around, Luke ran off ahead and found a pedestrian sign that gave us some faith this was actually the path.
Descending on the other side was a whole lot easier and eventually we looped back around to the end point. Turns out doing this loop in reverse wasn’t sensible as all the signs giving validation were on the other side.
The Silencio path took us around to the ‘natural pool’ waterfall but it wasn’t anything special and we quickly moved on.
The last part of the reserve was along the Sendero Allegria, via another big ol cavern and the dribble of Barranquero waterfall that was glorified on the not to scale map. The funniest moment of the day did happen here when Nicola, not looking at where she was going, was centimetres from stepping on a baby snake. Luke on seeing this shouted snake and Nicola absolutely lost her shit, had a full blown heart attack and then on seeing the snake continued to melt down. Socks were pulled up as if this was going to somehow save her from snake bites.
The final Mirador lookout was essentially over farmland so again, nothing special. In fact there were no real decent views along the whole hike but it did give us some surprise climbing.
Once back on the main road we managed to hail
a jeep that took us back to the square in town and only cost P1,500 each. Well worth it not to climb through the town canyon.
There was a well rated menu del dia place near to the square called Restaurante Andino Salento so we ducked in there for some quick and necessary food. These menus, while simple in theory, always come with omissions and choices which when Luke tried to navigate what was available with the server while a guitarist had decided to warble on in the background caused him some problems. Eventually the guy shut the fuck up and we could communicate. Plenty of adequate food full of carb thanks to an accompaniment of mashed potato and rice did the job for P18k.
Back at the apartment we cleaned up, Nicola have Luke’s hair the chop and went for dinner.
This turned out to be a bit of an ordeal with some serious lessons learned, deciding to initially queue for Etnia Arte & Sabor and after 40 minutes realising they were the slowest serving restaurant ever created. It opened at 7 but no one seemed to be eating the entire time we were there and the queue outside was getting bigger with some very aggy French people being dicks. Lesson learned, never queue for food.
Our next stop was a tapas place which we were rejected from, not really understanding the reason why but ended up settling for a place called Veggie Garden. Nicola wasn’t overly hungry post late lunch so had an underwhelming pizza but the veggie burger was decent.
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