Salento (Colombia)

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From Cali I took a bus to beautiful Salento, the coffee region of Colombia!!!!!!

I really didn't do much research before getting there so I didn't have any expectations for the town. I knew one could go on a hike to see the palm tree and a coffee tour was a must but when I got dropped off in the city center I was charmed by the beauty of this little town.

Salento turned out to be a very colourful and pretty place. The main plaza has, of course, a church and it is surrounded by very colourful houses (turned into shops.)

Guy looking down at the plaza.

Colourful cafe!

Shops everywhere!

There were also a lot of cute hostels and posadas, all painted in bright colours!

After dropping off my bag at the hostel I went out to explore Salento. The town itself is rather small but super charming. There is one main street with tons of shops, all of them painted in white with colourful doors, windows, and balconies!

View from the terrace at my hostel!

Salento's staple food is trucha (trout) so I stopped by a recommended restaurant to try it. I usually don't eat fish so I had to ask the server for a recommendation and she said that the one with cheese was "the one" to try so I did. When it arrived I think I made a face, it looked like craft singles sheets put on top of the fish and I totally thought it was going to be a plasticky non taste kind of dish but thankfully I was wrong.

$6 HUGE meal of trucha, patacones, rice, salad, and a lot of juice!

Salento being a touristy town also had lots of restaurant options, I especially liked the vegan restaurant.

Quinoa and vegetables soup

Lunch menu of salad, falafel, rice, and vegetables for 12,000pesos ($4.30!)

Also tried the pericos but they were not even nearly as good as Nancy's!

I spent 3 days in Salento walking up and down the streets and looking at the many cute shops and cafes.

Fruit stand in the main plaza!

At the end of the main road there were some stairs leading to a view point so up I went...

Town of Salento from the viewpoint.

The most beautiful view was to the other side, with tons of green beautiful mountains!

Right after coming back from the viewpoint I started to notice the beautiful sky changing colours so I walked around town trying to see where the sunset could be better appreciated!

A side street leading to sunset!

Sky was SO SO SO PRETTY!

The main church under the beautiful sunset sky!

One of the must do things in Salento is to go for a walk/hike and check out the super tall palm trees. In order to get there one has to go to the center of town and get a ride in a willy (old fashioned jeep) up the hills to the start of the hike.

During the ride the people in the willy started talking and I ended up meeting some people to do the hike with. At the hostel they had told me about the 5-6 hour hike and the uneven terrain that might be bad for my back so I had told myself I would do the short easier walk to see the palm trees and go back down.

Luckily, I found people who wanted to do the same thing so we started walking the way they had told me at my hostel. After about 10 minutes we came to a gate where they charged us a $2 fee to enter the property to go see the palm trees so we kept going. Up and up we went in a well marked path going up hill, little by little the palm trees appeared in front of us.

They were incredibly tall and thin and I even wondered how they are so straight when they look so fragile and like they could bend easily!

That tree was incredibly tall!!!

View of palm trees from high up!

There were no signs on where to go, where the palm trees ended so we kept going up the hill in hopes to see more. We were very unclear where we were going and the map on our phones wasn't very clear either so we kept on going. The path was really beautiful with tons of trees and flowers.

After a while we reached the mid point for the hike and by then we realised that we were too far in not to do the 5-6 hour hike. Luckily we did it in reverse, our path was a nice uphill but those coming up the other way were sweaty, panting, and saying it was a hard hike up.

Welcome to the mid point!

The team!

After a quick break we decided to keep on going, this time downhill!

The rest of the hike was literally through the forest! It had been raining the night before so the terrain was wet, muddy, and very very slippery!

We went through a number of bridges across many rivers and small streams.

The bridges were cool but at times very shaky and unstable!

Sisca avoiding the mud with her white converse!

Sometimes we had to use our hands to help us down!

By the time we got out of the jungle the sky had become foggy and had covered many of the palm trees. We were happy we had done the hike the reverse way as if we had gone up the jungle we would have reached the palm trees when it was already foggy.

The palm trees actually looked really cool in the middle of the fog!

At around 3pm we got back at the willy station and had to wait for about an hour to get a willy due to the long lines. As we were going down it started raining, it turned out it had rained the whole time in Salento, so lucky we missed it!

The following day Sisca and I were joined by a girl from my hostel to go check out the coffee plantations and get a tour to know more about coffee. At the time I woke up it was raining and we thought the day would be spent under the rain and we wouldn't be able to go on our adventure. Luckily it stopped raining and by 9am we were out and about.

In order to get to the coffee plantations one can get a willy for a couple of dollars (like $3 each way) or walk about an hour+, we decided to walk and enjoy the nature.

They decided on the willy!

The scenery on the walk was so beautiful, specially this viewpoint:

We walked for what it seemed like forever!

Finally we got to our first destination: Ocaso!
In my hostel the guy explained that there are 3 main coffee plantations to visit: las acacias, Ocaso and Don Efrain. We decided to skip acacias, visit ocaso to grab a coffee and get a tour at Don Efrain.

Once we saw the sign for Ocaso we were thrilled, we had been walking for more than an hour by then and we were getting tired. To our surprise Ocaso wasn't right by the sign, we still had to walk 1km through the coffee plantation to get to the shop. The girls sped up but I walked slowly, enjoyed the walk, looked at the coffee and even spotted a Pajaro Barranquero!

So lucky to see a pajaro Barranquero!

And later on a woodpecker!

The Ocaso house was so pretty, a white and red old house in the middle of green grass, tall trees, and mountains!!! I felt like staying there forever!!!

We didn't pick ocaso to do the tour mainly because it is all machine operated while Don Elias everything is done manually and we thought it would be more interesting watching the old fashion way of making coffee!

The coffee shop at Ocaso:

While the girls sipped on some amazing coffee we watched the birds come and go from the feeder in the garden.

From the coffee stop we walked another 10 minutes to Don Elias!

The girls entering Don Elias

Once we entered the property we saw at least 25 people waiting for a tour, luckily for me and 2 more we could take the one in spanish with only 3 people.

We were the first group to leave and our guide had been working there for many many years and was very knowledgeable about the whole process and anything related to coffee.

He first started the tour by sharing with us how coffee got to Colombia. He said that coffee is originally from Ethiopia and was introduced during the slave trade. He shared about the different types of coffee such as arabica and robusta (all new words to me since I am not a coffee drinker) and then moved on to talk about the different stages of making coffee.

He emphasised the importance of pollination and how bees, hummingbirds, and the wind were key to coffee making and how loss of bees and hummingbirds is affecting the industry. He said that even though some types of coffee were first introduced in Colombia people mixed different plants to a more productive coffee plants and that now Colombia (or them) makes 3 types of coffee: Arabica, Colombia, and variedad Castilla.

As we happily walked through the plantation he talked about the importance of having fruit trees around and showed us orange trees, banana trees, and even pineapples!!!

All coffee from Don Elias is 100% organic and they only use organic compost every four months to fertilise their plants. He added that a coffee plant only lasts between 8 and 10 years and that in order for coffee to reproduce it has to be planted at an altitude of 900m-2200m of altitude and salient is at 1750m, making it perfect for coffee growing!

checking out the beans!

Cutting some beans to show us!

After the tour through the plantation we went to see the actual process of making the coffee.

The very first step is to peel the beans. Beans are put through a machine that peels them and separates the bean from the shell.

Then the fermentation process begins by adding water to the beans and washing it four times. The beans then need to dry up; at Don Elias they dry at a shed depending on the weather: 1 week with sunny weather, 3-5 weeks when overcast, and up to 10 weeks during the rainy season!

One the beans have dried up it has to be separated from it shell by using a peeling machine,

separating bean from shell

After it has been separated the roasting of the bean begins and it is then that the coffee smell starts!

Roasting for 20 minutes!

Once the bean is toasted it is ready for grinding!!!

And finally for tasting!!!!!!!!

Salento was a nice surprise... Can't wit to see what else Colombia has to offer!!! 💕

About Post Author

Andrea

Hi! It's me... Andrea! In 2016 I decided to drop everything and take a year to enrich my life and travel around the world. It turns out the world is just too big for 12 months! Still on the road and sharing my experience as a solo female traveler around the globe!