The lease on my apartment expired on June 8th, and the time had come to leave Medellín.
After more than two months in the city, moving onward was extremely bittersweet. The prior night, I had gone out with my buddy Jason for one last trip to Café Zorbas (my favorite restaurant in Medellín and the best pizza in South America), and lamented that part of me didn’t want to leave—I had grown comfy. The other half of me knew it was time to hit the dusty trail and see more of the continent before my scheduled return home for JHill’s wedding on October 1st.
I reluctantly packed up, turned in my keys to the porter, and hailed a cab for the Terminal del Transportes del Sur at 11am.
Based on recommendations from Jason and others, I decided my next stop would be El Eje Cafetero del Colombia, or ‘The Coffee Triangle’. I caught a 1pm bus to Pereira, the second of the three principle cities outlining the fertile coffee region, located 4.5 hours southwest of Medellín.
The bus wound through cloud forest covered hills and encountered many delays due to construction. At several points, the bus sat at a bridge or other impasse for more than 30 minutes while waiting for its turn to go. The trip took almost eight hours when all was said and done.
After retrieving my luggage and getting a cab to Hostel Kolibri it was almost 10pm. I was famished and headed out to find a nearby restaurant offering a traditional Colombian plato del día of sopa, carne asada con chimichurri, arroz, papas fritas, ensalada and platanos for 14,000 Pesos (~$5). Colombian food is normally plain and underwhelming, and this meal was no different, but really hit the spot after the unexpectedly long bus ride.
I returned to my hostel hoping to find a partner in crime to head out and get a few beers while exploring the city, but the place was pretty much dead. I met Sabrina from Germany with whom I shared a dorm. She wasn’t up for going out, but instead we had a couple of beers on the terrace and shot the shit for an hour before I hit the hay.
The next morning, I decided it was high time to learn how one of my favorite substances is produced. I headed to the bus station at 10am to catch a bus towards Chinchina intending to get off along the way and hike to Hacienda Guayabal for a tour of a coffee plantation. I asked the bus driver to let me off at La Vía Vieja (the old road), a pass that heads to the hacienda, and he nodded, but then failed to stop there 30 minutes later. I got off at a gas station just outside of Chinchina and found a taxista that knew the hacienda and delivered me there for 8000.
I showed up right as the tour was getting started, and grabbed a seat as the guide, Sebastian, told us all about the art and science of coffee production. Interestingly, coffee has over 1,500 different flavor compounds, more than six times that of wine. The tour started us off with a coffee tasting to show us how different methods of roasting and different preparations (eg French press vs expresso machine) produced extremely different flavors from the same coffee beans.
Then we headed outside to the plantation to see the entire process of coffee bean cultivation, from planting the seed through to harvesting the cherries. Coffee trees have a productive life of about 23 years. It takes two years to grow from bean to shrub, then they are replanted in the fields. They are harvested and then cut down every seven years. The trees then grow back with two trunks from the same root and double the production for the next seven years. After the third seven years cycle they’re removed and new trees are planted. Interestingly, the farm intentionally cultivates other crops such as oranges and cacao to add different flavor profiles to the coffee.
They even taught us how to properly handpick the cherries, and we were put to work for about 10-minutes to briefly experience the life of a coffee picker.
After the tour, I stayed at the hacienda to peruse the grounds for a while and have a three-course lunch with fresh grilled trucha (trout), a specialty in the region, as the main course. After, I, of course, had another cup of coffee, and bought a pound of coffee for the road.
Finally, at about 3:30pm, I hiked down to the main road and waited under a tree on the side of the road for a bus heading towards Santa Rosa. I was planning to stop at hot springs near Santa Rosa for a few hours before heading back to Pereira in the evening. On bus to Santa Rosa it started to downpour, so I just stayed on the bus and it took me back to Pereira.
I walked from the bus station back to my hostel, taking a long route to explore. Pereira is sometimes called mini-Medellín. I understood the comparison, as the climate and surrounding mountains are similar, but it wasn’t quite as fresh, green, and lovely, nor nearly as much to offer, as Medellín, in my humble opinion.
Back at the hostel, I rendezvoused with Sabrina, and we headed out to Lenos and Parillas, an Argentine steakhouse, for dinner. I had a filet mignon for ~$12. Awesome. We shared a bottle of wine and then walked around under the streetlights of Pereira for an hour before we were all tuckered out and headed to bed.
The next day I said goodbye to Sabrina as she headed off to Bogotá in the morning. I packed a backpack and went to the center of Pereira to wander around for a while, and then caught a bus in the early afternoon to Santa Rosa.
In Santa Rosa, I had just missed the bus to the hot springs, so had to wait for an hour for the next bus. I walked around the center of the small town for a while before finding a plato del día for lunch.
After lunch, I wandered around a bit more. Along the way I passed an attractive girl and smiled and winked at her as a I passed by. A few minutes later, as I approached the main plaza in town, a little girl of about 9 years old ran up from behind me and tapped me on the elbow. She gave me a piece of paper with the other girl’s phone number. Niiiccceee.
At that moment, the bus to the hot springs rolled by the main plaza. I almost missed it again. I took off running. I got alongside the bus and hollered to let me aboard. The driver braked to a slow roll, and I had to jump aboard as it kept moving.
Thirty minutes later I was at the hot springs. It started to rain again as I arrived, as I guess it does every afternoon in El Eje, but it was of no consequence as I quickly found my way into los baños. The springs were nice—relaxing and healing—but not quite as hot and full of minerals as other hot springs I’ve been to (eg Baños, Ecuador) while traveling. I’m such a spoiled brat at this point.
I used the wifi at the hot springs and messaged the girl, Andrea. We arranged to meet up in the main plaza that evening after I got back from the hot springs.
At 6:30pm, I was like a prune, and caught the bus back to Santa Rosa. I messaged Andrea from the plaza, and she met me there 20 minutes later. She spoke zero English so it was a bit challenging. Even though I can speak the language fairly well, I still have such a hard time understanding spoken Spanish when a native speaker starts rattling off. Sometimes even a sentence entirely of words I know is hard to interpret. She was accommodating, and we spent a while chatting on a park bench.
Later, we headed to a trendy bar for dinner and beers. After dinner, we decided to head back to Pereira. We caught a bus, and made out for most of the ride.
In Pereira, I knew of a concert that was going on near the art museum. We headed there and joined about a thousand people under a big white tent to dance to French electronica. It was pretty dope, but after about an hour it started to rain. Like Noah’s Ark style rain, coming down in unrelenting gusts of wind and dense sheets of rain. The concert was cancelled because the sound equipment was getting wet.
Andrea and I sprinted through the rain to catch a cab back to my hostel. The hostel wouldn’t let Andrea, a non-guest, inside, so we sat in the living-room/lobby having beers as the rain continued to pour until she took a cab home at about 2am.
The next day was Sunday. I did my yoga/meditation thing on the terrace of the hostel, ran errands, got groceries, and then settled in for a day of rest and poker.
Monday morning, I considered whether I should stay in Pereira. I didn’t feel any true desire to remain in Pereira longer, but Andrea wanted to see me again. After some deliberation, I felt the need to keep rambling.
Around 11:00am, I headed to the bus station and caught the next bus to Salento, a small city in the heart of the coffee triangle.
The bus arrived in Salento at about 1:45pm. I hoofed it from the bus station uphill to Walker’s Hostel on the opposite side of town.
The main thing to do in Salento is go to Parque Nevados for a hike through the beautiful Valle de Cocora. However, I arrived too late to do the hike that day. Instead, I headed out to explore the town. Along the main square, I visited artisanal markets and stopped for a nice cup of coffee. Eventually, I found my way to a set of stairs leading up to a mirador (lookout) above town.
At the mirador, I snapped some photos before noticing several trails leading to and fro the top of the hill. Curiosity got the best of me, and I started down one of the trails. I found myself at a small shelter that had several more trails down the forested backside of the mountain. I followed one of the trails for a while before coming to a crossroads. A handwritten sign pointing downhill said ‘Río’. “I want to go to a river,” I thought and continued onward.
After about 20 minutes the trail started to get slick and muddy, almost impassable. I was in my boat shoes, not the best choice of footwear for the terrain. I had to do quite a lot of ninja maneuvers to avoid the mud, but just couldn’t avoid going in up to my ankle in a few spots. Along the way part of me said, “This trail is fucked—Abort!” But in my mind, I’d already went too far to not see it through.
After another 30 minutes of hiking over moss covered stones, muddy streambed trails, and a couple of dark, overgrown passageways that looked like something out of The Princess Bride, I emerged onto a road overlooking a sprawling river cut pasture at the base of mountains. It was lovely.
I followed the road downhill for a half mile before hopping a fence to walk down to the river. I sat by the river watching its rapid flow, feeling like Siddhartha. It started to drizzle, but I was under a tree that provided perfect shelter. I hung out for almost an hour, waiting for the spitting drizzle to subside.
After the rain subsided, I began the hike back, uphill in now even muddier conditions. Not to mention it was getting dark. It seemed like an inauspicious situation.
Surprisingly, it was easier going uphill in the slick mud. Plus, my shoes were already fucked, so I wasted no time. I covered the distance back to the shelter in about 40 minutes. I made my way back up to the lookout, and then down the steps just as deep darkness enveloped Salento.
I stopped in a nice café at the bottom of the mirador for a hot chocolate and to warm up.
Back at the hostel, I washed my shoes and took a shower and headed out to carb-load before the hike the next morning. I had a taste for pizza, Café Zorbas still fresh in my mind. I wound up at a brick oven pizza place that looked promising, but unfortunately it was classic, horrible South American pizza. Ugh.
The next morning, I woke up early at 6:30am, ready to head to the Cocora Valley for the hike. Unfortunately, it was raining. Hard. I made some coffee and read while waiting for the rain to subside. It continued pouring relentlessly for almost three more hours.
Finally, at 9:20am I headed to the main square in Salento and caught a ride in a Willy (what they call a Jeep) filled with a dozen other tourists for the 20 minute ride to Parque Nevados.
At the park, about 100 other hikers had simultaneously arrived after the rain subsided. The assembly was mostly milling about the concessions area before the start of the trail. I wanted to avoid the crowd and enjoy the natural beauty on my own. I immediately headed for the trek route, and put some distance between myself and the herd.
After about 20 minutes, I was out in a wide bottomed valley of the national park. No one else around. I followed the trail along a river between Andean mountain ranges. Perfect.
The first half of the trek is a three-hour hike uphill to a lodge and hummingbird reserve. It runs mostly along a rapidly moving river. First, it follows the river through a valley for an hour. The next couple of hours follow the river up through a lush cloud forest, and requires crossing several rickety bridges. The terrain was again extremely muddy, but this time I had on hiking boots which saved me when I went in up to my ankles several times.
At the lodge, I snacked and rested for about 30 minutes, and was given hot chocolate and cheese. The prior day when I had hot chocolate, the girl in the café offered me cheese, which I thought was weird and declined (and the girl thought it was weird when I declined). Now I realized it’s a thing in central Colombia: hot cocoa and white cheese. I saw some of the Colombians dipping the cheese in the cocoa, and followed suit. The cheese was a little buttery but mostly neutral and bland. I didn’t quite get it. But like all local cuisines: you eat what is available!
After lunch, I headed back down the trail just as the herd was showing up. Nice. After getting lost briefly, I found my way to the trail that leads into Valle de Cocora. It required a challenging hike up a mountain for about 45 minutes.
Once at the top, it was all downhill through the valley. The downhill hike took about two hours with breaks at several viewpoints. It was extremely beautiful, and lived up to the hype. The valley is home to wax palm trees—the highest palm trees in the world, reaching up to 200m. The palms dot the spectacular green hills that are covered with tropical vegetation and short, golf course-like grass.
Unfortunately, grey clouds rolled in and it started to drizzle for the last 30 minutes of the hike, which spoiled some of the best photo opportunities.
Back at the foot of the hike, I caught a Willy back into Salento. I was the last person aboard, so had to stand on the rear bumper for the ride, which was really cool for the first five minutes and last five minutes, but wasn’t the most pleasant during the middle ten minutes while it rained.
In Salento, I went to the towns famous food carts to discover they were only open for dinner. I found my way to Brunch restaurant to feast after the hike. I had a burger which was huge and really good, and left me thinking Brunch must be about the best restaurant in Salento.
Afterwards, a warm shower and siesta were called for.
In the late evening, I headed out to dinner at a decent restaurant, Camino Real, as recommended to me by some chicas in town (I forgot about the food carts, damnit!). I spent a bit wandering around Salento before returning home to write for a bit and pass out.
The next day, I woke up early and inquired about buses onward. I learned there was a bus to Armenia, the city at the southwest corner of the coffee triangle, every half hour. There I could take a bus to anywhere I wanted. At 10:30am, I packed up and sat on a curb of the street where I was told the bus would pass.
Shortly thereafter, the bus rolled by and I hopped aboard for the hour and fifteen-minute ride to the Armenia bus terminal. There I decided to put on my Salsa dancing shoes and took the next bus to Cali, Colombia. Arrrrribbbaa!!!