What to see around Salento

Salento is a village between green hills covered with Coffee plants, trees and banana plants. The village is in a colorful colonial style and ideal for souvenir shopping. There are tons of souvenir shops in the blocks around the main plaza. But what Salento is most known for is its neighboring Cocora valley.

Coffee farms

As Salento is in the Coffee zone of Colombia it is an ideal place to visit a coffee farm. Compared to the bigger cities like Manizales it has the advantage that one can walk to the farm and does not have to wait for a tour to pick one up. There are three Coffee farms that offer several tours daily and are only a short 45 min walk from the village. Las Acacias is an organic family owned Coffee farm with tours in English and Spanish of 10’000 Col$ (3.15Us$). The tour starts with a walk around the fields of the farm, where they plant coffee, bananas, plantains and beans in a mixed manner. This is part of the organic system, as the beans provide the soil with nutrition for the coffee, as well the dead perennials of the bananas and plantains. Those plants only give fruits once and are killed after harvesting. They also compost the peels of the coffee beans for fertilizing the soil with it. After collecting some beans on your own, the tour returns to the farm, where further processing is explained and the beans can be tasted in the different states. The tour ends with a cup of coffee.

Other farms are El Ocaso (15’000 Col$/4.75 Us$) and Don Elias (10’000 Col$/3.15 Us$). There is also an all inclusive tour by Cocora-Trek for 105’000 Col$ (33.20 Us$). This tour is a full day tour including Guide, transport, lunch and entrance (www.cocoratrek.com).

Valle de Cocora

The Cocora Valley can be done individually. For this one has to take a jeep at the main plaza (every hour starting 6.30 AM, 8’000 Col$/2.55 Us$ both ways, 30 min.) When arriving it is advisable to do the trek clockwise and start in the morning, as fog comes in during the day, therefore just follow the street until arriving at a small cottage where you need to pay the entrance fee of 3’000 Col$ (0.95 Us$) at the exit of the park you pay the rest of the fee, which is another 2’000 Col$ (0.65 Us$). The wax palms, which are characteristically for the Valley are endangered by a plant that surrounds them, the European grass, brought in by the Spaniards. In a few years all the palms will have been gone. Some of them are lying dead on the ground. Farthest up the valley there is a Hummingbird house. I don’t recommend going there as the hummingbirds are being fed, so the tourists can take pictures. This is problematic, as it keeps the population artificially high. See this post for more info. The entrance for the private property is 5’000 Col$ (1.60 Us$) and you get a free drink. I think this activity is not 100% vegan, therefore you can save the money and time for a tasty smoothie in the Veggie Point of Salento. For returning to Salento, the last Jeep leaves at 6pm.

Parque Nacional Natural Los Nevados

An excursion to this park can also be done starting Salento. So you don’t need to go to Manizales. I stayed some days in Manizales and was disappointed. That’s why I decided to not write any post about it. But I still want to let you know.

In Salento I stayed in the Vista Hermosa Hostal. The view is pretty normal and the dorm has no window. Wifi is rather slow. The double rooms might be much better. The staff is wonderful and the kitchen is basic.

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