Salento 7/26 - 7/30

We have previously mentioned that certain places of Colombia are amazing, grand, and wonderful; we'll go ahead and add Salento, a lovely town in the coffee region, to the list.  We arrived in the evening so we didn't think it was super impressive; however, we woke up in the morning and the love started to grow.  Our hostel was on top of a hill about 2 km from the little town. The views and atmosphere were top notch!!

Our first day we walked to an organic coffee farm, Finca Don Elias.  It was pretty neat to see how coffee goes from a young tree to the cup.  Everything was in Spanish, but that's ok, Matt explained it all to Kristin.  However, the farmer would talk for 5 minutes, but Matt translated everything in 20 seconds, so perhaps we didn't get EVERYTHING, but here is what we learned about coffee.


A coffee tree starts to produce beans at around 2 years old.  Each tree has a life span up to 10 years to produce quality beans.  When the beans are ripe, they turn yellow or red depending on the type of tree. 

 





Amongst all the coffee trees, there were also banana, plantain, avacado, and sugar cane trees because the fruit trees provide the proper shade necessary for organically grown coffee.  Other mass produced coffee which uses chemicals does not require such shade.  A few more fun facts, a "cluster" of bananas grows from baby plant to fully mature in one year and each tree only produce one "cluster" of bananas per year.  Pineapples also grow from infant to fully mature in one year, but only produce one pineapple per plant.  

Back to the coffee, once the beans are picked they are put through a machine that removes the outer layer, and then put in a make shift green house type structure which allows them to dry for about 3 to 4 weeks.  Once dry, they need to be toasted.  

For the organic farm we were on this meant filling up a pot and putting it over the fire for an hour while constantly stirring.  Once the beans are toasted they can be ground and are ready for a fresh cup of coffee by adding hot water.  

Neither of us drink a lot of coffee, but we both enjoyed this fresh coffee. 

The next day we hiked Valle de Cocora which was about a four hour hike up to the top of a mountain and back.  The valley is part of the Los Nevados National Natural Park and is the principal location of the national tree and symbol of Colombia, the Quindio wax palm.  

Once we arrived to the top of the mountain, there was a break in the tree line and we were able to see magnificent views.

After a lot of hiking and walking we decided we needed a rest day.  It was nice to sit around the hostel all day while it rained outside.  And our last day was more or less relaxing, but not quite a rest.  We walked up a road that lead out of town and up a hill.  It provided great views of the town, and we could even see where our hostel sat on the opposite facing hill outside of town.

Our beloved hostel, La Serrana, was previously a really large ranch house with lots of space was a mere $11 a night.  It came with a hot breakfast and on week nights provided a gourmet-esque meal for about $7 a night.  We really enjoyed this hostel and the environment.