Coffee & Palms in Salento

The magic land of coffee and super tall palm trees. 

Salento will be a very busy tourist destination as you get several categories of people coming here. 
The ones that are basically interested in coffee, the ones that are interested in nature and the curiosity which is the national tree of Colombia, the ones that care for both, and the ones that just pass by as it's close'ish to Bogota and on the top things to do in Colombia. 

We were part of the 3rd category namely, the ones that are interested in coffee and nature so we wanted it all. 

Getting there

First I'll give you my route, this could be funny if you read also my previous post, if not just jump over this mini paragraph: 
I left Providencia Island on Monday lunch time - took a plane to San Andres, then a plane to Bogota then a taxi to Terminal de Saltire, than a night bus to Armenia and then another bus to Salento arriving on Tuesday morning at our destination. It was looooong! But super happy we made it with no delays. 

Now the details. You will likely get to Salento from Bogota (or maybe Medellin), less likely from Cali. From all these places you have the option to go by plane or bus + bus. 

If you decide to fly, you can take the plane to Armenia or Pereira, most of the airlines fly and the flights should be reasonable priced. Once you land you need to get to the bus terminal and from there catch a bus to Salento. The bus takes about 1h and leaves frequently.

If you decide to go by bus, like us, you have several bus companies doing the routes. I can only tell you my experience from Bogota but you can also go from Medellin by bus (will be longer though).

Our approach was to save some time and travel while you sleep. You have during the night hours some double decker busses with comfortable seats at the 1st floor and luxury seats at the ground floor. If you aim for the comfortable seats, mostly you can just go at the terminal and get your seat same day, this is also how most Colombians will do. If you want to get the luxury seats, you need to book in advance as they are not that many. 

After some research, we decided to travel with Expresso Bolivariano duobus. We could not book on their website and we could not proceed to the payment bit, but we managed to book our tickets with RedBus (it's an app, in case you did not hear about it). The only trick is that you only have the option to fill out your ID and not the passport, but we just removed some of the characters in our passport and filled out 6 numbers & it worked (actually nobody asked us for our identification). 
The bus leaves around 22:30 and arrived next morning around 6:30 in Armenia. 

From the same bus terminal just ask where the buses to Salento leave and jump on one of those buses which will drop you in Salento 1h later. 

Accommodation

We stayed at Balcones de Ayer. The people there were supper friendly, but the rooms were very small and the breakfast very basic. Don't drink that coffee as it's a disgrace for the region, better go to Concreto Cafe and get yourself a proper coffee. 

Salento for Coffee Lovers

If you love coffee and are going to Salento, you already know why you are going :). 
There are several coffee farms you can visit to learn about the story of how the arabica coffee got into Colombia & how come it worked so well with the production as well as drink some coffee and if you have the time do also a actual a coffee tasting tour. 

Independent on the coffee farms you will go and I'll give you an update on what we tried, your coffee farm visit starts in the main square where you can get your Willy (the old super basic but strong Jeeps that act as public transport to the coffee farms) ticket and be on your way :). 
At the ticket office they might try to sell you also the entrance fees for the farms, but I would recommend you to but them directly with the farm. 

We decided to visit 3 coffee farms to give us the option to understand everything very well. I will not get into details, as I do believe you should get your information from your source over a cup of coffee. Here what we visited & what we thought about it.

1. Finca Don Elias
This is one of the smaller coffee farms (even though they told us that they would aim to open a roastery in Paris or Madrid if all goes well). 

One of the items I liked a lot here is that they actually explained very visual the hydration benefits of the banana trees that you will see in the different farms. 

The rest was pretty standard, they would show you how the coffee is collected, how it is dried and then roasted.  

At the end you get to taste some very traditionally made coffee. 

2. Finca Buenos Aires
This is one of the bigger farms and the tour is also nicely structured and it provide you a lot of details. 

After walking through the farm where they show you basically the same as they did at the Finca Don Elias you get to see the different stages of the coffee grains on a table, which is nice to be able to differentiate between them and of course your cup of coffee. 

3. Finca Ocaso
Four our 3rd one we booked also a testing clase. On tope of the general info which would get in all other farms with more or less details here we also smelled & tasted the coffee both when it's just grained and when you have water added on top. 

It's interesting that you get to understand that the aroma of the grained coffee is very different than what you would actually taste in the cup. 

Valle de Cocora

Of course, the second reason why people come to Salento are the huge palm trees. These palm trees are called Palma de Cera which is the national tree of Colombia and can grow up to 60m. Unfortunately their reproduction is complex and they are at risk of dispreading.  

The trail is decent with an exception of an uphill/downhill depending if you go clock wise or anti clock wise. We decided to go anti clock wise as both me and my friend have some bad experiences with downhills. I will not get here in details of the trail as there is already a lot of information online.

The only thing that I will say is, get good shoes (it helps) and make sure to have enough water and snacks :)

Casa de los Colibries 
One of the detours you can do on your trail is to what they call the house of the hummingbirds. 

I don't know if I should consider this a tourist trap or worse. You need to pay 15000 COP to get there and you get a cup of "coffee" or hot water with panela for this. they say it's aimed to protect the hummingbirds, but on the other hand they attract them to come over there buy giving them water with sugar in some containers that look like flowers, which can't be healthy. 

You do get the see hummingbirds, but to be fair I would rather prefer seeing them randomly (and you can do this in a lot of countries including Colombia) without the need to tricking them to come to the same place.  

Overall info: 
- COST in Feb 2023: 6000 COP (passing through some private property) + 15000 COP (Colibri) + 10000 COP (the Cocora Valley itself) + 9000 COP (Willy return ticket) = 40000 COP
- DISTANCE: 12 KM
- TIME: started 8:45 finished 14:35 (with detour + snack brake)  

What else to do in Salento

Salento is small, so you do not need a lot of time to walk through the colorful streets, take a lot of pictures, visit all the souvenir shops and go up to the Mirador de Salento

You can also go on a day trip to Filandia but don't bother if you don't have the time as it's very similar to Salento.

If you want to get something to eat and a delicious drink try them at Helena Adentro.

Food & Drink in Salento

I'll start with FOOD. I would say there are 2 items you need to try: 

1. The giant patacon, which depending where you eat it it comes with a different ix of toppings. I would recommended the one at Donde Laurita, ask for an extra portion of avocado, it will make it even better. ​

2. The Trout, it's actually a salmon taurt, which tastes more like a salmon than like a trout. It comes with different toppings and cooking styles. I tried 2 but can't say I was impressed (For those who know it, I love the Romanian trout) ​

Moving to the drinks version, here I was wowed by 3 things, you can find them all at Concreto Cafe: 

1. The actual coffee - don't take it for granted, because you are in Salento it does not mean all coffee is good. From what we tried the best one is at Concreto 

2. The Coconut Lemonade (Limonada de Coco) - this is a  delicious drink made with actual coconut, lemon juice, sugar and water. 

3. Canelazo which is made out of cinnamon, panela, lemon juice and water. At Concreto you can also add some alcohol into it and they pimp it with passion fruit (it's a must)