Salento

ABOUT SALENTO:
Salento is a small town on the edge of the Los Nevados mountain range between the cities of Calí and Medellín, in the heart of Colombia's coffee-growing region. There is a pleasant cool climate in the hills and with some of Colombia's famous fair-trade coffee plantations. Salento is also the gateway to the Cocora Valley, which as well as its incredible scenery and walking opportunities contains the world's largest palm trees - the Quindío wax palm commonly grows 45m high, and sometimes stretch as high as 85m!

23/08/2018
Nathan, Jen, and I did Insanity before leaving today, and it was a recovery session today, it was good to do some light cardio, core work and stretching before being on the truck all day! It was quite an uneventful drive to Salento, and we arrived in daylight to be able to set up our tents for the second and final time of this tour.

The cook group cooked BBQ chicken for dinner.

24/08/2018
Woke up early to do a hike of the Cocora Valley, while the trek was quite slow and wasn’t that strenuous, this was my first real experience at altitude, and I noticed myself breathing a lot heavier. Our local guide took five of us that wanted to, to a local restaurant that was known for its trout. I chose to have mine smoked, and it was delicious! The tour guide then briefly showed us around the town and

up to the lookout, eventually meeting up with the others in the town square. All of us then went to a local coffee factory and learnt about the roasting techniques for their coffee, afterwards, a small walk to their café where all the coffee is sold. While I don’t particularly like coffee, I thought I should at least try it. I chose to have a Mocha; however, I didn’t realise that it would be made with 95% dark chocolate, so it wasn’t very sweet, but I quite liked it. Who knows Columbia might make a coffee drinker out of me.

Afterwards, we went to a local bar and played a game of Tejo, which is the traditional throwing game of Columbia. The game consists of throwing a metal puck (called a Tejo) across an alley to a clay target with small gunpowder targets inside, set at 45 degrees. Points can be made by getting the Tejo in the clay, inside the circle of the clay, or hitting one of the four gunpowder targets, each worth more than the previous. Most importantly, you must have a beer in your non-throwing hand!

We returned to the campsite, and while waiting for dinner to be cooked, I did Insanity by myself as both Nathan and Jen were not feeling well. After dinner we roasted marshmallows and made smores, before heading to bed.