Salento and the Valle de Cocorra

Salento has managed to maintain a traditional feel

We're in Salento, a little town in Columbia's Zona Cafetera, six hours south of Medellin. This lush green valley is responsible for churning out a significant proportion of Columbia's coffee crop and is home to Columbia's national tree, the impossibly tall wax palm. Like Medellin, it was once a no-go zone. Guerrillas ruled the roads in and out of the region and kidnappings and general nastiness were a way of life. But Columbia's war against terrorism has moved in land and, while overnight buses are best avoided, travelling is now possible.

The town of Salento is one of the oldest in the region (founded in 1950). It's set in the spectacular Valle de Cocorra and a great place to do some hiking and get some fresh air. A lot of travellers come here to detox after giving their livers a hammering in Medellin and Bogota. We are making a mad dash to Ecuador and it seemed like a good spot to break up our bus journeys.

The towering wax palms in the Valle De Cocorra

Tim is an English guy who moved to Salento four years ago. He owns Plantation House hostel, which is comprised of three old plantation houses, and a newly purchased coffee farm down the hill.

Tim loves nothing better than a good chat. In fact, he'll talk your ear off if you give him the chance. He'll tell you if there's going to be a good sunset and where to watch it, where to go for dinner, how to get to the Valle de Cocorra, how many days you should spend here, where you should go next, how long he's been here, how much his house cost, how much work he's done to his house, how much his coffee plantation cost, who stayed previously from Australia and what they did, his plans for marketing designer coffee beans for yuppies and his plans for getting 'volunteer' backpackers to harvest the beans.

Last night he spent a great deal of time explaining why its a bad idea for groups of nine people to head to the Valle.

Reason number 1: One group realised that they were lost after hiking for four hours and were too tired to walk back, so they sent the fittest person to the nearest town with a note that said: no water, no food, send horses. The lady who received the note didn't send horses, but she did send an entire battalion of army and police vehicles. Unfortunately, they took so long to mobilise that the group had managed to find their own way out. They were sitting in a restaurant enjoying a cup of coffee when the rescue team swooped in. "They asked me if it would be a good idea to take a case of beer to the police station to apologise," said Tim. "I suggested that an apology might be more appropriate."

Reason number 2: Another group of nine was attacked by a bull, which had broken free from a nearby property. Unfortunately, this wasn't just any bull. It was a destined for a bull ring and not happy about it. It took its anger out on the group. One girl suffered a broken collarbone and a couple others needed stitches in various places before they were able to make a get away.

We weren't deterred though. In a five hour hike, we encountered nothing more exciting than an Irish man and two crazy Aussies, hummingbirds, and a bull with no horns. Hard to say whether he was that bull, but we gave him a wide berth anyway.

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