Salento
Colombia
Salento was a town of 3 things: hiking, coffee and souvenir stores. I was there for the first of these, while Danny was quite happy with the second (it didn't take him long to declare that this was his favourite place in all of Colombia). It was difficult to find a bar with happy hour, but the multiple places we dined at all served fantastic, massive dishes of a variety of cuisines. There was also beautiful architecture, little traffic and a general feeling of ease around the small, hilly town. It was hard not to like.
Our first hiking adventure was the main attraction of this area: the Cocora Valley. We caught a brightly painted jeep, known as a willy, from Salento to the start point. Some people sat in the front, some sat in the open-air tray, and some hung off the back (over the next few days we would experience all 3 positions). It was a smooth ride, so it didn't seem all that dangerous to be in the rear position.
We decided to hike the loop anticlockwise, which didn't seem to be the popular choice as we hardly met anyone going our way. The route began in a picturesque valley, surrounded by green hills and herds of cows. It could have been Switzerland if not for the towering palm trees.
From the valley we entered the jungle, with the path following a roaring river sprinkled with small cascades. Numerous suspension bridges crossed over the water, each one wobbling violently and having uneven gaps between the boards. A small amount of clamouring over and around rocks beside the river was involved, but somehow we stayed dry. It was stunning, and ended up being our favourite part of the hike.
The Cocora Valley is renowned for being one long mud pit, and the recommendation is to wear knee-high rubber boots. Although there was a fair bit of mud around, there were always logs, rocks, wooden planks or side paths that allowed us to circumnavigate the worst of it. We both emerged with dry shoes at the end, which we were ecstatic about.
Following a quick stop at a hummingbird house, where the birds were too fast for my camera, we made the steep ascent out of the jungle. It was slippery in parts, and we were relieved it wasn't raining. At the top was a coffee finca (farm), from where it was all downhill on an unpaved road. Now we were in the Cocora Valley proper. Several viewpoints along the way allowed us to look out over a valley filled with wax palm trees, the tallest palms in the world and one of the only places they can be found. Even though blue skies eluded us once again, the fog rolling in and out of the mountains created a majestic sight. We stayed here for some time, admiring the beauty before us, before catching a willy back to Salento.
Near Salento is the Los Nevados National Park, a region we were keen to explore. However, we struggled to decide the best way to do this. The 2 highest peaks, both above 5,000 m, were a little beyond us as we hadn't acclimatised to that altitude. Tour companies offered multi-day treks but they were obscenely expensive (we ended up spending about 10% of what they were quoting by doing it by ourselves). The little information online about hikes in the park didn't give us as much detail as we would have liked. In the end we bit the bullet and decided to follow the basic itinerary of the tour that sounded most appealing. We had Maps.me to help us and not much else.
Like yesterday, we caught a willy out to the Cocora Valley, but we detoured away from the palm trees and entered Los Nevados. It drizzled for the first 10 minutes, then cleared to leave overcast skies that stayed with us for most of the day. The first section was on a narrow path through the jungle, criss-crossing over a river on wooden bridges. It was beautiful and I wished it had lasted longer. But, as expected, the trail started heading upwards, and that's all we did for the next few hours. Mud was the theme of the day, often mixed with mule poop that had been churned into the sludge with animals' hooves. Some of it could be avoided; much of it couldn't. It wasn't too slippery or deep, but it was agonisingly slow and slightly disgusting.
Just over the halfway mark, the trees thinned enough for us to see all the way down the valley in both directions. A tiny bit of blue sky also greeted us, in between light showers. The scenery was awe-inspiring, but the gruelling terrain meant we were gazing at our feet most of the time. Our rate slowed even further as the altitude caught up with us on the precipitous inclines.
The plan was to have lunch at a local farm, Finca Argentina, but they didn't have any food available. Other than a couple of handfuls of nuts and raisins I hadn't eaten anything today, and my energy stores were low. We continued on another 2 km, taking almost an hour, to Finca Buenos Aires, at 3,700 m elevation. This, we hoped, would be our destination for today. When we arrived, no one was home. It was a cold, anxious wait outside until the family turned up.
The finca was much more rustic than we had anticipated. It was a cramped, partly open-air wooden shack, with plastic sheeting across the windows and a jumble of corrugated iron sheets acting as a roof. It was located in a fantastic location above the valley, and we happily watched the clouds and rain come and go all afternoon.
The owners told us they had no bunks available for tonight as another group (who appeared not long after us) had booked the beds. However, they did have a tent we could use, with plenty of blankets. Relief! Once we had set it up under a cover next to the house, we put on every bit of clothing we had to prevent us from going numb while we waited for dinner. In the end we had climbed over 1,600 m today in just 14 km, and we were exhausted and starving.
Originally, our plan was a 4-day, 3-night trek from one side of the park to the other, but now we wondered if it was feasible. We seriously considered retracing our steps back down to Salento tomorrow, as we were absolutely freezing and we couldn't be certain about what sort of accommodation we would find further on (fincas were few and far between). Dinner was simple but tasty, and it was helpful to talk to the other guests about their trekking plans while we ate. Tomorrow they aimed to reach the summit of Paramillo del Quindio, a peak only a few kilometres away, then stay here tomorrow night before returning to Salento the next day. We contemplated this possibility too. Neither of us could make up our minds about what to do, and we went to bed uncertain of tomorrow's agenda.
Not much sleep was achieved, but at least we weren't cold overnight (having 4 blankets over us helped). The skies were clear, with only a few clouds sitting on the peaks in the distance. It seemed like a perfect day for hiking. We decided to continue on with our original plan.
It wasn't the best decision. Not long after we commenced the fog rolled in, bringing with it light showers that turned on and off all morning. Views were almost non-existent. For most of the day, all we could see were mountain after mountain covered with frailejones, plants that grow only half a centimetre a year. Given that some were over 2.5 m tall, the maths says they must be at least 500 years old. If the skies had been clear, it would have been an amazing scene.
Our aim was to hike towards the summit of Paramillo del Quindio. The only problem was, we couldn't find the path. We followed one direction but came to a dead end, and a path in another direction didn't align with our map. Back and forth we went until we backtracked onto a previous path that would apparently take us a slightly longer way around. I think we spent an hour going around in circles.
At this point, Danny decided he wasn't up for a huge altitude gain, so he turned off towards Finca Berlin, where we planned to stay tonight. I continued on, the rain and frailejones leading the way. After a while I reached a rock-filled hill with not a single path in sight. I followed the direction given on the map as I scaled the rocks, but nothing around me indicated that this was the right way to go. Eventually I arrived at a 3-way junction, according to Maps.me. There were no trails anywhere. Looking up I could see the rocky scramble continued directly towards the northern peak of the mountain, which was currently hidden behind clouds. It would take me hours to reach. If the weather had been on my side, I might have considered it. Instead, I used my app to follow the third option from the junction, heading back down the hill towards Finca Berlin. The map led me directly to the edge of a cliff. I retraced my steps back up again and slowly returned to the intersection where I had split from Danny a couple of hours earlier.
From here, the first kilometre was easy to see and I hoped it was smooth sailing from here on. Nope. I couldn't find the next turn-off, despite walking back and forth numerous times. I stayed on the first trail, accepting I would have to add on a couple of extra kilometres. (Danny said he did find the path, but admitted it wasn't easy.) From here the route twisted up and down hill after hill along muddy, treacherous trails. Often I couldn't see the way at all, requiring me to rely on my untrustworthy app, but then later on it would suddenly reappear again. The rain started coming down harder, making the use of my phone almost impossible. I crossed rivers with no bridges, sunk shin deep into mud, passed through fields with dairy cows grazing, and stepped in more animal crap than I dare to think about. There were no easy sections. I actually did enjoy some parts of today, but there were plenty of sections I could have done without (namely the rain, altitude, heavy pack, soaking wet clothes and shoes, freezing weather, losing the trail, unhelpful maps, limited scenery, manure and, most importantly, not knowing if Danny had made it to the finca or not).
Approaching Finca Berlin through a boggy marsh, I spotted Danny waiting for me by the gate. He had arrived 2 hours earlier and was already warm and dry. I quickly tried to do the same. This finca was much bigger than last night’s, and with 3 rooms of bunk beds there was plenty of space for us inside. Horses, cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, dogs and a friendly cat all roamed around the property, even as the rain came down harder and harder. The cat quickly attached itself to me, snuggling under the blanket I had draped around my body. A huge meal was served to us for dinner, making up for last night's small portion. The owner tried to engage us in conversation in Spanish, of which I could understand about half. We were then in bed by 7.30 p.m., doing everything we could to stay warm.
Listening to the rain pour down for hours on end overnight caused us to make the heartbreaking decision to cut our hike short by a day. The plan had been to hike out to Laguna Otul today and then stay at Finca Jordan, before walking out to civilisation tomorrow. With the state of the trails and low-lying clouds hanging around, there didn't seem much point in continuing on. We also didn't want to risk a repeat of yesterday. This was easily the most beautiful region we had hiked through in Colombia, and I was devastated to leave early.
The start of the trek was not easy. It wasn't as boggy as I expected, but we had to traverse down a ridiculously steep hill that was basically one long mud slide. We stuck to the grassy slopes as much as possible, trying not to tear ourselves to shreds on the barbed wire fences bordering the trails. It took an eternity to reach the bottom, clocking our slowest kilometre over the last 3 days. Waterfalls crashed down from a great height in the distance, so impressive they would have required an entrance fee to see in other parts of the country. We were granted mostly clear skies and wonderful views of the mountains around us, giving me a slight hope that we might change our minds and set out to achieve our original goal. But when we arrived at the turn-off to the lake, Danny shook his head. There was no way these perfect conditions were going to last. We plodded on.
After we passed Finca Jordan, the trail became a mixture of gravel, rocks and mud, all of which did their best to knock us off our feet (they succeeded). It was around here that we re-entered the jungle, where the deep green foliage closed in around us. Unlike yesterday, the path was easy to follow, and as long as we could hear the raging river beside us we knew we were heading in the right direction. Several times we crossed over the river on solid concrete bridges, making us wonder why there couldn't be more of these in other parts of the forest. Most of the time we had to balance precariously across rocks or wobbly planks of wood, somehow not falling in.
At roughly the halfway point light showers began falling intermittently, which didn't concern us much. Then, half an hour before the end, the heavens opened up and the rain pelted down. The paths immediately turned to rivers, and it was impossible to find dry ground to walk on. The tips of rocks stuck out of the water, showing us where to place our feet, but we were wading through ankle to shin-deep water for much of it. We often couldn't see where our feet were landing, causing us to slip repeatedly. Our bags were getting wetter and wetter and there was nothing we could do about it. The end couldn't come soon enough.
It was a huge relief to arrive in El Cedral, the final destination, 18 km later. As we dragged ourselves up to the one-building village, we saw dozens of people boarding a chiva, an old-fashioned flat bed truck converted to a public bus and painted in bright colours. Our timing could not have been better. The interior was full, so we were offered space on the roof. Given how wet and cold we were, we were glad to get out of there by any means necessary. We climbed up to the top with roughly a dozen locals and took our place by the railing, unprepared for the worst 2 hours and 15 minutes of our time in Colombia.
First of all, it rained the entire time. There was no amount of waterproof clothing, bag covers or garbage bags that could prevent nearly every single thing we owned from becoming completely drenched. Secondly, the forest tried to kill us. It was the screams by the other passengers that alerted me to the potential decapitation. I turned to the front to see the cause of the shrieks just in time to see a solid tree branch rushing towards my head. I swiftly ducked, along with everyone else, only to find that there was another one right behind it. We quickly learned to keep our heads down the whole time, but no matter how low we were the trees still smacked us over and over again. For the next 135 minutes we laid down on the cold metal roof, being pummelled by the rain, shivering in the cold, and being continually whiplashed by branches. I ended up with bruises over my entire body. Misery didn't even begin to describe it.
When we finally disembarked in the town of Pereira, we were both covered in tree matter and an assortment of bugs. We dripped all the way through a nearby mall, removing our wet gear in the toilets and putting on the few pieces of clothing we had stored in our dry bags that weren't saturated. It was too late to catch a bus to Salento, so we found a cheap hotel where we could shower, dry ourselves, spread out our clothes across the room on the off chance that they might dry, and warm up. It was a tough, but memorable, experience, one I wish we could attempt again in the dry season.