After only 8 hours in the bus we reached our Finca Campestre La Adelita in the middle of the coffee region between Salento and Filandia. It had been a long and curvy ride but the welcome of our host Sonia was wonderful. For the first time since Guatemala we felt a little like home again. When we arrived late at night, she sent her son to pick us up at the bus station and asked her staff to prepare the meat for us, she had actually reserved for herself.
Further she arranged free transfers to and from the bus station, tours for us and was eager to read every wish we had from our eyes. She offered us an upgrade and so we spent four marvelous nights in her best room. Every morning her staff served us a breakfast that was so big and delicious that we didn’t need to eat until they served us her delicate steaks in the evening.
Besides enjoying Sonia’s hospitality, we did a six-hour hike into the “Valle de Cocora”. In the beginning we were reminded of Switzerland with its similar green hills and all the cows. But the palm trees in the back just didn’t fit into the picture. And when we entered the jungle the similarities were gone. It was a steep hike starting somewhere at 2’000m and finished at almost 3’000m. And in case we wouldn’t have been breathless from the beauty of the jungle the altitude did the rest.
We crossed little rivers on shaky bridges, climbed over rocks and tried to pass the muddy areas without getting too dirty. At about the middle of the hike we rested at a hummingbird sanctuary. There we observed several of those magnificent but tiny and fast-moving birds. And we tried to picture them, but it wouldn’t be the best pictures of those marvelous creatures that day. When we reached the highest point of our hike, we found ourselves in an entire garden of beautiful flowers. And after about a hundred attempts and more than half an hour of patience, we managed to take that one outstanding photo (see Gallery of Salento).
We felt so enlightened when we walked off and almost hovered to the next highlight of our hike – the gigantic wax palm trees. They were so tall we needed Melvin to get a good picture of them – as he actually is able to hoover.
The evening we spent in the beautiful town of Salento, where we enjoyed a great vegetarian dinner at Le K’fee before we returned to our cozy Finca.
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