Bogota was doing my head in...needed some clean air, So I shot off to the coffe region for a good brew.
I had my pomy aliance, Nick, living in Salento shoting the breaz as the night shift worker at Plantation House, the local Hostal. He had a week left in Colombia before his return to England and so I kept him company with the help of mate kev plus many cups of coffee and games of pool.
Salento on a shoestring is a neat and colourfull colonial town (1000 ppl, no more) in the foothills of the Colombian Andes. If you stand at an outlook point you have a 360degree view of sweeping hills laced with coffe trees, fruit plantations and snaking rivers, like you´re in Harry potter or something.
Being a small town it has a very chilled lifestyle, you can´t go to your local shop and but something without having a 30minute discussion...even if you don´t spek fluent spanish. For the person who is there to soak up the town then the best thing to do is to get yourself one of the many pool tables and order youself a cup of coffee. It was a strenuous week in the hills but someone had to do it. Our life of lazyness was broken up with bouts of hikes around the town to the local coffe growers, waterfalls and our local mates house.
Although a sleepy little town, Salento comes alive for the weekend. The plaza is filled with tents housing eateries, bars and dancefloors. All this and flocks of Colombian tourists from Caligive the place a beating pulce. By Saturday everything had kicked off, along with the birthday of a local friend of ours...all this made for one long and loud night in the hills.
By Monday it was time for us to leave, Nick to Bogota and myself, I made my way to manizales...a place everyone seems to talk about..so I had to see it for myself. No pictures of Salento...my camera has been bust since I got to Bogota.
