Los vaijes se viven tres veces

This quotation was on the wall of our room at Salento and we thought it rather apt. It means:

Our travels are lived three times:

when we dream of them

when we are doing them

and when we remember them

The drive from Medellin to Guatape on Monday 23rd January was not too difficult. We had the usual hysterics getting out of the city with Kamikaze motorbikes trying to impale themselves on the bonnet but the moment we got out of the city it was a pretty decent road with lovely views of the hillsides and valleys.

By mid afternoon we had arrived in Guatape, a colourful town situated on a very large complex of interconnected lakes and  waterways. Nearby is a huge lump of rock with about 750 steps up it which are the obligatory climb to have a look at the panorama.

We found a decent place to camp in the grounds of the Casa Kayam hostel a couple of kilometres outside of the town although it turned out to be a bit of a hippy commune. They all had long hair, mostly in dreadlocks, and spent their time playing guitars, flutes, tom-toms, tin whistles or  juggling Indian clubs and we were almost certainly the only meat eaters there. There was an interesting choice of sleeping accommodation including a converted bus slung with hammocks but everyone was friendly enough and the woman who ran the hostel was very helpful, as almost all proprietors have been on our trip.

Lucy at home outside Casa Kayam

Sue making the bed

Converted bus

On Tuesday we set off to climb the Piedra, otherwise the rock of Guatape. To begin with we had a stroll on the scenic route to Guatape, across the river and along a track which then joined a back road into the town.

Pretty dual coloured tree blossom with view of Guatape lake beyond

Part of Guatape lake system with distant view of the piedra

Guatape is charmingly presented. The buildings are painted in bright colours, there are bright murals on the walls depicting local scenes and some that aren't too local. On one side of the plaza is an enormous church which externally has the look of yet another rather garish toy town church with white and maroon painted walls. Internally however it is very different. It has a beautifully tiled floor, the ceiling is good quality wood and the altar piece is largely made of carved wood as are the columns down the sides of the nave. We thought it was quite beautiful.

Street scene, Guatape

Street scene, Guatape

Guatape plaza showing church

Interior of Guatape church

After a pleasant enough lunch we hired a tuk tuk to take us to the piedra which is basically a huge volcanic plug. We got delivered at the bottom and then they charged us 18,000 pesos or about £6 for the privilege of nearly giving ourselves a heart attack climbing 750 steps to the top. Once we'd got our breath back the view from the top was undoubtedly stunning and well worth the pain.

La piedra de Guatape showing 750 bloody steps

Just to prove we made it to the top

The view from the top

On Wednesday we strolled back into town along the same scenic route as on the previous day. We investigated the possibility of taking kayaks out on the lake but there weren't any, however we managed to hire a Canadian with a sawn off kayak paddle which is all the proprietor had but which more or less served the purpose.

It turned out to be a very pleasant paddle. We went up under the bridge, and then continued up the arm of the lake that actually led in the direction of Casa Kayam. We didn't make much speed because Alan was the only one paddling but we saw quite a lot of birds including southern lapwings, some waders we couldn't identify, some Muscovy ducks and one lone collared kingfisher flying over the lake.

Southern lapwing

Southern lapwing showing wing spurs

On Thursday morning we packed Lucy up, said goodbye to the hippies and set off for the mountain town of Jardin on the edge of the coffee growing region. This initially involved driving back through Medellin and the six lane motorcycle dodgems. The second part of the journey was fine however with the road taking us up into the mountains and down through some lovely valleys with some far reaching views.

Jardin is a lovely colonial town right at the start of the Andes in West Colombia. We arrived late in the day and ended up checking into a rather indifferent hotel for the first night but on Friday morning we managed to switch to a much nicer hotel facing the plaza. The impressive cathedral was on the opposite side of the plaza to the hotel and the plaza itself was constantly bustling with activity.
We spent some little time walking around the town with it's painted and decorated houses and had a look at the stunning views across the valley to the hillside clad in trees and coffee plantations with the mountains beyond fading into the mist.

View across the valley from restaurant just outside Jardin

On Friday evening the plaza really came to life and we began to wonder whether we had made a mistake in locating ourselves so close to it when a band started playing at about 200 decibels immediately beneath our balcony. The band however was a traditional Columbian band playing traditional Colombian songs and traditional Colombian music and we thoroughly enjoyed it.
When the band finished at around eleven o'clock the revelling continued in the bars below until around 2.30 am. At around 4.30 am we could hear the cleaners sweeping up in the plaza and then the early morning service coming from the cathedral on the other side of the square.

After a sleepless night we were up at five on Saturday morning for a 05.45 start with a guide to hopefully see the Cock of the Rock, an iconic South American bird. We wandered with our guide down into a valley where there were thick bushes and tall trees but because the valley was steep sided we were actually quite close to the canopies of these tall trees growing up from the bottom of the river valley.

Very soon we dimly saw some red and then quite a lot of red and then a great deal of screeching noise and anything up to half a dozen Cock of the Rock all displaying madly to the rather dowdy females. The females were in fact so dowdy that we never saw them although we could see the bushes moving presumably in maidenly applause of the males' frantic efforts. And did they make an effort! They jumped, they strutted, they flapped, they postured, and the noise they made would have put a bunch of macaws to shame.

Cock of the Rock displaying

Cock of the Rock displaying

The bird itself is an example of rather extreme avian design. Until you get to the shoulders it's normal enough, it's grey with off white wing feathers but then it starts to go a bit crazy. From the shoulder forward it is bright scarlet and, apart from a tiny little eye which you can sometimes see, the whole of the head is covered in fluffy scarlet feathers and it's almost impossible to see the bird's beak.

After breakfast and a quick shower we set off for another walk with our guide, this time up the hill, calling off at various points of interest including a pretty waterfall which was fancifully termed the waterfall of love. Apparently if you stand there with your chosen one you will be together for life.
The river next to the waterfall was lovely and then we continued on up and went through a tunnel a couple of hundred metres long.  This was inhabited by a lot of very small and rather peevish bats who were less than impressed with us given that we disturbed them all with our flashlights.

Sue and Alan by the river

Group of bats in the tunnel (honestly!)

Coming out of the tunnel

We continued on up to various lookout points, high on the mountain and the view was never anything less than spectacular and sometimes it pretty well took our breath away.

Banana plantation with view of mountains in the distance

Campanero making a whip

View of Jardin from the top of the hill

At the end of the trip we went back down on something of a ramshackle cable car. It had a rather clanking engine at the top which pulled the cable up and prevented it from free wheeling down to the station at the bottom. The mechanism was somewhat archaic but it worked and we were told that the country children use it every day to go to school so we guessed it must be reasonably safe.

View of Jardin from the cable car

The plaza filled up quickly on Saturday evening with people sitting around on colourful decorated chairs drinking coffee or beer and we were entertained by the caballeros on their Caballo de Paso horses doing the quickstep up and down and around the plaza. The horses lift their knees and hooves much higher than usual and they trot about four times as fast as required for the amount of forward motion they are doing. We were told that this is a treasured part of Colombian culture, particularly in this part of the country, although we weren't sure if the horses enjoyed it very much.

Painted leatherback seat, Jardin plaza

Caballo de Peso horses being paraded in the plaza

Saturday night in Jardin plaza

The revelling went on far into the night and the next morning we woke to the sound of a group of elderly gents singing and playing their guitars beneath our balcony. We have found the Colombians to be highly sociable and, much like the Mexicans, will have a party at the drop of a hat!

Elderly gent enjoying Sunday morning coffee, Jardin

Impromptu folk session, Sunday morning

After our Sunday morning entertainment it was time to leave Jardin although we both hugely enjoyed our stay there, in spite of not getting much sleep.

We took the back road out of Jardin which we were told would take us to the main road in two hours but, in the event, took over three and a half. It was a remarkable mountain road, mostly dirt, quite rough in places but the views were stupendous. We drove through areas where there was vegetation that we have never seen before, including tree ferns thirty to forty feet high. We stopped for lunch at a place where there was a wonderful view and we sat and looked forever across the valley watching the fields merge into the hills, merge into the mountains, into the mist and into the cloud beyond.

Distant view of Jardin from the mountain road

Lunch stop on the mountain road

Martin at its nest hole in hollow bamboo, lunch stop

There was however an incident up on the mountain road which was rather unpleasant. We were driving along and a young man with a girl on the back of his motorbike came whizzing round the corner, realised that he had overdone the corner, jammed his brakes on, skidded and they both came off. She was quite badly cut and briefly lost consciousness. There was a bunch of guys following in a car behind us who said they were firemen and they sort of took charge although we did our best as well to help. That is the third accident we have witnessed since we came to Colombia, the other two in Medellin and all of them involving motor bikes.

The second half of our journey was a bit of a nightmare. We had realised that we were not going to make our intended destination so decided to stop for the night at the town of Santa Rosa de Cabal. This involved driving through the city of Pereira and whilst there is a perfectly good by-pass we missed it at the beginning because there was no sign and there seemed to be no way of joining it further along. We ended up driving round and round Pereira, up and down back alleys until we were getting a little frayed around the edges. We ultimately got through and made it to Santa Rosa just as it was getting dark.

Santa Rosa is a rather tacky town but it has become a bit of a tourist destination due to its proximity to some nearby thermal pools. Having stopped there for the night we decided to have a look at the pools on Monday morning before moving on to Salento. What we found was a lovely waterfall providing a pleasant backdrop but the thermal springs have all been channelled into slightly hideous concrete fountains and pools which were full of acres and acres of more or less uncovered flesh all enjoying the experience. We didn't stay long.

Flowering shrub at Santa Rosa thermal pools

Sue at the waterfall, Santa Rosa thermal pools

Hillside trees with silvery leaves

Black eyed Susan climbing a pole support

After we left the pools our journey back through Pereira was uneventful and we arrived in Salento in good order by mid afternoon.

View of river valley from mountain road just outside Salento

Salento is a small town right in the heart of the coffee region. It is full of historic buildings and traditional houses set around a large square.

Coffee bush in flower

Coffee bush with unripe berries

Ripe coffee berries which will be hand picked

Tuesday was our first full day in Salento but it turned out to be somewhat frustrating. First of all, Alan tried to organise a tour around a nearby nature reserve but received a confusing number of different directions, none of which proved to be accurate. By the time he finally got to the gate of the nature reserve it was padlocked and when he did eventually find someone to let him in there was nothing much to see as it was too late in the morning.

The next abortive endeavour was trying to find a garage in Salento that would do an oil change. Without wearying anybody with a blow by blow account suffice it to say that it took him an hour and a half of foot leather up and down the steep streets of Salento to finally establish third hand that there was somebody who was allegedly an expert at putting oil into cars but he wasn't there and anyway Alan would have to go and buy the oil and the filter first. At that point he decided to abort the exercise.

Yesterday, Wednesday, was a much better day. In the morning we pottered off to the Cocora valley to see the wax palms. The wax palm which grows to over 70 metres is the tallest palm species and is found at altitudes of over 1,000 metres. It is the national tree of Colombia and is protected as it provides habitat for some endangered bird species.

Wax palms, Cocora valley

Wax palms in the cloud

More wax palms

Cowboy about to lasso his horse 

Horse successfully lassoed

The valley itself was pretty wonderful, verdant green with the Quindio river at the bottom. We continued down a lovely rocky track until we got to the ford over the river which we crossed. After ambling around there for a while we slowly made our way back, stopping off to have lunch in a grassy lay-by above the river.

Lucy crossing the ford

Nearly there

Alan looking very pleased with himself

Sue on a very rickety bridge

Possibly a guan, Quindío river

It was then that Alan spotted a torrent duck, another iconic south American bird. This makes a living out of eating molluscs and small fish which it catches from rapid mountain streams in the Andes. Unfortunately, by the time Alan had got his camera the duck had flown. Not to be defeated Alan went back to the river later in the afternoon and after two hours was rewarded with a sighting. This time he got a photograph!

Male torrent duck, Quindío river

Today, Thursday 2nd February, we left Salento to continue heading south. After our first taste of the Andes and it's cool climate we have come over the mountains and are slowly making our way to the desert. We have stopped off at a town called El Espinal for the night and it is already about 20 degrees hotter than Salento!