July 31, 2014
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| Pereira |
Even though I had only slept for about four hours, I knew I
had a long journey ahead of me, so got up at 6:00 am. I slipped out of the hostel and caught a taxi
to the southern bus terminal (6000 pesos) in time to catch the 7:30 bus to
Armenia. The bus went up and over the
mountains opposite the ones I had crossed to reach Medellin and then headed
through the Zona Cafetera (coffee growing region) to the city of Pereira. Pereira was a much larger place than I had
expected. It sported many tall
buildings. The coffee business was
clearly thriving. An hour past Pereira,
we finally came to the end of the line in Armenia. Armenia was a smaller city, but they had a
nice bus terminal. I needed to walk all
the way to the opposite end of the terminal and then outside and across a
parking lot to catch a minibus to Salento.
Everyone there was very nice to me.
A security guard told me how to find my bus, a food vendor told me that
Salento was a magical place, and the bus driver interrupted his break to open
the luggage compartment so I didn’t have to stand around with my pack on my
back.
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| Hostal La Floresta |
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| Salento Square and Church |
Salento lies 24 kilometers up a valley outside of Armenia. I finally reached there about 4:00 in the
afternoon. Salento was a cute little mountain
town with lots of hostels and restaurants and a small central square in front
of the church. A street of souvenir
shops led uphill to a flight of stairs up to Alto de la Cruz, a lookout with
views of both Salento and the Cocora Valley.
I had made a reservation at Hostel La Floresta, which turned out to be
several blocks outside of the center on the other side of a pedestrian bridge
which spanned a deep ravine. I was
exhausted from the bus ride and lack of sleep, so it was a chore to lug my pack
several blocks down a steep hill and then back up to the hostel. La Floresta lacked charm, but the staff was
friendly and helpful and the WiFi was strong, if not overly speedy. There was a nice garden area in the back with
hammocks and a campground with its own kitchen and restrooms.
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| Bridge to La Floresta |
After dropping my bags, I walked back up the hill to the
grocery store to buy food for breakfast, beer, and a picnic lunch for the
following day’s hike. I returned to the
hostel and lay in a hammock, reading and drinking beer, until it started to get
chilly. I surfed the web for a couple of
hours and then went out and ate lasagna at Los Urrea Trattoria, just off the
main square. When I got back, I wanted
to work on my blog, but was too tired to write.
I uploaded photos for an hour or so and then went to sleep fairly early.
August 1 2014
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| Local Transport in Cocora Valley |
Fearing that it might get hot later in the day, I got up at
the crack of dawn and was in the town square, ready to take a jeep to Cocora,
by 7:30 am. Local transportation in the
Cocora Valley is by Willys jeep. They
pack three people in the front seat, six more onto two seats facing each other
across the back, and as many as possible standing on the tailgate. We had eleven people in our jeep when we
left. We drove over the hill into the
Cocora Valley and then up the valley to the village of Cocora. Cocora consisted of a few houses, shops, and
roadside restaurants strung along a barely two lane road between cow
pastures. The whole valley was intensely
green. The pastures were covered in Bermuda
grass and looked like golf courses. The
jeep let us off just shy of the blue gate that led to the trailhead.
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| Beginning of the Trail |
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| Suspension Bridge Jungle Style |
Being alone, I struck up a conversation with another couple
of hikers. The first couple I talked to
were from Brazil and Russia, respectively, although they lived in
Berkeley. They weren’t too friendly, so
I left them behind and followed a couple of other Russians who didn’t appear to
speak and languages I understood. Soon,
I passed them, too. The path led through
pastures and they entered a narrow, forested canyon with a stream running through
it and began to climb more steeply. The
track crossed the river repeatedly on wobbly suspension bridges or log bridges
with a cable strung across as a handrail.
I followed the path upward for almost 5 kilometers until I reached the
Acaime Natural Preserve and Hummingbird House.
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| Hummingbird House |
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| Long-Tailed Sylph |
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| View from Overlook |
The preserve was the brainchild of a local leader who
wanted to preserve the natural environment.
The preserve maintained the trails (and bridges.) There is a 5000 peso entrance fee (about
$3.50), but I had no trouble contributing to the maintenance of the nice
pathways. For my money, I got a drink at
the Hummingbird House. The building was
constructed on the side of a steep hill and had a kitchen and covered eating
area surrounded by hummingbird feeders.
Several varieties of hummingbirds were in evidence, including purple
throated woodstars and another iridescent blue green one with a long tail like
a miniature quetzal called a long-tailed sylph.
I chatted for a few minutes with the keeper of the preserve about the
spectacled bears that live in Colombia.
These bears are the only bears in South America. They look and act much like black bears
except for a white mask around their eyes.
Unfortunately, I never saw one.
Soon, another group of hikers arrived and I struck up a conversation
with them. The group consisted of one Italian,
one American, one Filipina, two Colombians and a girl from Luxembourg. They were fun a friendly and we all left
together to climb the rest of the way up the mountain to the overlook on the
top of the ridge.
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| Friendly Golden Lab |
The ranger who lived at the overlook must have loved flowers
because the buildings of the ranger station were surrounded with colorful
blooms. There were two friendly golden
labs and a tiny black Chihuahua who was determined to sleep on top of the
bigger dogs. Despite being the oldest in
the party by at least 20 years, I got to the top first and hung out with the
dogs until the others arrived. The view
was fantastic and the weather was perfect.
I could have stayed there all afternoon, but we still had over five
kilometers to hike back to Cocora.
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| Forest of Wax Palms |
Once we regrouped at the top and everyone had a chance to
have his or her picture taken, we set off downhill to walk through the forest
of wax palms that were the reason for the whole outing. Wax palms are the national tree of
Colombia. They grow to a height of up to
60 meters and have tall, thin trunks with just a pouf of broad, leafy fronds at
the top. They are really rather bizarre
looking when you come across a group of them, as they grow widely spaced and
just don’t look real. The palms are
endangered because people cut them down to use their leaves for Palm Sunday
celebrations. We walked for a kilometer
or so without seeing any and then, suddenly, we were among them. We kept stopping to take pictures of the
palms and the dramatic scenery. At the
bottom of the valley was a pasture where horses grazed on Bermuda grass in a
park-like setting studded with slender palms.
It truly was magical and none of us was in a hurry to leave the grove of
palms. We didn’t get back to the jeeps
until just before 2:00 when the first convoy was scheduled to return to
Salento. We all rode back together. We went our separate ways when we reached Salento,
but made loose plans to meet up later.
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| Salento from Above |
Despite having already climbed one mountain for the day, I
headed off to climb the roughly 238 steps to Alto de la Cruz. The stairs were painted blue, yellow, and
green and had markers for the Stations of the Cross along the way. One could tend to exercise and religious
devotions simultaneously. At the top,
there was a playground and two overlooks: one facing the town of Salento, and
the other a pleasant covered structure housing food and craft vendors,
overlooking the Cocora Valley. I would
have overlooked the second one if a thoughtful soda vendor had not directed me
to it. I lingered to use the spotless
public restroom and drink a Gatorade and then trotted back down the steps and
off to my hostel to work on my blog until it was time to try to meet the
others.
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| Graffiti on Alto de la Cruz |
One couple had said they would be a certain bar on the
square from 7 to 8:00. I arrived there
about 7:05, but there was no sign of them.
The square was gearing up for a big weekend and there were tents erected
with additional tables in front of all the restaurants and food trucks set up
around the park. I made a circuit of the
square, searching for someone I knew, and then retreated to a restaurant on the
corner which offered Bandeja Paisa (Paisa Platter), the traditional dinner of
the Paisa region I had just left. I had
never gotten around to trying it in Medellin, so figured I had better do so
before I got any further away. Bandeja
Paisa has its origins among poor coffee farmers who would eat one high calorie
meal per day to give them energy to work the steep mountain sides. It consists of white rice and huge red beans,
pork rinds, ground meat, a sausage, a fried egg, avocado, an arepa (corn cake),
a fried plantain and maybe some salad. I
had no sooner ordered when four of my friends appeared and joined me for
dinner. We had a delicious meal and
fascinating conversation.
Daniel, a Colombian anthropologist who worked to alleviate
malnutrition in indigenous communities, had a great sense of humor and was full
of good insights about the interactions of different groups of Colombians. Colombia has many different ethnic groups
(whites, mestizos, Afro-Colombians, indigenous tribes) and they divide along
racial and, perhaps more importantly, class lines. The indigenous people end up at the bottom of
the heap, either way. Daniel was
disturbed by the fact that Colombia marketed itself as having beautiful and
passionate women. He felt that was
objectifying them, which was no doubt true, although even I found it hard to
ignore the number of beautiful women in Colombia. Then we all laughed about how disgustingly
attractive Brazilians were. I asked
Daniel about the education system in Colombia, which he felt was quite bad. Children go to school for 12 years, but the
public schools were poor and he thought that even the cheaper private ones were
quite bad. The best university in
Colombia is private, but the second best one is public. Unfortunately, according to Daniel, there is
no free speech, soldiers with guns patrol the campus, and “professional
students” recruit students to join the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de
Colombia (FARC – Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), the largest of the
guerilla groups. Daniel was disgusted
that the university did not engender an environment of free thought. I could have sat there chatting all night,
but I needed to finish my blog post and pack so that I could leave early the
next morning. Elise, the girl from Luxembourg,
had been planning to come to Cali with me, but was considering changing her
plans and going to Medellin with Teresa, the Filipina woman. We agreed to meet at the 7:30 bus to Armenia
if she was going to come.
August 2, 2014
I got up at 6:00 again, but someone had already beat me to
the bathroom. I still managed to get
checked out and schlep my probably-too-heavy-to-check-on-an-airplane pack up
the very steep hill to the bus stop on the far side of the main square in
plenty of time to catch the 7:30 bus to Armenia. (Also nearby is the city of Circasia. Geography can get confusing around
here.) Elise arrived just as I was
holding open the door of the luggage compartment so that the driver and a
passenger could wrestle an entire mattress out of there. She had decided to come to Cali, after
all. We rode for an hour on the minibus
to Armenia and then quickly caught a collective van for the three hour ride
through cane fields to Cali. Cali sits
about 1000 meters lower than Salento and it got warmer and warmer as we drove
south.
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| Hostal El Viajero |
We arrived in Cali about noon and took a taxi to the
hostel. The Hostel El Viajero in Cali is
clean and has a pretty pool area and bar, but it is expensive for a
hostel. My private room cost $53, almost
the most expensive room of my entire trip.
The room was nice, with a view of the pool, but the mattress was hard as
a rock and there was no air conditioning.
I did get a ceiling fan, TV, hot water and safe. Beds in Central and South America were made
quite differently than in the United States.
Blankets and bedspreads are usually absent. Top sheets are almost never tucked in and are
frequently just left folded at the bottom of the bed. This reflects the fact that it was usually
too hot to sleep covered, although sometimes it was cool enough to use a sheet
if I hung my feet out. If I checked into
a hotel and there was a blanket, I knew it would be blessedly cool at night and
rejoiced. No such luck in Cali, which
was known for being hot.
Modern cities often have good modern art, so I headed for
the modern art museum. My walk took me
through an elegant residential neighborhood studded with design related businesses. Unfortunately, the museum was closed,
although the hours posted on the door indicated that it should be open. That was disappointing. I continued down to the river and walked
along an attractive promenade to the other side of Calle 5, a large street that
runs like a freeway through the center of Cali and is almost impossible to
cross. I made a quick visit to the
Iglesia de la Merced, which is in what remains of the old colonial part of the
city. I was unimpressed and got a little
worried when someone warned me to hang onto my cell phone. I usually leave it in the room, but had
brought it because it contained my electronic guidebook. I crossed back over Calle 5 where it dead
ended at the river bank and bought an ice cream cone before returning to the
hostel to relax.
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| Iglesia de la Merced |
When dinner time came, I walked around the corner and got a
plate of fried chicken and potatoes for just over a dollar at a snack bar. I spent the evening finally catching up on my
blog. About 9:00, I heard clapping and
looked out the window to discover a show in progress. Two young men from the local performing arts
college were performing an acrobatic routine that concluded with fire dancing
and climaxed with one of the young men breathing fire. El Viajero had a nice atmosphere and it would
have been fun to hang out around the pool if I had been 30 years younger. As it was, I was tired and not in the mood for
earnest young people. I wasn’t even in
the mood for beer, which was probably a good thing because all they had was
crummy beer. Club Colombia Dorada (Gold)
was lousy, but they made decent red and dark versions when I could find them. Unfortunately, the hostel reverberated with loud music until midnight and it was later than that before everyone quieted down. Some obnoxious French people came back at 4:30 am and talked outside my room for half an hour. El Viajero was not a good place to stay if you valued sleep.
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