Salento, mi amor!

Most of you who know us also know that we have been fortunate enough to have seen many, many incredibly beautiful places in our lives. Besides studying abroad in such fairy-tale places as Greece and Paris, we have also been to other parts of Europe, Russia, Peru, and lets not forget our own breathtaking country. Are we the luckiest people on the planet? I think so.

And just when we thought it couldn´t get any better, BAM! We arrived in Salento. Its a little town in the mountains (and when I say in the mountains I mean literally nestled into the side of a mountain, with views of many other mountains all around) that is very clean, with little houses painted all different colors and trimmed with wood, with happy people going about their lives and clean, healthy kids running home from school. There is a main square with a church (so different from every other town we got to!) and tons of shops, craft stalls, and fresh juice stands. (The availability of fresh juice in Colombia is insane! Everywhere you turn you can get a cheap, fresh-squeezed piece of heaven, made of fruits whose exotic names I wont even try to replicate here. This goes way up on the list of things we are going to miss). After wandering around a little, we got to the place where we wanted to stay, a hostal called the Plantation House, which also has a coffee farm and is the place Emma recommended so highly. After inquiring about dorm beds and being told they were full, the receptionist told us that there were available beds at the farm itself, which was just ten minutes down from the hostal along a dirt road.

HA! TEN MINUTES MI CULO! We should have known by then that her estimate was way off, considering that every time we take a bus anywhere we have to tack on about three hours to the ETA, and in general peoples sense of time here is downright hilarious, but alas, we were optimistic. So we set out, heavy backpacks and all, along this dirt road. Which, surprise surprise, wasnt a dirt road at all but rather a deep, muddy, rocky ravine complete with plenty of places to trip and slip. This thing was crunchy. It resulted in more than one attempt to grab on to the fence for support which, we learned the hard way, was made of barbed wire.

Eventually, we got to this alleged farm, covered in mud, sweat, and tears (ones that came from laughing so hard at ourselves and each other) only to find that we were, literally, in the most beautiful place either of us has ever seen. And thats a bold statement coming from us! There was a common area consisting of an outdoor (but covered) kitchen, dining and lounging area with a long wooden table, and a lookoout platform that had a hammok, a rocking chair, and a jaw-dropping view of the mountains. Every part of this structure was made out of bamboo, or varying thickness and color, and it was put together in such a natural, artistic, and simple way. Our beds were in a room that got pitch black at night, with comfortable beds that each had about 15 blankets, which was awesome because it got chilly at night and it was oh-so-cosy to crawl into bed.

Within the first few minutes of being there we met Andres, a dreadlocked, light-eyed, deep-voiced Colombian who, we became convinced, was the embodiment of indigenous peoples and mother nature combined. Apparently, he runs the farm, although he could have fooled us. I don´t think we saw him do any actual work the whole time we were there. Rather, his role seemed mainly to consist of talking to the other workers on the farm (who actually hacked away at weeds with their machetes), chatting with us, leading tours around the farm to explain how the coffee process works, and CHILLING. This dude was a professional if Ive ever seen one. He was so nice to us, made us lots of incredible coffee (you can only imagine how fresh and delicious this stuff was), and enlightened us about all sorts of various topics.

 

The first day, after dropping off our bags, we trudged back into town to buy food and wine, so that we could successfully hole up on the farm with everything we needed and not leave for a few days. The walk there and back was just too intimidating, and plus, this place was made for posting up, eating, reading, writing in our journals, and all that other good stuff. By the time we got back it was close to sunset, so we climbed up to the looked, settled into the hammok and rocking chair, and enjoyed one of the most fantastic sunsets of our lives. I know Im susing lots of superlatives here, and I know I have the bad habit of throwing those around, but seriously, I´m not exaggerating. We spend about and hour watching all the different clouds and colors, discussing what was going on where, which part looked like this or that animal, and just what a gorgeous show the sky put on for us. The blues, pinks, purples,and yellows, combined with the rolling greens of the mountains below... well, you get the picture. Afterwards we made ourselves a hearty dinner, feasted, read a little, and went to bed. Its amazing how tired you can feel after the sun goes down and there is literally nothing else to do but go to bed.

The next morning we woke up early, ready to go hike in the Valle de Cocora, but it was misty and rainy outside. So we decided that instead of going hiking, we would do absolutely nothing. It went really well! We straight chilled all day, cooked, ate, read, and playing with the farm pets - three huge, shaggy collies, and two wonderfully cuddly cats. The following day, the weather in the early morning was sunny and warm, so we headed to the main square to catch a jeep that would take us to the Valle. Cocora is a national park in the mountains that is home to the Wax Palm Cloud Forest, a totally unique place with these tall, skinny wax palms (the national tree of Colomiba) growing out of the side of the mountain. The jeep ride there was so awe-inspiring that by the time we got there we were giddy with excitement and vowed not only to hike the day away, but also to walk back to town instead of taking a jeep so that we could properly enjoy the scenery. We set off on the hike, a trail that was almost as chunky as the road to our farm, but also nestled in a deep valley with mountains looming up on either side, and cows on the other side of the fence, and these wax palms towering over us. Eventually we walked into the acutal forest, and followed the trail through thick threes and vines, and walked over streams along precariously positioned logs. The muddiness of the trail, combined with these rived crossings, meant that we were often on slippery ground and trying hard to keep our footing while also saying dry and upright. For the most part, we were successful, except for one minor incident in which I (Kat) straight up fell into the water. It wasn´t my fault! We were walking along a particulaty wet part of the trail, next to the stream, and I thought I was putting my foot down on solid ground, but it turns out that I was falling into the stream instead. Oops! After finding myself horizontal, wet, and bruised, I leapt up and immediately salvaged my camera. I was so worried about it breaking that I didn´t even notice my own condition until my camera was safely dry on a rock and I was sure it was still functional. At that point I noticed that my entire right side was soaked, I had a scratch on my arm, and Sophie was a couple of feet away dying of laughter. Great, success! We both howled for a few mintues, then after some minor adjustments we carried on, me on mich shakier legs from this point on, but thankfully managing to stay vertical for the rest of the hike.

After a couple of hours, and with absolutely no trail signs to let us know where we were or how much longer we had left to go, we decided to turn back for fear of being stranded on this mountain overnight. When we were about halfway back, the dark, ominuous sky opened up and unleashed a torrential downpour all over us. Yay! We had heard that it rained in the valley every afternoon, but for some odd reason we didn´t deem that a good enough reason to bring out rainjackets with us (who needs em, anyway?) so to say we got soaked would be a huge understatement. There was nothing we could do, so we carried on, through the mud and the rain, laughing and enjoying every minute. At one point we got to an especially deep rut in the trail, so we decided to walk along the edges, which rose much higher than the muddy rut and seemed to be the better way to go. I was on one side, and Soph was on the other. Eventually, her side tapered off to a very narrow stip of land, too narrow, in fact, to walk along successfully. She realized she was stranded when it was too late, the ravine was too deep (and way too muddy) for her to jump down into it. She wisely decided to use the fence to help helpself along the narrow part, but again, for a reason we will never know, this fence was made or barbed wire. I watched as she struggled with it, tried to find part that weren´t spiky to hold on to, and maneuver her body in a way that would get her through without getting stuck on the barbs. Within moments her shirt was caught on the wire in about ten places, her feet were splayed in an almost split, her arms were stretched out, and she was whimpering 'I´m going to fall in all this mud!' Needless to say, I was doubled over with laughter, but had enough wherewithall to take some incriminating pictures. I also couldnt do anything but watch, because I was on the other side of this ravine with no way of getting to her. Lucky me! After a few minutes she freed herself, and we pushed on through the rain. By the time we got back to the road, our dreams of walking back instead of taking a jeep were pretty irrelevant, for many reasons! So as usual, Sophisticated Koala vs. Mother Nature ends in an undisputed victory for the latter, and hilarious stories for the former. All is still right with the world.

We got back to the farm wet and happy, and immediatly took scalding hot showers (made availabe by the awesome solar heat system in place at the farm) and settled in for more relaxation. More food, reading, chilling, and another beautiful sunset, and we were asking ourselves whether we would ever be able to leave this place.

The following day we woke up early to work! Emma had told us that we could work in the morning, from 8-12, in exchange for a big free lunch. An unbeatable deal, especially since given the location and the nature of this farm, I would have worked for free. Forever. We were given two scrubby pieces of grain sack, and told to rub the moss of the coffee trees. Since it was an organic farm, this had to be done by hand, whereas on other farms they would have sprayed chemicals instead. After figuring out how to keep out footing on the insanely steep incline, we had a wonderful scrubbing away, with frequent pauses to rest and look out over the sweeping mountains. I´m surprised we got anything done, considering the fact that the view was indescribable, and we both caught outselves just staring out at it, wondering how the hell we wound up there, and taking in the meaning of what it was to be in such a place, at that very moment. At noon we were rewarded with an enormous lunch, and sat around the long table with the other workers stuffing out faces. After lunch, guess what we did? You got it, chilled out some more! After another afternoon of rest and relaxation, and an evening of dinner and good converstaion with the other people staying the farm, we went to bed feeling totally content.

We had put off making a decision on whether to stay or leave until the following morning. Although it was the kind of place I felt like I could live in, we both decided that if we didn´t leave then, we may never be able to do so. We both felt like we had gotten the most out of the experience, seen what there was to see, worked, and recharged our batteries. We also had the promise of working on another farm in our near future, so we figured that we may as well get there sooner and stay there longer. But Salento really dug deeply into both of our hearts. It was one of our highest points, it was the hardest to leave, and its definitely a place we both want to get back to sometime in the future. It definitely solidified Colombia as our favorite country thus far. We can only hope to have similar experiences in our future destinations!

Contented and feeling blessed,
Sophisticated Koala