Salento – A Little Post for a Little Place

Before Manizales, I had been in Salento, lauded as the Hoi An of Colombia (for those of you who aren’t familiar with Hoi An, it’s kind of the Sirince of Vietnam. If that seems random, I guess you’d say Sirince is pretty much the Basel of Turkey. If you’ve not managed to get there, you could say that Basel is a bit like the Akko of Switzerland. Although if that’s too off the beaten track, a good comparison for Akko is that it could be the Wannaka of Israel. Which really should clear things up, Britian being so close in proximity to New Zealand).

Colourful little houses, curious but ruthless locals getting used to the recent influx of tourism, and absolutely full of coffee plantations and giant palm trees, Salento has that familiar but somehow unique small town feel. I went on a coffee tour which was a little bit interesting, although the generous consumption of pure coffee at the end left me pretty much buzzing for the entire 3 days there. I ground some up myself with my huge guns and even ate a raw coffee bean which just tasted like ground.

One of Salento’s key activities is the Coccorra Valley hike, a gruelling 2 hour uphill trudge in rented wellies, the only positive of which was to establish that the Europeans I befriended at the hostel and who were my hiking buddies had never heard the word wellies before, the hilarity due to a similar word you can only imagine.

At the end of the uphill 2 hours however, you reach a Land-Before-Time-esq landscape of vast plains, rolling hills and the biggest palm trees on earth (they actually are, read wikipedia). We informally measured one using our collective observational skills and came out at 47 metres tall, exacerbated by the optical illusion caused by such a thin trunk and a huge leafy top. A field full of Sideshow Bobs, I remarked in my head so as not to lose my new friends with outdated Simpson’s references.

The highlight of Salento, however, was the ridiculously intense football match organised by the Belgian guys at my hostel (OK WE FUCKING GET IT BELGIUM YOU ARE SUDDENLY AMAZING AT FOOTBALL JUST CHILL OUT ALREADY) of internationals vs colombian locals. At high altitude, with no football gear and after having done a four hour hike, I wasn’t in the best of shape but being the only Englishman in play I had to talk the talk, which mainly involved a lot of swearing. In the event, the teams ended up mixed but for the three of you reading this who care even slightly, MY TEAM WON! This story in itself is one of those self-indulgent things that pretty much nobody can relate to but I’ve written it now so just move on will ya. That night I dreamt of Sideshow Bob playing football against me with a raw coffee bean as the ball.

Not a great deal more to say about Salento you’ll be pleased to hear, although I ate a fantastic final lunch of grilled trout and potatoes for two quid which I just feel is worth noting.