Colombia day 16: Salento.

After a 6 hour bus ride we arrive in Armenia, it is 4 am, we drink a red wine and wait until 5 am for the first bus to leave for Salento.

Salento Surroundings

The journey takes about 45 minutes.

Salento

Salento is a beautiful town in the famous coffee belt and a good place as a base camp to explore the area.

We arrive at 6 in the morning at our lodge los Tres Leones, the Colombian hospitality is incredible, we leave our backpacks, we go to have breakfast and they prepare a room for us so we can rest until they give us ours that are busy.

Coffee beans

After a two-hour siesta we decide to walk to visit a coffee plantation, La Arzacia. They grow organic coffee, show us the plantation and the process of picking and roasting. The aroma is intoxicating and has a delicious taste. Organic castle arabica variety.

Coffee plantation la Azarcia

On the way back we take a Willy (a World War II jeep that arrived a few years ago in this area, it is the main means of transport in rural areas, it was a great success among the locals, so much so that a yipao (full jeep) is a valid measure for agricultural products and at parties they decorate them.

Willy

Salento is a colorful city of about 4,000 inhabitants, full of life.

Salento Main Square

It coincides that today there is a metal festival in the main square and to get there you have to exchange kilos of waste to recycle for the entrance.

Exchanging kilos of waste to recycle for the entrance

However, on Saturdays and Sundays it is full of tourists.

Salento

It is worth spending a day discovering its corners.

Salento

Breakfast: bakery hotel Colombia 18,000 COP.

Visit to Hacienda Cafetera La Arzacia 10.000 COP per pax (the sale of coffee in this hacienda is very cheap and delicious, it is cheaper than buying it in a supermarket of the Carulla chain in Bogotá and it is ecological.

Food: Donde Lucy 24,000 COP 3 menus (delicious).

Dinner: Mocam 35.000 COP 2 crepes and hamburger.

Lodging: Los Tres Leones: 45.000 COP double room with bathroom (terrace with a view of Salento, community kitchen, great variety of birds in freedom like hummingbirds).