After Medellin, my friends and I went to Rio Claro, a beautiful river in the middle of nowhere. Sadly, I still couldn't do anything really strenuous, but my friends said the caving there was lots of fun. The scenery was enough for me though. We stayed in a lodge with open air rooms overlooking the river and woke up to the sounds of the forest and the river currents. It was lovely and good for some R&R.
Salento, Colombia, was next on our list and after nine hours of bus rides, we finally made it. Salento is a lovely town with one town square and lots of coffee plantations in the surrounding hills. Perhaps the most beautiful "hike" there is through the valley of the wax palms (Valle de Cocora). Palm trees rising 60 meters high blanket a small valley filled with beautiful flowers, cows, horses and farms. It was a lovely walk and worth the pain in my knees.
The next day, a group of us went horseback riding for a few hours to tour a coffee plantation. I hadn't been on a horse in years and after a few frightening gallops I finally found my stride and enjoyed every moment! We rode for about an hour or so to reach the plantation, took a tour with a man the epitome of the romanticized version of the coffee grower, complete with his Panama hat and working hands. The best part is that the tour only took about 20 minutes and gave us enough information without boring us. Afterwards, we enjoyed perhaps the most delicious cup of coffee (all organic) I've had.
That night, a group of us found this strange game we'd heard about from other travelers and the locals. It's called Tejo and is something similar to horseshoes with gunpowder. The object is to throw small lead weights into clay pits on the other side of a small game area to explode triangle-shaped pieces of paper loaded with gunpowder. We made a night of it and had so much fun!
I didn't want to leave Salento, but alas, new adventures awaited in Bogota! Bogota is a huge city. It sprawls like nothing I've seen before. From the top of the hill, complete with a gondola ride, church and sweeping views, you can still only see a fraction of the city.
I visited the Gold Museum, which didn't disappoint. There are artifacts from centuries of peoples living throughout Columbia and I even saw some of the artifacts removed from Ciudad Perdida. I also visited the museum of the sculptor of the fat statues in Medellin. He is really quite amazing in his work and I enjoy his "take" on the human form, but I also got to see some Picasso, Monet, Manet, Renoir and other amazing artists too. Life would be incomplete without art, in my humble opinion; for every person that says they don't "get" art or don't really understand it, I think they just need to lose themselves in a museum for a while.
After Bogota, a friend and I made our way to San Agustin, Colombia...that will be in the next blog update.
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