Coffee & Museums in the Colombian Highlands

From Tayrona National Park at the Caribbean Coast, we moved all the way to the small village of Salento in the Colombian Highlands. This trip took us an entire day, starting with a one-hour taxi ride to the airport of Santa Marta. From there we flew to Bogotá and then onward to Pereira to the West of the capital. Finally, a two-hour taxi ride through rush hour traffic brought us to our accommodation outside of Salento well after sunset.

Salento’s location at an altitude of around 1’900 meters makes it a great place for growing coffee. The hills around the village are home to many coffee plantations and we spent one day visiting two of them. There, we learned about the process of growing, harvesting and processing coffee. What was most impressive to us was that the harvest is still done by hand. Since not all coffee beans on one plant ripen at the same time, workers must pick each bean individually, making this an extremely labor-intensive process. The plantations were home not only to coffee plants, but many other exotic trees as well. These are supposed to provide shade for the coffee, as well as nutrition to the soil. Of course, we also got to taste the coffee. The second plantation we visited had a very elaborate tasting room, where they tried to teach us, with little success, how to recognize different flavors in the coffee. Like in wine tasting, they had samples of about 40 different tastes the experts can notice in coffee. Good ones like hazelnut, nutmeg or lime and bad ones like rubber or ash, which signal that the coffee was roasted for too long.

Coffee plantation in Salento

Ripe (red) and unripe (green) coffee beans

Dried coffee beans without shells

Green banana bunch on a coffee plantation

Pink banana bunch on a coffee plantation

Japanese siphon in the coffee tasting room

Besides the coffee, the other big reason to visit Salento is the nearby Valle del Cocora. The lush valley is home to a large concentration of Colombia’s national tree, the wax palm. There were regular jeep taxis from the center of Salento to the valley, from where we started the last hike of our trip. The first part of the hike led up through the jungle along a creek. From there, the way down went through a more open landscape with large groups of wax palms around. The wax palm is the tallest palm tree in the world and can grow up to 60 meters high. It was truly impressive to stand next to these giants.

Marta crossing a bridge in the Cocora valley

Cocora valley with giant wax palm trees

Giant wax palm trees in the Cocora valley

Sam standing at the bottom of a giant wax palm tree in the Cocora valley

For the trip from Salento back to Bogotá, we chose to take a bus from nearby Armenia rather than a flight. Unfortunately, on this last bus ride in South America we had our first bad experience. It started with our bus being delayed without anyone giving us any information about when it will go. After about two hours of waiting, we were informed that the bus was cancelled and that we could change our ticket for the next day. Since we did not feel like spending one day in Armenia, we managed to book a ticket with another company that still had a bus leaving on that day. The traffic on this day was terrible and we spent hours in the bus hardly moving at all. It was late at night when we finally arrived in Bogotá.

Bogotá, the capital of Colombia, was our last destination in South America. The city is full of history, but will remain in our memory most likely for its bad weather. Because of its high altitude of 2’640 meters, temperatures rarely exceed 20 °C here. Fog in the morning is the norm and it rains a lot. We did a walking tour of the historic center, which has a lot of nice churches and old government buildings. Standing out was the modern Palace of Justice. It had to be rebuilt in 1985 after it was completely destroyed during a siege by the communist guerilla group M-19. There are suspicions that drug lord Pablo Escobar funded the attack.

Palace of Justice of Colombia in Bogota

Cathedral of Colombia in Bogota

Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria in Bogota

Santuario Nuestra Señora del Carmen in Bogota

Given the weather in Bogotá, it is good that the city at least has some great museums. The Museo del Oro (Gold museum) hosts the world’s largest collection of gold artifacts. It also shows the different techniques that the ancient Colombian civilizations used to produce their elaborate gold products. Our favorite museum though was the Botero Museum, dedicated to the unique works of Colombia’s most famous living artist, Fernando Botero. The most recognizable feature of his paintings and sculptures are his play with proportions. Botero gave all the pieces in this museum for free under the conditions that he himself gets to decide where each painting is placed, and that the entrance to the museum remains free forever.

The Muisca raft at the Gold Museum in Bogota

"Family" at the Botero Museum in Bogota

"Mona Lisa" at the Botero Museum in Bogota

"Woman in front of a window" at the Botero Museum in Bogota