Salento - Happy birthday Erika!
Salento is what we expected from Villa de Leyva: a tiny village with colourful buildings, handicraft and textile shops everywhere and old men with typical hats hanging out on the main square. We loved it at first sight, especially because this lovely place will be our “home” for Erika’s birthday. We cannot ask for more...but there is something more: the Cocora Valley, which is one of the best spots we have seen in Colombia, after Tayrona.
On the first day in Salento we enjoyed the village simply wandering around and buying stuff: ponchos, bracelets and so on. We really couldn’t help ourselves. In the main square we bumped into the celebration of Salento’s anniversary. To be honest we expected music and dances, but instead there were speeches from the mayor and other administrative people. It was nice anyway.
On the second day, Erika’s birthday, we started off with a nice European style breakfast and coffee made for us by our host, who also was celebrating her birthday. What a nice coincidence!
The next stop was Cocora Valley. Erika’s ankle is going a bit better so we tried to do a short hike on the valley. We reached Cocora with a jeep, some of us sit on benches, some others standing up on the back. Marco was among the ones standing up...of course.
The valley was fantastic also at first sight, but from each step during the hike we got amazing views. The peculiarity of this place is the presence of wax-palm trees, which are very high palms. And then the colours, so vivid! The green of the valley and the light blue of the sky matches perfectly. We were absolutely happy to be in this place and to celebrate one of our birthdays in the nature.
To come back to Salento we took the same colectivo-jeep, but this time both of us were standing on the back, with large smiles on our face and wind messing up our hair!
To conclude the day, a part from another stroll in the village, we had a typical dinner at a restaurant recommended by our hosts. We had patacones (a big deep fried plantain chip with varied toppings) and troucha (trout with a lot, really a lot, of cheese on top). They both tasted good, but maybe a bit heavy and not recommended for a first appointment...luckily we are an established couple!