Day 15. Friday, 13th September. From Salento to El Cerrito. 131Miles

Salento

I hadn’t realised it was Friday, 13th until I started writing the blog.  It was a terrible night. A pleasant camp with good facilities, but right next to a small holding with cows, chickens and roosters. To add to the cacophony, barking dogs all around the neighbourhood. The roosters started crowing at some ungodly hour and the hens started, as soon as they began laying eggs. 

We’ve got the hang of our navigation systems, but they do have a habit of wanting to take us the wrong way down one-way streets. Getting out of Salento wasn’t too much of a problem though. 

Filandia

We are in the centre of the coffee growing region and Salento and Filandia are both on the tourist map. Jeeps are the local form of taxi and ferry people around. Filandia was actually prettier than Salento and we found a good supermarket to stock up with 20 litres of water, oats and milk.

Mauricio had given me the name of, what I thought would be a nice cafe, where we could sample  Colombian coffee, in the heart of the growing region. Parque del Cafe. I thought it was on our route and so wouldn’t take us out of our way. Google Maps took us on a wild goose chase down a dead end track though.

We turned around and a motorcyclist came after us and asked us if we were looking for Parque del Cafe. It looks as if Google might do this regularly. He said he would take us to the right place, so we followed him. A few kms later we arrived opposite the entrance. It looked more like an amusement park, with large, packed car parks on our side of the road.

Not what I expected. By this time it was more like lunch than coffee time, so we decided to drive on. Shortly after we had a horrible experience, running over a dog. Two dogs were chasing each other and one ran out in front of us. We couldn’t avoid it, sadly.

I have since read that the Parque is a UNESCO World Heritage site, dedicated to everything coffee related, where you learn coffee is so much more than just a bean. There is a 40 minute coffee show and a museum. You can learn all about the history, culture and unique taste of Colombian coffee. It might have been quite interesting, to me. Dennis not being a coffee drinker was not enthused.

The countryside we had been driving through was very attractive. Very productive too. As well as coffee, bananas, pineapples, mandarins and papaya were all in abundance. One thing I will remember about Colombia is the flora. Especially the flowering trees and climbers. Such vivid colours. Purple, orange, yellow, pink, and red.

Coffee.

There is a type of tree which from a distance looks as if it is covered in white flowers. The leaves are actually silver and waxy and look almost imitation. Like the leaves you see on telephone masts pretending to be trees.

Once we came to the end of the small, pretty roads we stopped for some lunch in Poki. Afterwards, joining the main highway south heading in the direction of Cali. We decided not to visit Cali, but to bypass it. We’re not really fond of big cities when travelling with Poki. Finding accommodation with secure parking is always a hassle. Our guide book doesn’t inspire us with Cali’s attributes, so we will keep heading south towards to the border with Ecuador.

El Cerrito

I couldn’t find us any camping or suitable accommodation on iOverlander, so we decided to look for a roadside hotel. They were few and far between, but in El Cerrito a Parador Rojo presented itself. I think they are a chain. It’s a truckers hotel with a garage and restaurant. The receptionist was lovely and we have an adequate room with a large fan. Very necessary as we are down low now and the temperature is over 30 degrees.

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