Valle de Cocora, Colombia

This day began in the mountain town of Salento and I was on an Arepa mission. Rebecca dealt well with all my talk from the day before about how much money these women, selling breakfast Arepas, could make if they simply had a frying pan on their grill for eggs, some avocado and a bottle of hot sauce. Thus, I ran out very early in the morning rain and found a roadside grill pumping out the morning fare. Back at the hostel, eggs were fried, avocado sliced and this Colombian, mountain breakfast ritual was taken to the next level. I cooked too much as usual, so the remaining Arepas were stuffed and packaged up for our day trek into Valle De Cocora.

Getting to the Valley is half the fun of this day trip, as you ride in or on jeep taxis . We took the inside on the way there and rode standing outside on metal grates, while holding onto the roof, for our way back into Salento. The ride begins in town and slowly makes its way down the mountain into the valley. We were fortunate enough to be doing this on a weekday and got out as early as we could, so as to avoid the late sleeping tourist rush. As soon as your taxi stops, you are greeted by a few, but still magnificently tall palm trees and cowboys trying to rent you horses. Our route was to be a short one hour hike to the heart of the Valley and the tallest of palms, so horses were of course not needed. Some brave souls set out on five to six hour routes, through all sorts of terrain and lots of mud. All the routes began together and winded their way through farm fields and surrounding mountains, again, blanketing us in green, with some hanging fog. Trekking along the cow paths was a challenge at times. There were many near impossible parts to cross, without getting ridiculously muddy, something I did everything to avoid and successfully for that matter. This is why many rent rubber boots before they begin. The paths began to reveal a few more palms, extending dozens and dozens of feet into the air, but soon we arrived at fork and followed the signs of our supposed route.

We were now in dense forest, following a river and for the most part uphill. We crossed many bridges made of slats and wire and kept thinking the glorious Valley would reveal itself around the next corner. This of course did not happen and about four hours in, we ran into others that were frustrated and turning back on their tracks. While the beauty of this jungle and river were not lost on us, our legs were tiring and we had decided on our route, so that we could see a coffee plantation back in Salento that afternoon. We too turned around with the others and engaged in small talks with passing hikers about what path we should be looking for. Eventually, our growing group of lost people found the path we needed to get into the valley. Of course, this was not the path we ever intended on being on, rather the path that was now going to get us out of this mess and to the promised land. We hiked up and up along countless switchbacks for another hour plus and emerged, covered in sweat, but with an incredible view of mountains and a valley twisting below. Still no sights of palms that were told to be unimaginably tall, so we began our decent. Here and there we got a glimpse of different parts of the opening valley, but had to travel multiple kilometers more to do so. It definitely paid off, as our weary legs, from an unexpected full day of climbing, got to rest on a lookout point of sorts, with the treasure we had been working for all day. These palms are truly a sight to see and cannot be understood by picture alone. The absolute ridiculousness of their height is not even digestible, unless you see moving life forms near them in the valley below. These palms can grow over 60 meters high throughout their over 100-year life span. We took a sheep path, as a short cut down the rest of the mountain to the bottom of the valley and it was quite comical to pass a single fallen palm for minutes on end. Staring back up into the mountains and finishing our trek out through countless strands of the giant palms made this whole day worth it. We mustered up the strength to hold onto the back of a jeep and headed back up into the mountain town of Salento.

View more pictures of Valle de Cocora by clicking the Photography tab at the top of the page.