Holiday in Colombia (6): Cocora Valley
Today we visited three locations in the Cocora Valley located just south of the city of Pereira. We set off at 9 am and returned to the hotel about 6.30 pm, so it was quite a long day but an immensely enjoyable one without too much time in the coach.
The first visit was to the beautiful little town on Filandia. This would always have been a delightful place to spend an hour or so because so many of the buildings are so colourfully decorated, just crying out to be photographed. But our guide Christian had, without telling us, arranged for a group of schoolchildren to be in the main square at the same time as us and greet us. Silvia and I both received little handwritten notes and had photographs with some of the kids. Before we left the town, we all sat outside having a coffee in the square.
Next stop was a privately-owned farm called “La Esperanza” which grows palm trees. A particular species called the wax palm or ceroxylon alpinum is grown here and is the tallest in the world reaching heights of up to 60 metres (almost 200 feet). This is actually the national tree of Colombia, but in fact it is not a tree (it has no branches) and it is in danger of becoming extinct. We spent about an hour and a half making a steepish climb and being told all about the wax palm.
Lunch was down the road at another privately-owned wax palm farm called ”La Fonda el Escobal”. Other than breakfast each day, this was the only meal included in the cost of the holiday and most of us, including Silvia and me, had the local delicacy of grilled salmon trout. Before leaving the farm, we were invited to form pairs and plant new palm trees and give them a name, so Silvia and Alison – the two Spanish speakers in the group – teamed up to plant a new tree which they called Esperanza.
The third stop of the day was another delightful little town called Salento. As well as the main square, there was a street specialising in hotels and artisan and souvenir shops and every establishment had a different combination of the brightest of colours. There was time for Silvia and I to have a cold drink at a place on the square with the fun name of “Cafe Willys”.