Near Salento

Salento is the little town that brought tourists to the coffee region, and it has the looks to justify it. The main street, the Calle Real, runs uphill from the plaza in a row of brightly painted colonial houses with balconies and tiled roofs, lined with craft shops, cafes and restaurants, and ends at a long flight of steps up to a viewpoint over the valley. The town is small, only a few thousand people, and the atmosphere is relaxed.

The real attraction is the Cocora valley, a few kilometres away, where the wax palms rise out of green pasture like giant matchsticks. The Quindío wax palm is Colombia's national tree, and it can grow to sixty metres or more, the tallest palm in the world, towering above the grass in a landscape of mist, cloud forest and steep hills. Old Willys jeeps carry visitors from the plaza to the valley, packed with people standing on the running boards, a rite of passage in the town. The palms are best seen in the morning, when the mist lingers among the trunks.

The road to Salento from Armenia climbs through coffee farms and bamboo, with a steady series of bends, and the pavement is mostly reasonable, though it can be damp and slick. The final stretch down into the valley is narrow and full of jeeps, so go slowly. The road beyond the village toward the Cocora valley is rougher, with bumps and potholes, and in the rainy season can be muddy.

The area has long been a place where coffee farmers worked the land and mule trains carried the harvest, and several farms nearby offer tours where you can see the process from bush to cup. A local dish is trucha, trout from the cold streams, served with patacones, fried plantain slices, and it is the thing to order for lunch. Fuel is not something to rely on in Salento; Circasia, about eight kilometres away, is bigger and a safer place to fill the tank, and Armenia is larger still.

Weekends are crowded, with visitors from the big cities, so a midweek visit is calmer. Mornings are clear, afternoons often cloudy or rainy, and the nights are cool at this altitude of around 1,900 metres.