Bogotá, Manizales, Salento

So we left Barichara and made our way to Salento to visit Camille's friends. The fastest way was through Bogotá so we stopped there for a night to break up the drive.

Our next bus was to Manizales which was 8 hours so we decided to take a night bus to save money on hostels. So we had a full day to kill in Bogotá. We started by taking a free tour of the Botero museum. He's very famous in Colombia and around the world. His paintings depict humans with quite irregular proportions and less than flattering faces.

And look at that dog....

They say this painted was inspired by a certain American business man. Can you guess who?

His sculptures are also quite famous.

After the tour we also checked out the Gold museum. It has 4 floors of exhibits detailing the history of the relationship between humans and gold in South America. Quite fascinating.

We explored other parts of Bogotá then grabbed our bus at 11 at night. The road was very steep and windy which made it quite difficult to get a good night sleep.

We arrived in Manizales around 6 in the morning. Our next hostel was outside the city on a coffee farm but it was a bit too early to arrive. We attempted to explore Manizales a bit and get some breakfast. There was a very long teleferico from the bus station to the town center.

Camille is demonstrating how tired we felt.

The city was okay. At least they had this cool bird man statue.

We found a farmers market that had dozens and dozens of stands selling all sorts of fruits and vegetables. So we stocked up before heading out of the city to our coffee farm hostel.

We arrived just in time to partake in the coffee tour. It was super fascinating learning about the entire process of growing, harvesting and drying the coffee beans. The tour lasted a full 3 hours.

Here we are picking some coffee berries.

Here's a small machine demonstrating how they remove the skin from the fruit to reveal the bean.

One of the machines that dries the beans.

And of course there was a peacock walking around.

We booked a private room, but it was not this place. Maybe some day when our budget is a little larger.

But this was our little bungalow for the night!

Not a bad view...

Our accomodations were super tranquil. There were plenty of hammocks and lots of bird watching opportunities. Would definitely stay there again.

Then we headed south to visit Camille's friends Florence and Mauricio. We took a couple buses to get to Salento, a cute mountain town that we've both been to before.

And then we met up with Florence and Mauricio. We stayed at their house outside of Pereira. Really peaceful house located on a small coffee farm.

That evening we drove to Termales de Santa Rosa to relax in some hot spring pools. Without knowing, they had a 2 for 1 entrance promotion. Because of this, the place was mobbed with people. We still had a great time though and felt really relaxed afterwards.

Right behind the pools was a beautiful cascading waterfall. Underneath the rightmost falls was a small seat carved out of the rock. It was a right of passage to sit on the rock under the rushing water, so we felt obligated to try. It was really intense but quite refreshing.

The next day we took a Whilly (basically an old school Jeep) into the Valle de Cocora. 

The valley is famous for it's incredibly tall wax palms that tower over all of the other vegetation.

We hiked the main trail that takes you through the valley, then into the jungle, and eventually past all of the wax palms. Super nice hike!

There's also a hummingbird sanctuary hidden deep into the jungle.

Yeah these trees are tall. 

I'm super glad we went to Valle de Cocora especially since I didn't do it last time I was in the region.

We stayed another night at Florence and Mauricio's place then Mauricio drove us into town to catch a bus to Jardín. They were super nice and helpful and I look forward to seeing them again.

Now we are in Jardín for 3 nights for some hiking and relaxing before we take our flight home from Medellín on the 15th.