Dienstag, 17. Februar 2015

Salento and Vale de Cocora

Salento is a little town with a very pretty main street, a nice plazza , beautiful surroundings and full of tourists. The houses on the main street are beautifully painted and this gives such a nice atmosphere to the place. I wonder why they don't do that in many more places! Here some impressions of Salento



and here my favorite cafe. It is so nice to sit up there on the balcony , watch the people passing by, listen to some musicians playing on the street.

This man played his harph beautifully
On the street, indigenous women selling their beautifully made necklaces and other handicrafts
and here a glimpse at the surroundings of this little town:


From Salento I took a jeep taxi to the famous valley od Cocora. In this valley grows a special kind of palm tree, the wax palm, which can reach a height of 60 meters and it is one of the only places on eart where you can see it in its natural habitat.
It is a beautiful valley with so many different shades of green
and beautiful flowers


I wanted to hike about 10 km. back and forth up to Acaime where there is a little hut and a colibri observatory. After I hiked for about an hour there was so much water on the way and as I did not want to get my good leather hiking shoes wet I turned around and went back but was quite unhappy of not having made it. When I returned I saw they were renting horses to go to Acaime. I never rode a horse before but the guide thought that was not a problem, he would go with me. So we went. The ride took 3 hours. What I did not know was that the trail ascended a few hundred meters and the horse had to go up and down over rocks, partly even steps and cross a few rivers. Well, that was really exciting! and really scary, when the horse descended steep trails or steps!
I rode through dense cloud forest
and while my guide Darwin took this picture my horse used the short brake to eat a few leaves. It was a real nice horse. And a beautiful forest. 
This is one of the rivers we crossed. Can you see the hanging bridge in the background for the hikers?
That really was an adventure. Up at Acaime I saw the prettiest colibris I ever saw. one especially. Isn't this one gorgeous? I had a real hard time until I got him on a picture. They are so amazingly quick.
here some more beauties


On the way down we stopped at a pretty waterfall and after 3,5 hours we were back. It was a wonderful day. 

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