Salento is the coffee growing region of Colombia and the 3rd biggest coffee producer in the world! A tiny town, with a population of maybe 4000 or 5000 people, it looked and felt a bit like a South America version of Pai in Thailand.

We found a really cool hostel, a mix of camping and hostel rooms, also home to a few tiny kittens, a cat and a dog!

Went on a few excursions during the day, up to the town viewpoint, on a big trek around the mountains and valley and around one of the Eco-Coffee plantations.

The trek was quite hard but amazing views, especially when we got into the valley. The mountain side was made up of forest and surrounded by clouds but the valley was more sparse and grass covered, also filled with gigantic palm trees! Not sure of the height but we looked like ants next to them, our only guess was that they had to keep growing to get to the sunlight in the deep valley. You take a cool 4x4 jeep to the starting point of the trek, about 8 in the back and 3 of us hanging off the rear step! We met a couple of lads from Chile on the jeep, trekked with them and went to a real local pool club that night! A lot of the locals dress like Cowboys and play very different pool games to us!

A tour around the coffee plantation was nice, interesting to see how the coffee is farmed from start to finish. I was told that it's the best and freshest coffee ever... However the fresh cup of black coffee we tried at the end still hasn't changed my opinion of coffee much!

The rest of our time was spent mooching around town both during the days and in the evenings. Surprisingly the town has some of the best food both in range and taste we've had in one place in South America so far, and all really good value!

A nice stop before some hectic places coming up, good to see a traditional Colombian town and the coffee region. Next stop meeting all the guys in Bogota, then onto a 'backpackers favourite' Medellin and then up to carnival, hectic few weeks ahead!