Vern: On our first full day in Salento, we prepared and ate our granola in the outdoor kitchen, then donned some rubber Wellington boots and hiked into town. A row of colourfully painted vintage jeeps were lined up on one side of the town square and in the centre of the square stood a life-size bronze statue of South America's great liberator, Simon Bolivar. Andrea roughy translated the plaque beneath the statue to read "Simon Bolivar marched into Salento on 12 ...

Vern: On the day that US forces found Osama Bin Laden, Vern and Andrea went into hiding. On a plantation outside of the idyllic town of Salento, in the heart of Colombia's lush coffee region, we laid down our backpacks in a rustic bamboo shack and collapsed into a hammock. The farm admistrator brewed a pot of own-grown 'suave' beans and served us mugs of sweet tinto (black coffee). And on the stilted terrace we sipped the product his labour, silenced by the magni...