I took advantage of another cheap VivaColombia flight to save myself the 8 or so hour journey by bus to Salento.

Salento is a sleepy little town in the Quindío department, in the Zona Cafetera region of Colombia, where tourists and locals alike stop by to appreciate the incredibly scenic landscapes of rolling green farm paddocks, and the famous 60 feet tall wax palms found in the Valle de Cocora (Cocora Valley).

Luckily, I was reunited with part of the gang that made Bogotá so enjoyable in Maria and Jake, and along with Marsy whom I met in a diner during dinner, we set out on the at times arduous trek of the Valle de Cocora. We (Maria) complained all of the way up the "Wall of Pain", a 40 minute or so uphill trek, but the views at the top were well worth it, and some of the most picturesque I've seen in my travels around South and Central America.

Marsy, Maria, Jake and I, with the Cocora Valley behind us

In the afternoon, Marsy and I went on a tour of the Don Elias coffee farm, a small family run farm that undertakes the entire process without the aid of automated machinery. We learned about the coffee process from picking the beans to roasting and grinding, then were treated to a fresh cup of coffee from the farm's produce.

Maria, Jake and I shared a few bottles of wine at Marsy's hostel in the evening, where a Colombian band played some very Peruvian sounding music until midnight. Then we bid each other a final (and slightly tipsy) goodbye as again the gang was to be split up the next day. Fortunately, we're likely to bump into each other again as Maria and Jake have plans to make it to Australia this year, however in the meantime it's a brief bus ride to Cali, the apparent Salsa capital of South America and the next stop on my way towards Quito, where I plan to enjoy my 27th birthday.