Leaving "La Serana" - Don´t forget to always be careful though!

I spend another day at the property of the hostel "La Serana", just hanging out and writing for a bit, enjoying the beautiful view into the coffee highlands. It is so peaceful and calm here, I am thinking, a great contrast to the hectic and loud city of Bogota, where you always have to watch your back a little bit as you are out alone on the streets of the city center. Here, I feel very relaxed and safe.
As it comes out later that day, actually just half an hour before I want to leave with another girl for the night bus to Medellin, you should still never get reckless, no matter how relaxed you might feel. She went back down to the town by herself to get a couple more things for the bus ride (the hostel is about a 20 minute walk outside of town) and wanted to walk back to the hostel all by herself again in the dark, through the middle of the countryside, instead of taking a taxi for about 6000 COP (less than 3 Euros). 100 m before the hostel she gets robbed by two guys on a motorcycle that threaten her to get her backpack and take off with it within 1 minute, leaving her back in the dark. Luckily nothing happened to her because she gave them what they wanted right away, but a lot of her stuff is gone including all pictures of a 6-months Central and South America trip and a big part of a settled feeling of security and self-confidence.
I had to leave Salento by myself that night, just half an hour later, and believe me, you have no idea how relieved I felt, arriving in my hostel in Medellin safely at 4 the next morning.

Lesson to learn out of that from my subjective perspective:
It is like in every other country, too, you shouldn´t forget to walk around with a good portion of common sense and awareness for your environment and the circumstances surrounding you. You have to know what to watch out for and how to handle yourself considering that, and that´s about it.

I have always been very careful over here, getting advise from locals or foreigners about a place in advance, acting according to it and I never felt in danger. Instead, I really enjoyed to travel one of the most beautiful countries I have ever seen with its extraordinarily friendly people.
If you have doubts, I suggest that you come see for yourself, in my opinion it is more than worth a trip and the slogan fits: (if you know how to handle yourself) the only risk is wanting to stay!

Making coffee myself at Finca Sachamama in the middle of the coffee highlands

Actually, I planned on leaving further to Medellin today but because this place is just a little Eden and because I don´t think I should leave the coffee region without at least having been at one real coffee finca, I decide to stay one more day to go on another hike through the highlands to visit a real finca.
There are no maps of the region, so we just get some vague directions from the hostel as our group starts walking at 10 in the morning.
It doesn´t sound that complicated and since we all have outstanding orientation qualities (hehe!), we don´t worry at all, not seeing any signs for our destination on the way.
After 2 and a half hours, we are supposed to reach it. Instead, we end up at some old locals house after about 3 hours, that tells us we missed the turn to the finca about 2 hours ago and walked all the way in the wrong direction. Hm, so much for the orientation qualities, lol!
Luckily, the old man in white Yoga clothes has a cell phone and calls Pedro, the owner of the finca, to pick us up with his Jeep. :)
While we wait, we have a little chat with the old man in perfect English. His name is Swam, he is over 60 and  lived in the UK for 15 years, he tells us, where he still has a daughter. As we talk, we are surrounded by his beautiful young wife (I would say about my age or younger), 3 more daughters and his son. All the children get homeschooled in English and Yoga by him. Interesting, I think, while he also homeschools us with wisdoms about life, living and how to find inner peace! That´s exactly what we need after going in the wrong direction for 2 hours in the burning sun, attacked by dozens of moskitos half the way :)

After we finally arrive at Pedro´s finca after a long bumpy ride up the mountain on the other side of the river, he serves us by far the BEST coffee I have ever tasted, even tops the one that I had in Bogota a couple of days ago by lengths!!! It is so mild that even I, who used to drink more sugary milk with a hint of coffee, was able to drink it black and enjoy it!

But now the best: we spent the whole day at the finca, making that most delicious coffee ourselves, from plucking the coffee cherries right from the plant until roasting the beans and packing them up for taking them back home!
End of the story: I have a 250 g-pack of self-produced Colombian coffee that I am bringing back home to Germany to share with you guys! :)) But take your time to think about wheather you really want to have a taste of it or not, because I am pretty sure that the coffee you will have to keep drinking in Germany, will taste  somehow like rotten water afterwards! ;)

Valle de Cocora - Indiana Jones with wet pants

For the second day, I gathered another couple of people that I met at the hostel  to take a Wheely (Jeep) to the Valle de Cocora, that is supposed to have the highest wax palms in Colombia, all placed in a valley between the mountains.
It is a really steep hike through the jungle that takes about 5 hours... For me it was a long 5 hours because it doesn´t take me longer than 15 minutes to slip on a stone while trying to pass over a river and falling right into it. Not a surprise for anybody that knows me for a while, right? ;)
Well, so half of my clothes are soaking wet for the rest of the hike, which wouldn´t even have been that bad because it is a warm day, but as I said, the hike is pretty steep, so up in the altitude it gets kind of cold.
None the less, I think making it up there anyways (and back!) officially qualifies you as some kind of Indiana Jones! :) At least that is exactly what you feel like, going up through deep jungle, passing waterfalls and rivers over small wodden bridges that look like they will break into a thousand pieces with every step you make!
Some young guy from Switzerland almost runs on by us twice on the way, still no idea how he did that. I´m pretty sure he must have had a lot of Red Bull or something like that! It´s the only explanation that meks sense, right? ;)
It is very much worth the excaustion though because at the top of the valley we get served a great hot portion of Aguapanela con Queso. It is a local specialty, tastes like very very veeeeeeeeeeeeery sweet honey water (actually is natural sugar though) and is indeed served with cow cheese that you tear in little pieces and throw right into it. I know, it sounds aweful but after a hike like that it tastes just wonderful!

Horseback riding through the coffee region with Omar

The first day that I arrive, it is early in the morning and it's still a while before I can move to my dorm, so I spontaneously decide to do a horseback riding tour through the coffee region.
The guide is a middleaged guy, looking like a Latin-American cowboy, named Omar that doesn't speak any Spanish... Again, lol!
He still manages to to calm me down enough to actually stay on the horse. I'm not really into horses, you know? Oh god, what was I thinking?!
Well, I really don't know but it came out to be a fanastic trip because Omar is really a great horse guide. I basically didn't need to do anything, Omar whistled and my horse Enano did whatever he wanted. I'm pretty sure Omar is the Horse Whisperer!
I even ended up going up and down hikes that I wouldn't have hiked without a horse, through valleys, up really narrow and stony mountain paths and into the "jungle" of the valley to a hidden waterfall.

Hidden waterfall in the jungle

Extremely trustworthy bridge leading to the waterfall :)

Making friends with Enano

Me and mi amigo Enano cruising through the valley

Thank you to Omar for that! :)

Salento - beautiful Colombian small town

After having to wait for 2,5 hours in the early morning for the bus to Salento at Pereira bus terminal, I finally arrive after another 1,5 hours of riding a small van there. And it's simply beautiful, see for yourselves:

Local snack wagons

Road to the hostel... It's way behind the hill!

Plaza with Jeeps - only available transportation around here

View from the hostel - all over the coffee region

Change of travelling plans - strikes in the coffee region, bloquade of roads and local food asking for its tribute

The first half of my second day in Bogota, we spend walking around through the richer parts of the city. 

It's weird, it looks like a totally differnt city here. The wealthy housing areas, where the Presidential Residence is located as well, are highly secured, police and private security everywhere and the T-Zone, the fancy restaurant and club area, looks like taken straight out of LA.

 And again, dangerous poor areas are just a couple of hundred meters further up the hill. I think that's really odd.

Later on, Freek helps me to get some information about travelling further. 

Unfortunately, it comes out that you cannot book flights online with the cheap flight provider VivaColombia with a foreign credit card. I could still book directly at the airport 24 hours before but as not everything has gone as planned so far already, I decide to better not take the risk and just change my travelling route for now.

It's not that easy to figure out where I can actually go at the moment because, of course with my luck, right when I want to leave, farmers in the coffee region start striking and blocking some roads. Not that great for me since I have to go by bus now if I don't want to pay triple for flying.

I end up taking the overnight bus to Pereira, to go further to a little place called Salento in the middle of the coffee region. But before that, I have another local dinner with Freek, filled Arepas, basically stuffed like a Taco with all kinds of local ingredients. 

After all, probably not a good idea, because instead of taking the bus at 8 p.m., I end up having to take the one at 9 p.m. because once I arrive at the bus terminal for a 7 hour bus ride, my stomach starts telling me to go f!?$ myself, so I spend the next 45 minutes in the public bathroom at the terminal, lol!

I'm ok in the bus then, but don't really get to catch a lot of sleep. Why? Well, the air conditioning is all the way up, it's freezing cold and out of the speakers comes blasting super-loud fiesta music all night long that makes me feel like I am at some kind of oldfashioned Hispanic night club, even through I'm wearing ear plugs.

Oh well, good thing is, I get to see a lot of Colombia at night. 

But there really isn't anything exciting to see: no road bloquades, no robberies, FARC or anything else horrible going on. 

We pass a couple of quiet villages along the road, with old men sitting in front of tiny local bars, having some beers.

Besides that, there is only countryside and a regular road passing stopp every half an hour or so, where there is either Colombian military letting the bus pass without any problems or even just some civilian woman in a little cabin by the road. 

This is why I missed my bus

Doesn't really look any different to European Autobahn as the road is quite busy, too. And I'm thinking: that is it? If I would have known that before, uff!

Bogota city tour and an attempt to climb Monserrate

In the late morning, Freek takes me on a couple-of-hour-walking tour through the city after I finally manage to pull out money with my regular German ATM card. Some of the main streets are blocked for cars on sundays for a couple of hours, so you can walk, run, skate or most commonly, ride your bike down the streets.
Therefore, it is a very relaxed walk, even though the streets are filled with people now. They call that "La cycluida". I think that would be a really great thing to do in German towns as well!
As we walk down the streets of the city center, it feels like we are on a gigantic festival because there are little snack places all along the road where you can get almost everything, from fresh fruit shakes and smoothies to meat on the stick or fried empanadas. And an amazing wide range of other fried things, sweet or spicy, lol!
I have a little bit of everything and especially enjoy trying out fresh fruit that you can only get here, in any kind of variation: Cuanabanas, Lulos and many other names that I can't remember!

We start hitting to a part of the city called "La Candelaria" that looks very hippie, bright colors everywhere and little shops that sell any kind of handcraft. It is the oldest part of the city, so the houses are all colonial style and there is a small old plaza where people hang out and chill, everything and everybody seems very relaxed.
We have the best coffee I have ever tasted until then at Juan Valdez, a local coffee shop chain that buys parts of the best coffees of the country to sell them in its local stores in Colombia. The usual coffee you get here is actually pretty bad because the good one all gets exported.

From there, we walk towards the Monserrate, a 3152 m high mountain, right at the edge of the city, from where you can overlook the whole city. It takes 500 steep stairs to climb it.
Unfortunately, I only make it till stair number 250 until I start feeling really dizzy and have to sit down, so I don't throw up, lol! I hear a lot of locals passing on by easily, giggling "gringa" at me very obviously! Freek says it's the alttitude because Bogota is already pretty high up itself and then trying to go up even further from there within the first couple of days usually hits the foreigners that are not used to it. Sure, lets leave it at that, lol!

We end our tour with having a really tasty (and surprisingly not fried! or at least mostly not) dinner at a local restaurant. I forgot how it was called because it was kind of hard to pronunce, but it consisted of soup with chicken and vegetables in it, served with an extra plate with half an avocado, sour creme, capers, a pile of rice, a fried platano (cooking banana) and a piece of arepa (flat round bread, made out of corn flower or something like that... tasting like paper, lol!).
Now, what makes it interesting is that you cut all of it up and throw it all together in the bowl (even the avocado and the banana!). Sounds really weird but OMG, it tastes delicious!
Also, whatever kind of vegetable or fruit you get here, it is like an explotion of taste in your mouth every time! Everthing is so fresh and has 10 times more taste then back in Germany, it's unbelievable!

Through our tour, we passed the usual sightseeings, the main plaza with the Presidential Palace, beautiful churches and other old buildings but what stuck out most to me was, how close those sights and touristic areas are actually to really bad and poor areas. Sometimes you could already end up there by making one wrong turn. Another turn and you might be in a really wealthy area again. It was surprising to me, how close together and mixed up everything is here. I was very lucky to have a guide like Freek who always knew where to make aturn and where not.

After all, it was a very busy and overwhelming day, so I pass out, sleeping like a stone, waking up Freek a couple of times with my snorring as he tells me later, lol! As nice as it is here at daytime, it gets freezing cold at night, so I won't get rid of my cold during my whole stay in Bogota!