Cocora Valley

We stayed just outside the town of Salento at a great mountain retreat, with a beautiful view of the valley from our balcony -

Actually, further east up the valley, out of the right side of that picture, is the “true” Valle del Cocora - home to most of the remaining population of wax palm trees.

This is the national tree of Colombia. It can reach 60m (200 ft) high and is the tallest palm species in the world. They grow only at elevations of 2,000 - 3,000m (6,600 - 10,000 ft) and can live 200 years.

Deforestation and overgrazing has threatened this species, as the seedlings need shade to grow…

… but the contrasting green of the grassy area sure is pretty. :)

The rings on the trunks represent either 6 months or 1 year of growth (according to different sources), and they provide good anchorage for the bromeliads, which are epiphytes (they don’t need soil) -

As we reached the highest point on our hike…

… I glanced to my right…

… to see this Andean condor make a close pass by!

From a census done in 2021, there are only 180 condors in Colombia, but apparently a pair has chosen this valley as home.

From his wrinkly face, you can definitely tell they are in the vulture family. [Colombia is proving better for my bird pictures than Peru!]

I really didn’t want to leave this beautiful, peaceful place…

… but all good things must come to an end.

Jardin

This is by far our favorite town so far. We’ll have to see as the trip goes on, but it’s a really tough act to beat. This is a small colonial town about 3 hours drive south of Medellin.

Just about every building or apartment is freshly painted in bright colors…

… and the streets all seem to end in gorgeous mountain views…

… no matter which way you look!

This picture is emblematic of Jardin: the colorful local bus between towns…

… and the locals sitting around sipping coffee and people watching.

It’s also a town surrounded by working farms, as evidenced by various means of transportation -

The streets are very clean; most doors are solid wood, and the windows are covered with ornate wooden screens -

The town square is beautiful and welcoming…

… and definitely enjoyed by the locals at all hours:

On the one full day we had in town, we hiked out to a waterfall…

… enjoying the views and lushness along the way -

Even the isolated farms were brightly painted!

The waterfall just wasn’t all ‘that’…

… but we enjoyed the walk nonetheless.

Actually our favorite experience was at Gallito de Roca Preserve (Cock of the Rock). During our Peru trip, we actually stayed at a lodge named “Cock of the Rock”, after the namesake flamboyant birds of the forest. The males gather in a lek, to compete for attention by jumping, flapping and squawking. I thought I got some really nice pictures while in Peru, but they were nothing compared to the ones I got here.

And from the back, the plumage is also striking -

We had front row seats for their exhibition — (to see the video, drop down to the bottom of the blog email and click on “read in browser” and be sure to have your audio on)

I just love their fuzzy pantaloons. :)

Okay, enough birds… I’ll close with my favorite shot of the town in morning light -

Jungle trekking and...

Part of the allure for me to go to the Pacific coast was the possibility of seeing “dart frogs” - the brightly colored amphibians that indigenous people have used for poison for their arrows (from the toxin secreted by their skin). However to find them, you have to trek in a hot, humid jungle for several km. We also had to wear rubber boots because of all the mud we’d be walking through.

our guide, Pedro, with his machete slung over his shoulder

This jungle trek was the first of three activities that we had booked at the lodge, and it really tested us physically. We hiked up and down quite a few hills and climbed “steps” carved into the muddy hillside for an hour and a half.

Pedro only spoke Spanish, and our knowledge of Spanish is pretty much limited to reading menus. Thus, we unfortunately didn’t learn the names of any of the plants and animals we saw, nor any interesting tidbits about them, as I was hoping.

However, before we started on our trek, I used Google Translate to tell him I was really interested in seeing dart frogs. He gave me a thumbs up, and he delivered:

That little guy is only 1-2 inches long - thank goodness for zoom lenses! We saw several others with the same colors, but I didn’t get any better pictures than that one.

Our hike ended at this “centenarian” tree…

… but I only learned the fact of its age by consulting the lodge website to investigate our activities. At this point in the jungle, Pedro made motions to say that we were turning around and going back the way we came - hiking back an hour and a half, and continuing to sweat profusely. The lodge only had cold water showers, but boy, they felt good that day!

The next day poured rain from 0300 - 1200, so our scheduled excursion was cancelled. We decided to wander some of the shorter trails on our own and found this guy right along the trail to our cabin:

I noticed him because his bright turquoise tail caught my eye as he scurried in the leaf litter.

This was the trail to our cabin:

It took me 2 days to realize the large wood things I kept having to step over were the roots of the tree!

We also walked down to the beach we arrived on…

… and found it was alive! (as usual, open this post in your browser to see the video)

All these hermit crabs scurrying around just made me giggle. Here’s what they look like, up close -

Our last full day’s activity was another jungle hike, but it was to end at a river. We were then to ride in a canoe down to the ocean. Unfortunately, we didn’t find any more dart frogs, and the skies opened up on us about halfway through the hour-plus hike. We looked and felt like drowned rats, and I tried to keep my camera covered (we were stupid and forgot to bring a dry bag for it). Thus, some of the following pictures may look a bit hazy in the center because the lens fogged for a time, but ultimately dried out.

Our trusty conveyance -

Once we were sitting in the canoe, the water came up to within an inch of the side edge. As we passed through some small “rapids”, the balancing of the boatman with his pole caused my butt and pants to get another soaking.

This was a neat bend in the river -

Yep, we were in some pretty dense jungle.

We came out of the mangroves to end in the local village -

After taking another welcome cold shower back at our cabin, and quickly eating a late lunch, we hopped in a boat for a ride down the coast…

… where it became more mountainous…

… and ended with some cool offshore pinnacles -

A young German couple who were staying at the lodge for surfing, joined us in the boat, and we dropped them off at an area where the waves were breaking decently…

… while we motored on down to the point to check out the interesting erosion patterns -

We went snorkeling here, and the water was really nice and warm, but there was almost nothing to see but big rocks covered in algae.

I don’t have any great image to close this blog with, but I liked this one showing the waves crashing, which is what we heard from our cabin, both night and day:

Pacific coast

Since we were definitely going to be on the Caribbean coast at Cartagena, I wanted to also visit the Pacific coast. Colombia is the only country in South America to have both. We flew in a small plane from Medellin into a small town on the coast, Nuqui, which has only dirt/mud streets.

That picture didn’t show it, but the day we arrived, it must have recently rained. As we were following our guide to the boat, we concentrated on not stepping into mud puddles. The only other picture I got of the town was when we were leaving the dock…

… for the one hour boat ride south on the coast to our lodge.

Hopefully, you can enlarge that last picture and see how the jungle comes right down to the coast, and can see the low, flat canoe of the fisherman.

The next picture shows our host meeting us on the beach -

Interestingly, the boat driver turned us around, so we could ride the waves in backwards! (again, be sure and have this blog opened in your browser to see the video) (there is no audio)

Luckily, whenever we were in the boat, there were never waves that big!

After getting settled into our cabin…

… and meeting our roommates…

… we walked down to the beach.

We had all this to ourselves!

I’ll close with the view from our cabin -

Guatape

Before I start today’s blog, I wanted to let you know the good news that Chase investigated the ticket mess up and admitted that it was their fault - not American. We’ll be reimbursed the costs of our one way tickets to Medellin! Now back to your regularly scheduled blog…

We took a day trip out of Medellin to see “The Rock”, called La Piedra del Penol.

It was a two hour bus ride that only cost $4 each, and we were happy that it didn’t turn out to be a “chicken bus”. However, it was quite crowded at times, as we stopped frequently to pick up and drop off locals in the small towns.

the people on the right side are actually standing on the entrance stairs

We enjoyed the lush Colombian countryside (this was actually the only picture I got due to the narrow winding road and a window that wouldn’t open all the way.) -

La Piedra is made of granite, and has resisted weathering and erosion, unlike the surrounding area. It rises 200m from its base, and in a large break on one side, a staircase was constructed…

… allowing tourists to get a beautiful 360 degree view -

It is a very popular place!

The climb wasn’t very interesting…

… but I felt the views were worth it (Steve wasn’t so sure that it was worth 6 travel hours—but he’s wrong!).

We then took a tuk-tuk into the town of Guatape…

… which is known for its zocalos…

(did you notice the old lady sitting at the corner of the alley?)

Zocalos are the friezes on the lower levels of the houses. Some honor the traditions of the homeowner, such as farming or fishing, while others have sheep or other animals.

The three-dimensional ones always seemed to catch my eye -

After a last look at “the Rock”…

… we bid this colorful town adieu.

Medellin, Colombia

Yes, that Medellin. If you’ve followed this blog for awhile, you’ll know that I like to head south for the winter. I had read that Colombia was beautiful, and now relatively safe, so we decided to explore it.

However, we had a very inauspicious start to our travels. The last time I used the phrase “inauspicious start”, it was describing our South Pacific tour in 2018 where I left my Kindle on the domestic flight, Steve fried my computer keyboard while sharing wine with it, and our power strip sparked and smoked in the middle of the night. This trip nearly ended before it began. As we were checking in at the American Airlines ticket counter at 0400, the agent said, you don’t have a ticket for this flight. Uh, excuse me? We had gotten several emails from American in the last few days about the flight, and we were even upgraded on our seats the day before our flight, and we didn’t have tickets??

I had made a change to our itinerary through the Chase Travel Portal about a month before we were to leave, and they sent me an email with the flight change confirmation. Well, according to AA, “your travel agent only ticketed the return flight. You need to contact them to fix this.” Okay…getting Chase on the phone - “our records show that you do have tickets, and you need to work with the airline.” Catch-22, anyone? So, long story a little shorter…we go back to the ticket counter, and book last minute one way tickets to Medellin with no checked bags. Suspicious? Nahhhh… (We’re currently trying to get Chase to talk to AA and get us reimbursed for the last minute booking. Thank goodness for a big credit line!)

on the way in from the airport

We got settled into our rental apartment, and had a nice welcome as the lights came on through the city:

The next day, we took a 4 hour tour through downtown and into Communa 13 (I’ll explain its significance later). In the next picture you can see the cool looking Palacio de la Cultura (built in the 1920s) on the left, the elevated Metro track and all the greenery on the right -

Medellin is justly proud of its Metro system. It was built after the reign of terror of Pablo Escobar in the 1990s, and has accomplished its goal of uniting many of the far flung communities in the hills with the vital downtown, for their economic improvement. All of the stations and trains are very clean and safe (and cheap! A ride costs about $0.70).

The Plaza Botero features the statues of the native artist, Fernando Botero, who donated 23 of his works to his hometown of Medellin:

That was one end of the plaza and here’s the other -

You probably can see the corpulent common thread…

… and according to our tour guide, many people are “superstitious” and believe that touching the Maternity statute will bring them fertility -

This was one of my favorites (and I especially liked the matching chapeaus of the father and son at the base) -

We walked through an outdoor market area of over 8 blocks…

… to catch a Metro on our way to Communa 13, via gondola -

The gondola lines are part of the Metro system, and are the key way the residents of the poorer communities high in the hills can reach downtown for jobs, shopping and education. Putting up the towers caused much less disruption to existing communities than putting in the 2 train lines in the heart of the city.

Here are some views along our gondola ride…

… where you can get a glimpse of some of the construction -

(I took this picture on purpose to show the capacity of a gondola)

Our guide said that the newest shacks are built in the only open area, between the highway and the river that frequently floods, by refugees from Venezuela -

Communa 13 was once the most violent neighborhood in Medellin, but with access improved to transportation, basic services and security, it has turned around and become a vibrant community that is becoming more prosperous, due in large part to tourism dollars coming from those wishing to see the street art/graffiti…

… and the levels just kept going up -

… and I was loving the super bright colors -

A project of building 6 sets of outdoor escalators (extending over 1200 ft) contributed to improving access to Communa 13 -

… and at the top of this…

(looking back into downtown)

… the walkway rounded a corner, and kept going (note the yellow painted concrete in the middle of the next picture) -

One last note before I close… guess what Steve convinced everybody in the tour group to try?

Roasted Hormiga culona from Venezuela -

They were crunchy and nutty flavored (but left sharp bits stuck between your teeth). Yes, I ate one!

As we head back down into town…

… I’ll leave you with one of my favorite pictures - Andean condor!