Moving day. Medellin to Salento.
Salento is about a 6 hour drive from Medellin. We had no desire to drive ourselves or take a bus on the 2 lane highway thru the mountains so we flew there. I’ll admit my first thought of flying a short route over the mountains of Colombia evoked visions of flying in an old DC 3 over the tree tops. But the reality was we were on a fairly new LATAM Airlines Airbus 320. Flying time was a good 20 minutes.
The flight went from Aeropuerto Internacional de Medellín (MDE) to Aeropuerto Internacional Matecaña (PEI) located in Pereira, Colombia. Both airports were modern, nice, and clean.
Once in Pereira there is still about an hour drive to Salento. We stayed at Kawa Mountain Retreat which arranged for a driver to pick us up. Getting to Kawa is quite an adventure. It is located at the end of a very rough and steep dirt road.
Panoramic view around Kawa Mountain Retreat
When you get there you realize the rough road is worth it. The views from the place are breathtaking. The pictures really don’t do it justice. Fortunately, when you want to go to town, there is a dirt path behind Kawa that leads to a easy 5 minute walk.
After settling in it’s time to walk to Salento, which is an Andean mountain town known for coffee plantations and the close by Cocora Valley, home to towering wax palms.
The first thing we came across after exiting the mountain path was, of course, a collection of street vendors. We tried some Solteritas from this kind gentleman. Solteritas are deep fried orange cookies with a orange cream sauce that are quite popular and sold wherever street vendors are found ( which means just about everywhere.)
Walking around Salento
Dinner at Donde laurita en SALENTO. A man on the street said this was the best restaurant in Salento. Perhaps it is or maybe we ordered the wrong thing, but we did not find it that good ( except for the fried chicken). The food at the Kawa restaurant was the best food we had during our visit. One interesting fact we learned about Colombians: they love fried chicken – I admit is was good.
