Santa Rosa

Another day...another day trip.

It rained again in Pereira. But you're good to go as long as you have a hat and a poncho. I happen to have both. But I'm saving my poncho (for a rainy day)...where's my drum set?

Upon returning to the hostel, all the Colombians (the owners and their friend) asked me if I tried the chorizo there. Apparently Santa Rosa is world-famous for the quality of the chorizo there. I thought it was strange that this tiny town had so many chorizo vendors. However, I wasn't in the mood for chorizo. So I didn't have any. Ah well...live and learn.

I went to a cafe called Don Pascual's in Santa Rosa, on the recommendation of the owner of a local crepe shop in Pereira. I've eaten there four times in the last four days. And I can't say enough good things about it. The owner did not steer me wrong. This place was funky with a vibe that I like. Probably because all the seating was either sofas or over stuffed chairs. The coffee was great too.

The entrance

Main floor and bar

Main floor

Second floor and hanging things from the roof

The bar

Outside of Don Pascual's a short walk away is the mercado where all sorts of goods are bought and sold. It's a really busy place as you can see from the photos below. The people hanging off of the jeep is a normal occurrence here as there are no such things as seat belt requirements...

The main square, as with most towns in northern South America, has a statue of Simon Bolivar and a church. Tomorrow I'll be biking down a mountain and hiking to a waterfall. Hopefully it's not closed!

Valle de Cocora

Day trips...the life blood of the traveller. Rain...the wrecker of day trips. It rained today, but stopped as soon as I got to my destination and walked around. Then it rained again on the way back to my hostel. What cooperative weather!

I went to Salento today. Salento is a little town, about an hour's bus ride away from Pereira, that has boomed since being mentioned in Lonely Planet. As a result, it's all tarted up for the tourists and that's who's there. I didn't like it very much at all.

It's mostly a weekend place, but there are still some amenities available to the weekday traveller. It seems to be a place visited on the weekend by locals and tourists alike. Kind of like a Niagara Falls for the residents of the Zona Cafetera. That's the name given to the main coffee growing area in Colombia. The main reason I wanted to go to Salento is because they have jeeps that go from the main square to the Valle de Cocora.

The Valle de Cocora has some of the most beautiful landscapes in Colombia and is also home to Colombia's national tree, the wax palm tree. These monster trees can get higher than 60m. It was incredible to be there on the weekday when no one else is around. Except this dog, who wouldn't stop following me after I gave him a little bit of chicken. I guess they're like seagulls too.

Enjoy the photos. It was just so amazing, I didn't know what not to put up.

Estacion Pereira

More delicious and beautiful dessert last night.

What a day! I finally broke out of this sleepy phase and went on a bit of an adventure today.

Today started like every other day I've had in Pereira. I had big plans to go to Salento but could not get out of bed. At 9am, the owners of the hostel come in to wake up this guy in our room (who has been living here for the past 4 weeks) to tell him they were leaving. They also asked if I wanted to go, I said sure, even though I had planned to go to Salento, and I didn't know where they were going. I was sure this would be off the beaten track. Sure enough it was, there were no tourists in the tiny town of Estacion Pereira. This town consists of 17 houses and a railway track. They were going to go for a bike ride down the mountain, take a motorcycle train to a hand pulled cable car and then hike to a waterfall. The owner just said they were "going to a river". Colombians...

We walked downtown where there was a jeep waiting for us to take us to the village. None of the gauges were working in the car and more than half the passengers had to stand in the back with the bikes. But no big deal...

Five people fit in the back with the bikes

We got to the drop off point and the owners and their friends took off on the bikes. There weren't enough bikes for everyone, which was fine. I didn't wanna bike down a beautiful mountain anyways. Here's a video of a couple of the guys.

After dropping four of them off, the rest of us continued on our way to the village passing bamboo forests, amazing landscapes all while driving down to about 400m above sea level from our starting point of 1400m.

Bamboo Forest

We got to the village and our friends weren't down the mountain already, so I decided to take a look around. There is a bridge that was destroyed three months ago by flooding, but Colombian ingenuity prevailed and they built a new one. See the video for people crossing the new bridge. You will not find me doing that!

The bridge is across one of the rivers in the village. This river joins another river and creates an interesting phenomenon of one river having two streams. You can make it out in the picture and video below if you look closely. The first river is clearer and has more of a greenish colour. The second river is more muddy and brownish.

A genuine Huck Finn raft

Since the train can't cross the bridge anymore (I don't even know if there is a train anymore) the people of this town have created another cool invention I call the motorcycle train. Essentially, it's a platform which can move over the rails thanks the wheels underneath attached to the tracks and the motorcycle which propels it forward. It's really cool. We took the motorcycle train to the river pulley car. Again, past amazing landscapes. There's only one set of tracks, however, there's more than one of these transport devices going in both directions. It's important to be careful when driving it. But when we were coming back, this guy, drunk as a skunk, got on his motorcycle train and took off...right into the train that was coming around the corner. A few little kids jumped off of the incoming train. But there was a couple on there as well. The women got a little hurt and the guy was mad. The drunk guy was mad as well! He didn't even want to admit he did anything wrong. I watched the whole thing happen, the drunk guy sped up and then jumped off his platform. Unreal...fender benders...hahaha!

The sign says, "Sitio Touristico La Cascada"

The path down to the river pulley cart was steep and at the end were an extraordinary amount of spiders and huge spider webs!

We had to call the cart guy over when we got there because no one was there. This cable car is only used by the locals to transport food and people. It was a really fun experience. At first, he wanted to put all 8 of us in at one time, but we talked him down to only putting 4 at a time. I think he was just being lazy. I don't blame him, it's a big river. See the pics and video below.

The river and car cables

Cart guy coming

The other side

Perfectly safe car

There were some really cool plants to see on the way to the waterfall. There was this flower that has petals which look like grass, the tips are white and the ends are green (see below). There's also this plant called the Sleeping Flower which closes up when you touch it, also very cool (see video below). The hike to and from the waterfall was filled with crossing various streams, climbing unstable mountains and hills, going under, over and around barbed wire and slipping on the mud and rocks everywhere. But the plants I saw along the way were really interesting and the dip I took in the waterfall's pool with my jeans on (cuz I didn't bring swim shorts) was so refreshing after such a long hike.

Me at the waterfall

Getting back to the hostel was uneventful. We waited forever for a large school bus type vehicle called a chiva to come to Estacion Pereira. There was a mad dash for seats when it stopped. People even climbed on the roof! But there were spaces to spare. That's just how it is in Colombia.

Chiva