coffee – THE ONLY ERIKA IN THE VILLAGE

Visiting Valle de Cocora in Salento

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The hike to Valle De Cocora is gorgeous, easy going and leads to one of the most beautiful locations I have ever seen with some fun stops along the way. Getting to Salento is a bit tricky as its a bit out of the way into Colombia’s interior but everything is a bit of a distance in Colombia and this stop is definitely worth the journey!

Where to stay:

We stayed at El Viajero Hostel – its clean, comfortable, centrally located and has great views. It also isn’t a party hostel but is friendly – we met some really nice people to hang with there which is important when you are travelling alone or in a couple for a long period of time!

Getting there and away:

Salento is quite out of the way but the closest major town is Armenia and you should be able to catch a bus from many places in Colombia to arrive at the Armenia bus station. We travelled to Armenia from Medellin on an overnight bus (the trip was 10:30pm to 5:30am). You can also get to/from Cali in 4-5 hours by bus (this is where we headed next).

To transfer to Salento once you have reached Armenia, walk inside the bus terminal and up two flights of stairs – continue straight in the same direction until you reach the end of the terminal and walk outside to where the local buses run. Buses to Salento should be waiting here (there is a sign but easy to miss). The transfer costs 4,000 COP approx. and takes around 1 hour (buses start running at 5:20am every 20 mins).

Getting around:

Its easy to get around Salento as you can walk from one end of town to the other in about 20 minutes. It’s not large!

If you want to head out to Valle de Cocora (and who doesn’t???) you can take a ‘Willy’ (pictured below) from the main square.

Food:

Coffee coffee and more coffee! Definitely drink Coffee! Salento is in one of the coffee growing regions in Colombia and is a great place to learn, make, taste and purchase coffee.

Other than that the food wasn’t particularly memorable – there’s lots of places to eat around town.

My morning coffee at our hostel in Salento (honourable mention to that VIEW!

What to expect on your hike:

Make sure to head into the main square early in case you need to wait as the jeeps do fill up. You pay for a return ride at the beginning so when finishing the hike you can hop on any jeep to get back into town. Willys cost about 8,000 COP return.

Directions to hike Counterclockwise:
Turn right at the blue gate and follow the path down the hill. This track takes you past the trout farm (which is not worth stopping at) and starts off un-inspiring through paddocks.
BUT then you enter the cloud forest and you cross 7 Puentes which is gorgeous. The hummingbird sanctuary Acaime (5,000COP entry) is a long walk off the main route (about 2 hours into the hike) but is definitely worth going to and signs direct you here. Entry includes a hot chocolate. On the way back from Acaime do not take the first right as this is a long hike heading somewhere different. The loop ends with La Montana and the wax palms.

All going well this should be a leisurely 6 hour walk.

What to bring on your hike:

Some cash for your entry to Acaime (There are a couple of ATMs in Salento)
A rain jacket (The weather changes fast here and you will be heading up into the mountains)
Hiking boots – its not a difficult hike but its pretty long
Comfortable, warm, clothes
Directions as above – this hike is NOT well signposted
Food and water – Acaime is really just a stop for the hummingbirds – make sure you stock up with some snacks and water in Salento.
A camera to photograph the hike, hummingbirds and the incredible trees.

Other activities while you’re in Salento

Salento’s drawcard isn’t only the hike. It’s a great place to chill out for a day or two. The locals and houses are colourful, the town is picturesque and there are a few other cool activities you won’t want to miss.

Tejo is exhilirating! That gunpowder is LOUD when it goes off

Play Tejo – Colombia’s national game which essentially involves throwing targets at gunpowder (Sounds fun right?). Salento is a great place to play as Tejo is very popular here and the nearest local can always direct you to the closest place to play. When we were in Salento a man who we could only deduce was the town Pimp (a short man in a full length fur coat) led us into a dingy basement under a dive bar where we got to play Tejo for free (as long as you are buying beer!). Gunpowder and beer – I would expect nothing less from Colombia’s mountain cowboys. The game is really fun and actually requires a lot of skill.
Take a coffee tour! I recommend Finca el Ocaso. As I mentioned above Salento is within Colombia’s coffee region – and what great coffee it has. Finca el Ocaso is close to the town and a great spot to learn about how coffee is made, issues of production and sustainability and taste test it! You can get here on a willy for 4,000 COP otherwise its a 1 hour walk from town.
Explore the town of Salento – Calle Real is a street filled with interesting shops and places to eat and at night is filled with music and dancing. At the end of this long street you can walk up to Mirador Alto de la Cruz via the colourful stairs and check out the view.

Make the time in your itinerary to head out of the way to Salento – you won’t regret it!

Erika xx

Itinerary: 4 days in Cartagena and its surrounds

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Cartagena is a city of contrasts between old and new, wealth and poverty, old-fashioned and edgy. But most of all its beautiful, romantic and fascinating.

GENERAL INFO

Getting there and away: Cartagena has flights and trains connecting it with all the main centres in Colombia. We arrived in Cartagena via overnight bus from Santa Marta (approx. 6 hours, 40,000 COP – the last bus is at 10pm).

We left Cartagena on a flight to Medellin (I have also taken the bus between Cartagena and Medellin and that is a loooong journey but perfectly manageable if you have the time).

Accommodation: We stayed at Hotel Leyendas del Mar which was located in the Getsemani area and nice enough but note that it does not have a 24 hour reception (not great when arriving in Cartagena in the early hours of the morning). I always recommend checking current deals on booking.com as the best value hotels change constantly particularly in places like Cartagena and its a great site for specifying preferences for a specific stay ie. breakfast included or luggage storage.

Food: I don’t really need to recommend any specific food locations here – Cartagena has plenty of decent food spots. Don’t expect amazing local food – but there are some really nice restaurants if you have the cash to splash and the standard of food everywhere is good. Lots of international options.

The only MUST TRY I have for Cartagena is the coffee. I don’t mean any special brewed luxury coffee in a cafe. I mean the street coffee. In Cartagena I live off the street coffee. You will locate it as soon as you get there. There are men wandering around all the streets of the old city with coffee in these big thermoses they carry around with them. Its served black and very sweet in a little plastic cup and its so cheap. The stuff is addictive. I have tried to re-create it. I can’t.

Top Tip: Don’t underestimate how fulfilling it is just wandering around in Cartagena and don’t forget to allow time for this. All of the charm of this city is found in exploring haphazardly with no idea where you are going.

DAY 1

On your first day in Cartagena, head down to the port and take a boat to Playa Blanca. It is exactly what it sounds like – an island slightly off the coast of Colombia that it is possible to visit in a day trip with a white sand beach and lots of facilities for tourists such as cocktails, beach massage, deck chairs for rent and places to eat.

Its a nice place to while away the day and enjoy Colombia’s Caribbean coastline as the beaches in Cartagena itself aren’t worth going to. Eat some fresh fried seafood and sip a cocktail on the beach for a day.

DAY 2

Take a tour to Cartagena’s Mud Volcano – this is quite far out of town and you will find tours available online – half and full day tours. The full day tours include another excursion and most tours include lunch. Mud is meant to have healing properties and the mud volcano is set up as a crude ‘spa’ – you can get a massage in the volcano covered in mud and then wash off in the nearby river.

If you have time after arriving back from the Mud Volcano I suggest checking out the Getsemani neighbourhood and the street art on Calle de la Sierpe – this is an edgy, artsy neighbourhood just outside the walls of the old city.

DAY 3

Bright and early on Day 3, head down to the port again and take a pre-arranged boat to La Casa en el Agua. Check out my full post on La Casa en el Agua here.

DAY 4

The boat back from La Casa en el Agua arrives back 2pm. Spend the rest of your 4th day in Cartagena wandering in the walled city.

If you prefer to have a destination or you have extra time, you can visit the Castillo San Felipe or the Inquisition museum. Make sure to head up onto the walls of the old city for sunset and watch from Cafe del Mar which has a view over the water (get there early for seats by the edge of the wall).

Erika xx

Visiting the Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal is one of the new seven wonders of the world – and rightly so! This stunning building is a magical place to visit and should definitely be on your India itinerary. Many travelers are put off going to the Taj Mahal due to the hordes of crowds and the long queue – I will explain the best way to visit so you enjoy your experience (although I can’t magic away all the crowds for you).

Spectacular details on the walls of the Taj Mahal

Top Tips for the Taj Mahal:

GO EARLY. I cannot stress this enough. If you want to enjoy your time at a place as famous as the Taj Mahal you need to make sure that you are there when the crowds are lightest. Most tourists cannot be bothered to get up early while on holiday – you can benefit from their laziness. Many tourists also day-trip to Agra so you want to get there before all the tourist buses arrive. Having said that – even if you start queueing at 6:30am like we did there will still be a long queue. The Taj Mahal is busy day in day out all year round.

Take a look at how few people you can see in this picture

2. See the sunset view from the other side. Across the river Yamuna from the Taj Mahal is a park called Mehtab Bagh (Moonlight Garden). This is a serene place to watch the sunset and get another picture perfect view of the Taj Mahal. Take a picnic along and get comfortable while laughing at all the people jostling for space in the Taj Mahal complex. A cycle rickshaw including waiting time should be about maximum 400 INR return to the Taj.

Where to stay:

We stayed in The Coral House Homestay – a beautiful guesthouse very close to the eastern gate of the Taj Mahal. We were able to walk to the Taj Mahal very early in the morning and then return to the guesthouse for breakfast once we were finished. The house had a beautiful garden and had a very restful feel.

However, we don’t recommend eating dinner here – this was an optional extra and we found it overpriced.

Getting there and away:

To get to Agra, we took an overnight train to Agra Fort Station from Umaria (the closest station to Bandhavgarh National Park where we saw tigers). This took almost 14 hours.

We left Agra by train from Agra Fort Station to Jaipur (4 hour journey).

Many people would take the train to Agra from Delhi – this is 3 hour journey.

Getting around:

As in the rest of India, rickshaws are the best way to get around. The train station has pre-paid autorickshaws with prices displayed on charts. This will give you a good guide to help with haggling for trips around the city.

Food:

We didn’t really eat much while in Agra as we were still full from days of overeating amazing food at our resort in Bandhavgarh National Park.

What to bring:

Take as little as possible into the Taj as many items are restricted and this list seems to change on a whim. Key to remember is no tripods or food items are permitted.

What to expect:

Purchase your tickets from the ticket office close to the gate – the office opens at 6:30am.
The security line to enter the Taj Mahal is divided into men’s and women’s lines. So, if travelling as a couple don’t expect to be able to pop off to grab a coffee and leave your partner in line (as I was hoping to do – I hate having to survive 6am sightseeing without coffee).
Your ticket includes shoe covers and a bottle of water – you will need the shoe covers once you get inside to protect the marble.
The Taj Mahal opens at sunrise. There will already be a long queue by then but the line moves fast once the gate opens.
Expect to be blown away by the beauty of the Taj Mahal!

While you are in Agra visiting the Taj Mahal, check out some of the other great spots worth seeing in Agra such as the Agra Fort, The Baby Taj and Fatehpur Sikri.

Erika xx

Cultural Exploration

I woke up early today, excited to continue exploring the city I had already come to love. The only way I can really describe it is that everything about the city was so much more vibrant than in any other place I had ever been to.

I had breakfast at my hostel but then headed straight out to explore the Palacio National. The security here was intense, something I hadn’t experienced before. I was not allowed to take my breath mints in (can anyone tell me what I could do with breath mints that they were so afraid of?) and had to leave my bag in a cloakroom. Unfortunately, I left my camera in it although I could not take photos in most areas anyway. If I have an opportunity to return here I will make sure to get some great snaps of the Diego Rivera murals covering the walls of the palace. While I was wandering around on my own, a security guard followed me around for a while. Unfortunately, he only knew about two words in English so in about an hour’s conversation all I discovered was that he was a second year engineering student, he was surprised that I was travelling alone, and that he spoke very bad English.
I still have no idea whether he was following me for security purposes or just because he wanted to talk to me. At least I got my first real chance to practice my Spanish!

My next stop today was the Museo Archivo de la Fotografia, which I was really looking forward to. Although it was disappointingly small, it still contained some terrific artwork. I also tried to find another building which housed Diego Rivera’s murals in the district near my hostel but had no luck; so I stopped for lunch instead.

Finding a place to eat here in Mexico City is really quite daunting! There are hundreds of little restaurants in every area which are often really hard to spot, all with little excerpts from their menus posted up outside. As you stand outside trying to figure out if their is anything decent to eat on the menu, waiters usher you inside and to a seat before you have even decided if you want to eat there. I did manage to find a place that looked pretty nice, and I chose well because the food was great. For US $4.50 I was given soft tortillas, refried beans and a beef, tomato and jalapeno stew with orange juice and papaya. I have already given up trying to stay away from fresh fruit because it is so good. I haven’t been sick yet so fingers crossed!

I continued my busy day by visiting the Museo de la Ciudad Mexico. The building was gorgeous, and although it housed a whole range of exhibitions its focus seemed to be on Mexican cartoons! I wandered around for a while attempting to understand the cartoons and taking lots of photos.

I thought I would head to another suburb this afternoon, leaving the Centro Historico for the first time. I decided to head to Zona Rosa – not to visit anywhere in particular but because its meant to be quite an interesting neighbourhood. Pretty, full of expats, and also the main gay neighbourhood. I was a little bit worried about catching the Metro but It was actually really simple to work out and everyone was really helpful although the metro was so crowded I couldn’t actually move and found it difficult to get out the doors at my stop. After I walked around Zona Rosa for a little bit, I sat down at a little café with bar stools outside placed around the windowsills. As I was drinking my latte and people watching, I got chatting to a guy next to me who spoke pretty good English. Neither of us had plans for the afternoon so we headed to a bar around the corner to have a few drinks. I spent a couple of hours chatting to him, which was great for my Spanish, although we did use a lot of Google translate on his blackberry.

Until Next Time,
Erika xx

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