Valle de Cocora with Mark

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The main draw of Salento is the Valle de Cocora, a gorgeous mountain side covered with wax palm trees, the tallest palms in the world. It's really fascinating because when the Spanish started logging the area for profit, the wax palms were considered useless and therefore left behind. Their loss is our gain!

We woke up early to take the 7am jeepney, but it was pouring rain and I flat out refused to go (hey, I had a bad head cold!). We went back to sleep until 9, and just as I had suspected, the rain had stopped! See, procrastination often works ;)

I was interested to do the 5 hour loop again because I did it incorrectly the first time (I did the same half twice!). The first section of the hike involved crossing a lot of small man-made bridges one at a time and stomping through some muddy paths. So fun! We stopped often to take photos and enjoy the sun. Halfway through the hike we arrived at the hummingbird house, where we enjoyed a rest and snack and beautiful hummingbirds. Revived, we started the difficult part of the walk- an hour uphill hike so that we could enter the cloud forest. We had to stop a few times to catch our breaths, but I was proud I kept up with Mark (mostly)!

As we ascended into the cloud forest, it got very misty and difficult to see. In fact, some of the pathway looked downright eerie! I was laughing when we arrived at the mirador and you couldn't see anything but mist! My last trip had been much luckier...poor Mark! However, the mist began to clear as we descended, and we found several places off the path to get some great views and take a break. My favorite part of the hike was the last 30 minutes, where you just wander through the fields that are largely empty except for the wax palms. I felt like an ant among giants!

We didn't have to wait too long to take our jeepney back to town. It was perfect timing, as the weather was worsening again. After a shower and an early dinner, we went to bed! It had been a wonderful and exhausting day! Enjoy the pics of us being goobers!




I'm not sure what this is, but it's related to the anteater. 


Yoga guru I am not!


Eerie paths.

The viewpoint! Hahaha.




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