The zone of coffee

Several buses and a collectivo ride (that was slightly too long for comfort) later and I was in Salento. Salento is only a tiny little town, but its managed to get itself on the backpacker trail because you can go there and stay on a coffee plantation, which might not appeal to everyone- but I was DEAD excited! Plantation House was a bit of a step down comfort-wise from some of the hostels I had managed to find along the way, and my stay was made fairly uncomfortable on my first night when my Korean roomate decided to leave all windows and doors open and lights on while I was out exploring the town, effectively creating mosquito city. Although it has to be said that, after the jungle, this was only the second time I had slept under a mosquito net on my whole trip- not bad going considering that I was expecting to spend six months under one! My first night, post exploration, was spent getting to know the other travellers staying at the hostel- a fairly easy task as Plantation House has a lovely communial living area with a big roaring log fire and they were all gathered around it. They turned out to be a group of travellers who had all met while voyaging into Columbia by boat from Panama (SO on my to-do list for next time) and seemed like my kind of people considering the amount of rum and beer around the place. And so settled in with my new friends of Ted the New Yorkiest of New Yorkers, Sandra fluent in 6 languages and IN CHARGE, Mark the Dutch ex naval serviceman (nothing to talk to him about), Andrew the lovely Welshman, Stacey the ginger Ozzy and Carl the stereotypical American, I enjoyed an evening in front of the fire and then a slightly buzzy nights kip. I didn't get much of a chance to make friends with my Korean roommate as she left the next day complaining of the high prevalence of wildlife in our locale, ironically the next night there were hardly any mosquitos.. hmm...
I spent my first day in Zona Cafe hanging out with my new friends. Literally. In hammocks. I'm very pro hammock, I think they cheer you up no matter your mood. They especially cheer you up when you doze off in yours (only for a second) and your new friends wrap it around you and swing you unitl you threaten to be violently ill on them. The majority of the day was actually spent making plans for the next day when, along with new arrival Alejandro from Peru and a nice couple from Holland, we had decided to do 'the big hike' . 'The big hike' is a 13 mile track during which you scale several small mountains (read two fairly steep hills) and you get to see the world's tallest palm trees (Photo of the gang to the right, unfortunately sin Sandra who was too ill to join us). It required planning because the trail is normally done by wusses on horseback, and is normally only about 6 miles, we had basically chosen to tack another walk on the end. But Columbia is famous for its landscape, we were all young and fit (apart from Ted who was an obstinant but unfit 50 who has had a triple heart bypass... but why mention that during the planning when you can wheeze it at mile 9 the next day) and apparently very ambitous. We did leave one tiny detail out of the planning phase; realising that due to it being the end of the rainy season the track would be muddy we had hired welly boots to hike in, in fact we had gone out of our way to get local knowledge on the surrounding area. What we had not counted on was it being MUDDY. Like you've never seen it before. AND cunningly left off the Columbian map was the torrential hurricane of a white water river we would have to cross THREE TIMES, mainly because its normally a small stream. The first part of the trek was entertainingly slow... all of us wading through the mud like stop motion animations, it took roughly 2 hours longer to reach our lunch point than we had planned for... at this point it wasn't actually dangerous, just hilariously messy (ever seen a real city boy lose his boot in the mud? It was a full 5 minues before anybody could stop laughing long enough to help the poor bloke). However, it swiftly became dangerous after lunch when, being waaay past the mid point (ie. no turning back) the skies opened and torrential downpour ensued. This was good in the sense that we weren't muddy anymore but bad in the sense that the track was swiftly turning into a swamp which was becoming impossible to walk through. We had to make a choice: to turn back and hike the nearly nine miles back to the start on paths that were bad but passable, or press on for the next four miles with the distinct advantage of actually seeing the palm trees, but with the steepest part of the trail still to traverse and unknown path quality. It was at this point Ted threw his health issues into the mix complaining of heart pain and we made the decision to press on with Andrew scouting ahead and Mark and I bringing up the rear. Luck was with us and although the path was terrible (climb with your hands and feet terrible) for the first 700m after that it bacame paved (also not on the map). Actually it became paved at roughly the same time the rain stopped. Ah sweet irony. And so, we journeyed down, joking and laughing in only the way people who've recently been contemplating the effectiveness of the Columbian Search and Rescue service can. And we were lucky enough that the mist began to clear so we did eventually get to see the famous palm trees. I have to say that apart from the few moments of serious contemplation about the potentailly mortal danger we were in (I joke not- the next day the path was officially shut, as was Cuidad Perdida in the North of the country as Columbia experienced its heaviest rainfall in many years and started to flood), it was one of the most enjoyable days of my trip. But I am a bizarre individual. Needless to say there was mas ron that evening and many tales of heroism by the fire. Plus also many tales of Ted, who repeately kept telling everyone that New Yorkers simply aren't bred for hiking, and had offered to haunt me if he died during the climb.
I was in Zona Cafe for a futher day before catching my evening collectivo out. A nice early run cured the hangover, and the rest of the day was spent indulging in locally produced fruit, admiring the coffee plantation and saying a too-soon goodbye to my new friends. And then to Bogota, and the discovery that the rain hadn't quite finished messing with my plans...