January 18, 2025 to January 25, 2025: Colombia Part 1 (Andes region)

We had an easy flight from Panama to Bogota Saturday afternoon and met our guide, Juan Carlos, after collecting our luggage.

Soboga (last weeks adventure) from the air leaving Panama

There were three others joining us from Norway and their flight was due to arrive an hour after ours. Despite the massive crowds in the Bogota airport Juan Carlos took us to an authentic Colombian restaurant that wasn't crowded (insider knowledge at work) while we waited for their flight.

After they arrived a van shuttled us to our hotel. Filip and I walked around the small square near our hotel and then the 6 of us met for dinner in a popular restaurant called Crepes and Waffles.

Sunday morning we left at 8am for a full day touring Bogota. We started at the base of Monserrate and took the funicular to the top.

Bogota from Monserrate

Filip with the 4 women who signed up for the Columbian adventure (Mona, Tove, Kristen and Micki)

After taking in the amazing views of Bogota from the mountains we went back down and walked through the old town among the street art and graffiti.

Narrow streets of Bogota

We then went to Bolivar square and two museums: the Museo Botero and the Gold Museum.

Botero's Mona Lisa

One of our favorites

Filip accidentally launched his glasses at the sculpture (see bottom left)

We had a few hours in the afternoon before a welcome dinner at the hotel.

Monday: Drive to Juntas

Monday morning we left Bogota at 7:30 for a very long drive to Juntas. We were joined by a second guide, Santiago. Juan Carlos and Santiago were working hard to expose us to traditional Colombian foods and our coffee stop included tintos (AKA black coffee) and arepa. There are many types of arepas - and this one was heavy with cheese on the inside. For lunch, we stopped a very small family restaurant called Lechonería Eduvina to sample a traditional dish called lechona, made of pork, vegetables and either rice of chickpeas (ours was with chickpeas).

Lechona before we ate it

Lechona. The white round thing on the right is an arepa and the square thing on the left is a lump of fat

We made it to our hotel, Hotel Iguaima, in Juntas around 2:45 and decided to meet at 3:30 for a short walk to stretch our legs after being in the car all day. Juntas means "together" and it was named this because three rivers join in Juntas.

Hotel Iguaima in Juntas

View from lookout from our warm-up hike

Street arepas - these were warm with cheese and very good

Dinner that evening was in the hotel. We both had a very large portion of rice with vegetables and meat. Because there are so many unique fruits in Colombia, juices are popular and Juan Carlos has been encouraging everyone to try some. Filip stumped the kitchen and got a laugh from the group with his order of Passionfruit juice con vodka. And while it took a while, Filip's drink arrived.

Tuesday: Hike over Alto del Oso in the Andes Mountains

We started on the east side of the Andes and today we are going to trek over the Alto del Oso pass to get to the west side of the Andes. This is supposed to be the hardest day, estimated to take about 10 hours in total. We had a very early start at 5:30, squeezing all 7 of us and our luggage into a small truck that dropped us with our daypacks at a small outdoor cafe, Del Colibri, for tinto and breakfast before our trek. The cafe had multiple hummingbird feeders so we were all mesmerized by the many hummingbirds while we waited for our food. After breakfast we put on our packs and started our trek to the pass.

Breakfast spot and where we started our trek

In front of Normandy Valley - a little over 4 miles into the hike

We saw many cows - many unfazed by us walking by

Much of the hike was through very narrow, but deep horse or cow trails - this one was wider than most

In front of the Machen volcano caldera - around mile 9

Filip, Santiago, Joanna, and Juan Carlos catching a ride to final section of the Day 1 hike

La Florida Farm was the name of our "hotel" for the night. The owner of the farm picked us up just beyond the caldera and drove us to the last bit of our hike into the farm. There was only room for 4 in the cab so Filip kindly volunteered to ride in the back for a very bumpy 5k.

The end of the hike to La Florida Farm and the hot spring pool

The last bit of the trek was downhill and our knees were hurting so we were looking forward to the hot spring. Sadly, our bags had not yet arrived and we needed to wait for our swimsuits, but the beer was cold so all was good.

After about an hour the horses arrived with our bags- no car access on La Florida farm

Our room for the night was the red tent. We were grateful for the foam mattress inside

Wednesday: hike to Toche

Today we had a departure time of 9am so we got to sleep in (as much as you can sleep in from a tent). Breakfast was tinto, eggs, bread and arepa. After breakfast we packed our bags which departed on horses and we left with our daypacks down the hill behind our tent.

The hike featured many fruit trees, beautiful flowers, coffee bushes, hot springs, cool rivers, cows and even a shy goat.

Mid hike (from the right: Tove, Mona, Kristin, Micki, Filip, Santiago)

Boiling water mid hike - plenty of volcanic activity in the area

We stopped at small, family coffee farm for lunch where they were drying the coffee beans on the front terrace.

Farmer stirring the coffee beans while they dried in the sun ("elda")

Our "basic" lunch on the farm: soup (course 1), chicken, rice, and arepa (course 2)

We finally made it to Toche

Rooster in Toche hanging out by the bar

Toche was a very small town of around 700 people (including the neighboring areas). It had been overtaken by FARC guerrillas during the war and was just being re-established. There was one restaurant (named the Mirador) and a small hostel with 2 shared bathrooms down the street from the restaurant. The owner of the hostel had a pet hog with very long nails.

Mirador - Filip purchased a bottle of aquardenta for the table

Thursday: hike through the wax palms

Breakfast on Thursday was our usual with the addition of a traditional soup. After breakfast we loaded our bags into two trucks and drove to a drop off spot for our final hike on this portion of the trip - through the wax palm forests. The views were amazing but the footing on the hike was treacherous - very easy to step in hole so we took it pretty slowly.

Just outside of Toche before the hike

After the hike, lunch was at a local farm and then we climbed back into the trucks for a 3-hour drive to Salento over a very bumpy road. We had one brief stop to look at the trees from a different viewpoint - from a field where the FARC guerrillas would play pickup soccer games.

Salento looked like a metropolis relative to Toche with about 10,000 people. It is a popular, touristy town as it is viewed as the entrance to the wax palm forest. We went to Bernabé café & Bistro for dinner and had filet mignon wrapped in bacon (a nice break from our usual chicken). Tonight was Santiago's last night so we said our goodbyes to him after dinner.

Friday: Coffee tour in Salento, Colombia

Friday morning we had a little bit of welcome downtime. As the hiking portion of our trip was coming to a close we said goodbye to Juan Carlos and we were meeting our new guide, Blaney, at 10am for a trip to a coffee plantation.

The coffee tour was a little more touristy than we would have liked - complete with wearing a poncho, hat and basket.

At the coffee plantation in our ponchos.

The tour started with each of us planting a coffee seedling and then picking coffee beans from established plants. We walked around the farm and learned about the three main types of coffee processes: wash, honey and natural.

wash process: beans removed from their shells and cleaned and then fermented for a short time;
honey process: beans removed from their shells, but without cleaning the sweet nectar surrounding the beans, fermented for a bit longer than those washed
natural process: shells left intact but required the longest fermentation.

After fermentation the beans are dried (with solar drying or "elda" as the preferred method) and then roasted. The beans with the longest fermentation (those undergoing the natural process) were roasted the shortest, ie. light roast and those with shorter fermentation were roasted longer (dark roast).

Coffee plants full of green seeds - they are deep red when ripe.

Geisha coffee plant - very expensive coffee. They only had one for show.

For lunch we went back to the main square in Salento and Blaney took us to a traditional restaurant where we had bandeja paisa. We then had the afternoon off.

Bandeja paisa (surprisingly served with arepa)

Saturday: Filandia

Our start this morning was at 8:30 for the short drive to Filandia. Filandia looked a lot like Salento - although a little bit smaller. We had a guided tour of a basket weaving museum (by a woman named Mitchell) and then a local lunch. Today's dish was called "traditional caperuza" and was similar to the Bandeja paisa - only without the beans.