peaceful Guatape and Salento

After spending more than a week in Medellin is was defintely time for some country side adventures. I had been recommended by my couchsurfer hosts to visit Guatape, a small town 2 h from Medellin, and in no time I had found an American guy who offered me his couch in Guatape. Greg, my host, had just moved to Guatape and was looking into starting a hostel in town and managed to show me the property he was looking into. He had found a beautiful house in a hill overlooking the town. The business deal has not gone through yet but I def think Guatape is THE place to start a hostel. It is such a pitoreque little Colombian town with tons of lakes and montains surrounding it. It is also famous for its big ROCK, El Penol. This humongous rock probably hit the earth millions of years ago and is now a popular tourist attraction. You can walk up the 200m rock, 465 steps up and get the most amazing view of the Colombian country side! It was breath-taking! I will soon upload some trillion pictures of this rock... :)

After relaxing and breathing fresh air for 3 days I headed back to Medellin to spend my last night with my dear CouchSurfing hosts Ana and Jesus. We ended up going out salsa in Rumbantana and drinking some Colombian rum :) It was a great last night before I headed south to Salento.

After a short ride on the night bus (I arrived 4am in the morning to the bus staion in Pereira instead of 6am that I had planned) and another short minibus ride I arrived to the mountain and coffee town Salento 7am in the morning. Salento is another pitoresque little town that you fall in love with in seconds. It is located in a valley in between green lushious bamboo forests and mountains. Here I stayed in a beautiful coffee farm hostel called Plantation House. You can check it out here http://www.theplantationhousesalento.com. It is owned by a British man Tim who has settled and married in Salento. They had dorms both in the hostel house and at the coffee farm itself and I ended up sleeping at the coffee farm,which was built in the green mountains hills among bamboo trees, banana trees, coffee plants and the rain forest. It was peaceful, quiet and just lovely. The view from my room was just breath takingly beautiful over the green valley and I couldnt have asked for more. And when I say green it was this fresh kind of green that you see right after it has been raining... you just feel like eating it! hehehe at least me. I truly enjoyed my stay there :)

Pictures will be coming very very soon!