I had foolishly decided not to write down the address of the hostel I had booked,
thinking it was a small enough town to walk around for a while and eventually
stumble upon. However I arrived a little later than expected and it gets dark
here early, so I had arrived in the dark and began walking around with no real
idea which street the hostel was on. After a little while I just stopped at the
police station on the small plaza and asked one of the police in there –
naturally the hostel was only 5 minutes away and down one of the few streets I
hadn’t checked yet!

Salento is a beautiful little town. Men walk around in their traditional clothing, always in white trousers, a white poncho and a white fedora type hat. There’s a distinct cowboy vibe going on with their outfit, and just about all of them carry a machete.

They all have a country charm personality, and you’ll always hear good morning
from passers-by and a nod of the head. Everyone is friendly and it really not
only makes you feel welcome, it makes you want to stay just a little longer to
enjoy the relaxed nature of Salento.

One of the most striking features of the town are the colourfully painted homes. Throughout all the streets small colonial houses line the streets with a myriad of colours, all well maintained with only a handful of places where the paint has started to fade. It’s quite obvious a certain amount of pride is involved with keeping their homes always looking at their best.

This being coffee country, I had to visit a couple of cafes and try out their coffee. The first place I visited had an incredible old school coffee makes, complete with
pressure gauges on the front. I had to ask him if he made coffee with it, as it
looks like a museum piece instead of functioning equipment. Sure enough he said he used it and proceeded to make me a coffee. It was good, really good, I had to ask for second.

After wandering around town I stopped in a well known café called Jesus Martin. I
asked for an expresso and she made – alas using a modern coffee machine – the
strongest expresso I’ve ever had in my life. I couldn’t tell whether I was
enjoying it because of how overpowering the flavour was, so it took me a good
half an hour to finish off the mouthful of coffee. I made a mental note to try
a different coffee if I visit their again, however I later discovered the
hostel as some good ground coffee and a drip filter machine, so I’ve ended up
just drinking the free coffee there instead.

On my second night in Salento I was introduced to a local bar called The SpeakEasy. It’s run by two Aussie brothers from Perth and it popular hangout for tourists. With a happy hour between 8pm to 9pm and their speciality being White Russians, it quickly became the go to place once 8pm rolled around and spending the night there until they closed. A really cool place run by really cool guys, who unfortunately have some new neighbours that don’t appreciate the noise and are now in a legal dispute. If you’re going to move next to a well known bar you really can’t complain after the fact.

Sometimes you just find a place that you really have no reason to want to leave. Salento becomes one of these places. I spent so much time just hanging out with the really cool American couple, Bennet and Emerald. They had been here for a month before they finally moved on, and in that time Emerald asked whether she could paint the bathroom of the Speak Easy. Her background was in painting nebulas and she spent almost a week each day painting away and finally completing her artwork the day before they left.

Every night it was a trip over to the Speak Easy, to the point I would just serve myself. I languished in Salento for over 2 weeks and had become part of the Speak Easy family. The owner, Dave, had some time off and headed to Cartagena for 10 days and in the meantime his brother, Dan, took over. Well as best as Dan could, as he was pretty much drunk by 8pm everyday so it was up to the other staff to pull the slack. They had three people working there – first there was Brian, an American that actually knew how to manage an establishment. In fact Brian was managing the hostel I was staying in while the owners were on holiday and would continue to run the Speak Easy when Dave and Dan return to Australia for a few months in November.

A local by the name of Petey helped run the place, however you’ll never come across a more lazy individual who would try and spent most of his time hitting on the girls that were at the bar. Sadly for him he was a fairly annoying kid and wasn’t successful in any of his female attracting endeavours. I’m pretty sure when
Brian is in charge of the Speak Easy he’ll end up firing Petey, Brian was quite
transparent in his dislike of Petey. Come to think of it, no one really liked
the guy so I was constantly surprise he was still working there each night.

Also helping out was Santiago. He was an American from Chicago that had been staying with family in Salento. It wasn’t until much later that I found he was actually here to dry out – he had overdosed on heroin back home and was getting over his addiction. Not a bad place to do something like that, but it was crazy to think a 19 year old used to be a heroin addict and he appeared to be completely over it when I met him. Santi was a really cool guy and I only ever saw him drink alcohol on Daves birthday and the Halloween party. They guy could really do some amazing free styling too, if I don’t see him as a famous rap artist in a few years time I’ll be greatly disappointed.

Salento has two main tourist attractions; visiting a coffee farm and the Valley de Corca.

Even after being her for 2 and a half weeks I still hadn’t visited either. I
was drawn to hanging out with good people and didn’t really feel like doing the
tourist thing. I was also quickly coming to the realisation that my South
American trip was coming to a close and I honestly had no motivation to be a
tourist. I simply embraced just chilling out, eating amazing fresh trout bathed
in garlic and even American food at a brilliant café called Brunch (run by the
ex-pat American, Jeff), and drinking the night away at Speak Easy.

It was a perfect ending to Colombia and also South America. I even had a flight book to Cartagena that I ditched because I was enjoying the company in Salento so much.

I do feel I need to return to Colombia and see this amazing country properly.
One month here just isn’t enough, so I’ll be chalking Colombia up as a place to
return to one day.

After a fairly wild Halloween party on a Saturday night, I got up early the next
morning and groggily downed two cups of coffee to wake myself up. I was soon
back in Armenia and quickly jumped onto a bus back to Bogota. As I was sitting
on the bus I mused to myself this would be the last bus I take on this trip and
naturally the inevitable happened – the bus broke down. As we all stood on the
side of the road I couldn’t help but smile this would have to happen on my
final bus ride. When a passing bus to Bogota came by it was hailed down and we
all squeezed on. Unfortunately there were no free seats when I got on and I had
to stand for a good two hours before a seat became free. The roads are crazy
and winding, so standing up for that long it truly a test of endurance and leg
muscles!

Finally back in Bogota I made my way to the hostel I had stayed at almost a month ago and was greeted by the owners welcomingly. Tomorrow my flight to Buenos Aires leaves at midday and I say goodbye to Colombia. With only three more nights in Buenos Aires I ride the long haul flight back to Sydney. It’s almost been a year away and it’s surreal to think I’ll be back home soon.

I think I’ll one last blog post before I leave and then this chapter in my life will come to an end. As Brian said to me this morning when I left Salento, my next adventure is waiting for me back home.