When I think of tall towering palm trees, I generally picture myself relaxing on a peaceful white sand beach, gazing at turquoise water and relaxing in the shade of a coconut palm. It is nice to think there would be a fruity drink with a little umbrella in my hand as well. The last place I would think of is where we found ourselves on this day. Hiking through a lush valley, surrounded by green, cloud shrouded mountains, hundreds of miles from any coast. And you guessed it…towering palm trees scattered across the hillsides. After a week in the area of Salento in the famous coffee region of Colombia, the sun had finally decided to come out for us today, so we were finally getting to see the famous Valle de Cocora and the infamous Palma de Cera (wax palm). The wax palm is the national tree of Colombia and according to our friends at Wikipedia, happens to be the tallest species of palm, growing up to 50 meters (150 feet) tall and live as long as 100 years. I can verify that they are quite tall, and appear especially so growing out of the grass covered hillsides. The other thing that sets these palms apart from the others is that they only grow in high altitude regions of the Colombian Andes. Thus the Valle de Cocora has become the center of wax palm viewing of Colombia, and a dramatic backdrop of green cloud shrouded mountains makes it a very pleasant walk indeed.

The beginning of our hike into the beautiful Valle de Cocora.

There are a few different lengths of trail you can hike in the valley, but we opted to see it all, thus hiking a big loop through the valley and back out. Due to all the rain lately, we had some muddy hiking through the valley, which gave plenty of time to enjoy the view of the palms. I especially like the palms that have air plants growing all the way up the trunk.

A lone wax palm. Notice all the air plants growing on the trunk.

Eventually we arrived at the mountains and the trail started to wind its way up through the trees. There was a lot of criss-crossing back and forth over the creek with log bridges to keep it interesting for us. Halfway up the mountain we took a detour to a hummingbird “farm,” which turned out to be a little house with a very nice couple and a few hummingbird feeders with sugar water. On the bright side, there were plenty of hummingbirds and it was a nice break from the climb.

Back on the trail, Luis and I thought we were going to die before we made it to the top of the hill where a mirador was waiting for us. This hike turned out to be a good reminder of how out of shape we’ve become! Finally just as we made it to the top, the clouds rolled in and covered the view before we could even catch our breath to snap a photo. So you are going to have to take our word for it that it was a beautiful view.

The clouds blocking our hard earned view.

From the mirador we had a pleasant 5 kms of walking back down the hill on a nice road. There were ample opportunities for more wax palm photos, and we could only be thankful we weren’t still going up hill. We made it back to the bottom just in time to catch a Jeep back into Salento, while we reflected on the amazing beauty of the valley and our poor aching feet

April 13th, 2011 | Tags: blogsherpa, Colombia, salento, valle cocora, wax palm | Category: Colombia, South America | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL