Salento 8/27

Last night I took the bus from Guatape back to Medellin (2 hours), another bus to other terminal and then the 5 hour ride to Aremenia.  Beautiful landscapes, just weaving through mountains.  I was arriving pretty late and had planned to just find a spot to stay close by to the terminal but two Spanairds on the bus were also trying to get to Salento so we hopped in a taxi together.  At the last minute this strange Israeli guy came with us too and then the subject of terrorism came up, the taxi stalled out while the driver was struggling to get us up the hill and find the hostal in the dark.  Man, please, why are we going into politics with this dude?  Luckily, after asking directions from 3 different people we came across the hostal and I snatched up a room with three German girls.  The place, La Serrana, was clean, had free breakfast, coffee, wifi and spectacular views.

The next day I walked with the Spanish guys down the hill for a coffee farm tour.  I had done this in Costa Rica before, but perhaps that was the commercialized version.  This was the mom and pop business, without any big machines, they actually used a little hand-crank molino ( I had only seen these used for grinding up corn for tamales, etc).  We saw the plants, learned about the new cuts made every 8-10 years to help rejuvenate the plant (only has about 3 life cycles before the quality starts to go down), the banana plants used for shade, how to pick the right red bean, pop off the husk, dry them out, toast, grind and voila, hacer el cafe.  Truthfully, all the coffee I´ve had here in the land of Juan Valdez has been pretty, well, not so great.  Apparently the best stuff is exported which explains why Folgers tastes better than my tinto.

After wandering back to the hostel, I decided to give the Couchsurfing thing a try.  Some roommates had tried it in the past and I´ve been getting sick of the hostal lifestyle.  It can be fun, but it also feels like a continual party with backpackers, not a real look at the country or it´s people.  Another person was telling me about their good experience so i thought I´d give it a go.  The first place I landed was a place to drop my bags. a bar/resturant called the Speakeasy.  A Bostonian Brian greeted me at the door, and I met Dave and Dan (the Australiuan bros) who bought the property and have been cleaning it up, turning it into their business for the past year or so..  It was fun, although they were supposed to be celebrating someone´s birthday and going away party that night, a ton of peole ended up wandering thru so I was able to help out in the kitchen and waitress.  Good times.  Lots of interesting people to talk to, Dave made some awesome Thai curry soup and  my stuff stayed safe.  Thank you for good people in the world.