The Cocora Valley (Valle del Cocora) is one of the most beautiful hikes that I have ever experienced in my life. The valley is located just outside Salento, a small town in the Andes region of Colombia that has evolved as a tourist town because of its location next to the valley. The valley is known for its wax palm trees (palmas de cera). This tree is the national tree of Colombia.

This Web page explains well the different ways to get to Salento: https://coupletraveltheworld.c...

We chose to travel by bus. We were coming from Medellín. It was a scenic, six-hour ride. We used the Flota Occidental bus company. Here is their website: https://flotaoccidental.co/

Here is a picture from the trip:

There are two trails that you can take to hike through the valley: One short and the other long. The short trail is about 2.5 km long, relatively easy, and takes 60-90 minutes to complete. The long trail is around 15 km, of a moderate difficulty, and takes 5-6 hours to complete. Then, you can choose whether to hike each trail clockwise or counter-clockwise. So, ultimately, you have four options.

We decided to do the long hike counter-clockwise. Many Web pages and people in Salento recommended doing it this way. The best justification for hiking counter-clockwise is that you save the most stunning part of the journey (the wax palms) for last. It was definitely the right way to do the hike. For the first few hours, we knew what we were working towards, and then we finished on a high.

The picture below shows the different routes. It probably isn't perfect. I made it myself. There are much better hiking guides and maps that you can easily find other places on the Internet. Anyway, below...

• Yellow = drop-off and pick-up lot
• Red = long route
• Purple = short route

Make sure you are prepared for your hike:

• Clothing appropriate for weather (pants and t-shirt?)
• Hiking shoes that are fine in mud
• Backpack
• Sunscreen
• Hat
• Sunglasses
• Water
• Food (if you are doing the 5-6 hour hike)
• Camera
• Money (at least 19,000 COP per person: 8,000 for round-trip transportation + 5,000 of hiking fees + 6,000 to enter a hummingbird sanctuary during the hike)

Note: COP stands for Colombian Peso. $1 USD equals just under $4,000 COP.

This place was the best. In their front window, they advertise "American-size breakfasts" and "pack lunches" for people hiking through the valley. We passed by the restaurant one night and realized that it would be a great place to go the morning of our hike. We could get a breakfast that would fuel us for our hike and a lunch that we could bring with us.

There is nowhere to get food during the hike, other than a small hut where you can get a piece of cheese and hot chocolate, so if you choose to do the 5-6 hour hike, you should definitely bring water and food for yourself in a backpack.

The servers at Brunch de Salento were amazing. They were so kind, always smiling, making conversation with us, and gushing with pride about the beauty of their town. And then, wait until later in the story for the surprise that they left us in our lunches!

From the town of Salento, the most common way to get the the valley is by taking a Willy, or four-by-four jeep. These jeeps wait in the center of town, their drivers looking to fill their vehicles with passengers who want to go to the valley. There will be jeeps also waiting in a lot at the end of the hike through the valley throughout the afternoon and evening to take hikers back to the center of town.

The Willys can fit 7-11 people. You can see in one of the pictures below a Willy with passengers crammed in the back.

The fee for the ride isn't much at all. I don't remember exactly what I paid in 2019. Different websites reference different figures. Some say you can pay as little $4,000 COP ($1 USD) per person for a one-way trip on a shared ride (with other people who you don't know). Another says that a private ride costs $35,000 COP ($8.75 USD).

About halfway through the long hike, there is the option to take an extension trail through the Acaime Natural Reserve to the Hummingbird House (La Casa de los Colibris). It will cost $5,000 COP to enter. At the house, you can have some hot chocolate and cheese while watching the hummingbirds. When you are ready to leave, just take the same trail that you took to get to the hummingbird house back to the main trail.

The reserve is named Acaime after a chief of the Quimbayan people, a small indigenous tribe that lived around the Cocora Valley between the 1st century BCE and 10th century CE. The name Acaime means "star of water." Acaime's daughter was Cocora, after whom the valley is named.

Once you emerge from the woods, the next task is to make a steep, zigzag climb up a hill to Finca la Montaña (mountain finca). Here is where you experience the highest altitude of the hike (10,000 meters / 32,808 feet).

There is a small property at the top of the hill here called Finca la Montaña. You can kind of see pieces of it (the house and yard) in some of the pictures below. I don't remember it being open to the public, but outside of it are benches and green spaces that provide great places to eat your packed lunch.

In addition to sandwich and fruit (granadilla), check out the surprise note that Papa Brunch from Brunch del Salento, the restaurant where we bought our pack lunches, left us! That place is the best!

Outside the finca while eating you can enjoy a really nice view, too. With the finca to your back, if you look out over the hill we just climbed, you can see the mountainside. Cerro Morrogacho is the volcano tip-shaped mountain peak.

And here it was: The Forest of Wax Palms. We had finally arrived! The scenery was stunning. I sometimes play around with different photo editors or try different filters on some of my pictures, but I didn't use any here. It wasn't necessary. Without any revisions or enhancements, the photos really well capture the true essence and beauty of the place as I experienced it with my own eyes in person.