Salento is a beautiful town. I’m not sure whether the beauty or the tourists came first but you can certainly tell the difference from Ibague!
It is full of bright painted houses and traditional Colombians going about their daily businesses – which seemed to be trout fishing or making money out of tourists.
In the centre are beautiful craft stalls full of jewellery, candles and coffee and then up the Main Street there are more shops full of similar goodies. Salento is a more expensive town due to the tourism however things definitely do seem better quality. The lunch we stopped for just off the Main Street was delicious!! Unfortunately as obvious tourists (pale skin!) we got pestered by a few street singers who made their way into the restaurant and felt it was necessary to loudly serenade us – we didn’t appreciate this so much!
You can walk to the top of the stairs at the end of the street for views of the mountains and valleys – I would definitely recommend this!! The views really are stunning and stretch for miles.
However it is a small town with few activities, although I would definitely recommend going I wouldn’t say there is more than a days worth of activities or sights to see (unless you’re off on an enthusiastic hike/cycle through the mountains).
However the bizarreness of this day came in the bus journey where several people (who I don’t think we’re travelling together) began to sing (loudly!) all the way to Pereira presumably about their day in Salento?? All I could make out was a couple of songs about Agua (water) and Arepas (a corn like type of food). Very strange indeed – and I can certainly say that not all Colombians can sing well!!!
eyes abroad 