We woke up this morning to some torrential downpouring of rain just as we were about to start getting ready to go hiking in the Valle de Cocora, which is another area of wax palms. We waited out the rain for an hour or so, then decided to give it a try even though it was still pretty foggy/cloudy. Worst case we get some exercise.

We took a jeep to the base of the hiking area in the next town, paid our $1 per person to enter the park, then started hiking. Since we didn’t come early enough, we didn’t have time to do a full loop like we had planned, so we just decided to go up and turn around when we needed to get back. We saw some palms to start out, then things started getting pretty foggy…

The fog did give the hike a little bit of a prehistoric/mystical feel. When we came to the second lookout, the clouds actually parted a little bit and we got some great views!

The rest of the hike, it started raining and got even foggier, but we were still glad we did it. After we finished, we took the jeep back to town, grabbed our things, and got some lunch- an appetizer of one of the thin crispy fried patacones and one more Bandeja Paisa before we left Paisa territory. 

We had one more fancy coffee before leaving town, then hopped on a 3:00 PM bus to Cali. It was a direct shuttle so got us in not too late. We found a place that was open for dinner and went ahead with the fancy meal. We had some melty cheese with portobello for appetizier (mmmm, it was absolutely delicious!), Alejandro had a steak with maduro (ripe plantain) mash, and Cassie had a fish encocado (coconut cream sauce).

It was all pretty wonderful and the perfect meal before bedtime.