Cocora Valley - Land of Giants and Midgets

After the coffee culture, Cat and I went to visit the other main draw of Salento, the Cocora Valley. This is a great place to hike for a few hours, or maybe a few more if you take the wrong turn and end up walking over a mountain instead of around it. A lot of fun either way, and challenging without being gritty.

The views from all sides are incredible, and they all come with lots of these guys:
Yep, that's me down there. This one wasn't even the tallest

Wax Palms, the giraffe of the tree world: fairly pointless and stupidly tall but impressive and nice to look at. The tallest palms are over 60m high and are dotted across almost every horizon in Cocora.

Sunset among the palms

Our trail took us to some great views:

Cocora is an Instagrammer's paradise
And showed us some amazing wildlife:

Everywhere the track was filthy, there were hundreds of butterflies. A reminder that they are at the end of the day, flies.

But the best was saved for last. At one point on the trail, there was a sign pointing to Bosque de los Colibries, the Hummingbird Forest. We were a little confused as we walked about 15 minutes off the trail without seeing a single hummingbird, then suddenly we came to a small house, surrounded by hundreds of them!


Took me ages to snap this on the good old handheld camera

The Bosque is a dedicated nature reserve that looks after the endangered birds of Cocora. Here you will see 8 different hummingbird species hovering around the feeders, most of them not much bigger than your thumb.

"Y'all came to the wrong neighbourhood"

They vary wildly in colours and would swoop around after each other, having mid-air battles and arguing with each other in little squeaks. It's pretty obvious to me why they're called hummingbirds now - you can tell one is nearby when you hear the thrum of its wings.

Manspreading much?

These little guys are one of my favourite animals and I don't think I stopped smiling for the rest of the day after we left. Absolutely worth the effort to see them if you're on the trail!

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