Willys jeep to Valle de Cocora
Eleven kilometres of dirt road up from the square in Salento. The jeep is how it is done.
There is one road up to Valle de Cocora and it starts on the main square in Salento. Eleven kilometres of dirt track, a good half hour, and the valley opens up at the end of it. The wax palm — Colombia's national tree, and the tallest palm in the world, which grows to sixty metres only in these few valleys — starts appearing before you reach the car park. The walks begin there: the short loop to the viewpoints, and the long five- or six-hour circuit past the hummingbird house.
The hour of departure decides your day. Before seven in the morning the valley is usually clear; by mid-morning the cloud is moving in, and in the rainy season you may not see the palms at all by midday. That is why most of the rides booked on this route leave at dawn, and why it is worth arranging the jeep the night before instead of walking down to the square and hoping.
Getting back is where people come unstuck. At four in the afternoon everybody leaves at once and the jeeps coming up are already full. Book the return in the same request and the driver plans for the wait and quotes accordingly. If you are staying overnight up there, or walking back down, say so in the note: it is a different job and it costs differently.