A stroll through the coffee fields in Solento

We arrived late at night in Solento and starting looking for the hostel we were recommended. A young boy appeared on the street and asked where we were going. 'The Plantation House' we said and he started leading us down an unlit gravel road on the edge of the village. I immediately got suspicious of this and hung back a little bit to see if there were any nasty surprises waiting for us in the dark...

It turns out that he was just a friendly boy and didn't even ask for 'propina' (a tip)! We got our rooms and settled in for a few beers with the other travellers there. Almost everyone had come from either Ecuador or Venezuela with a few who had made a boat trip from Panama. We met some Aussies for the first time since we were in the Americas too.

Walking to the coffee plantation with Fred and Martin

The next day we went for a walk down to a coffee plantation where the farmer takes people for tours around his farm. We were walking through the coffee plants and he could only speak Spanish. He also wanted to ensure that we didn't move on until we understood him. Martin seemed to understand what he was saying and after repeating a couple of words he was saying and some vigorous si, si, si's (yes, yes, yes's) we would move on. After a while I said to Martin 'whats he saying?' to which Martin replied 'I have no idea!'. We saw coffee plants from seedlings to full grown plants, the beans, the drying process, the grinding and then finally we drank some coffee.

The coffee plantation owner - if only we spoke more Spanish...

A refreshing cup of fresh ground coffee after a brisk stroll!!

From here we went on a good long walk through the countryside and along a river and back around to our accommodation. The next day after a lazy start we decided to head off again towards some hot springs further to the North.

Random donkey outside a church near the plantation