The wax palms of the Cocora valley

May 17, 2019May 16, 2019 P B 0 Comments

The most popular day trip from Salento is to the Cocora Valley, to see the FAMOUS wax palms! Yes, you may not have heard of them – but they are famous in Colombia. Wax palms grow in tropical cloud forest areas, and they can reach a height of 60m – they are the tallest palms in the WORLD!

The wax palm is the national tree of Colombia, and is featured on the new 100,000 peso notes (yes, there are lots of zeros on the currency in Colombia!) These trees used to be cut down a lot – with the fruit used for food for livestock, and the palm leaves used in Palm Sunday celebrations. They are now protected by Colombian law, but they are still a threatened species.

In their natural environment they are the tallest trees in the cloud forest – with the tops of them sticking out of a dense jungle canopy. Unfortunately in the Cocora valley, a lot of the forest has been chopped down for fields for livestock – but the wax palms were left standing, so they are the only trees left behind. They look quite striking growing in the green fields – but the sad thing is that when they die, they will be gone from the field forever – as new wax palms can only grow from seeds on the cloud forest floor. Hopefully there are enough wax palms inside cloud forest areas to keep the species going. In the meantime, the wax palms growing in the fields are a BIG tourist atttaction in Colombia – for both locals and foreigners.

To see the wax palms you can just go to the valley, walk up the road a bit, pay an entrance fee to the farmer, and then wander around the palms taking selfies. This is the most common way that the locals do it. The gringos however, tend to visit by doing a circular walk that starts in farmland, passes through cloud forest, detours to a cafe that has hummingbird feeders, and then finishes up in the fields full of wax palms with all the rest of the tourists.

We are of course gringos! So obviously we had to do the circular walk with all the other gringos! 🙂 Yes, it was a little busy for my liking – but a nice enough walk – especially the part through the cloud forest. The wax palms were also pretty impressive. The walk took us around six hours including the stop at the hummingbird garden, and sitting on the grass to eat our lunch. To do the walk you end up paying fees THREE times?! Yes, two farmers whose land the walk passes through, and a fee to enter the hummingbird garden. At the hummingbird garden you get a free drink, so that’s fair enough…! The other fees aren’t much though, and in my view the walk is worth it.

PB at the start of the trail ready for action!

Wax palms growing in the forest on the hill.

Near the start of the trail we saw a REALLY cool bird. Look at that tail! This is a swallow-tailed flycatcher.

The first part of the trail through fields is not so exciting… (except for the bird with the long tail!)

In the cloud forest area there are lots of streams to cross.

The sign points the way to the hummingbird garden.

I mentioned that there was a free drink included at the hummingbird garden – what I didn’t mention was that one of the options for the drink was a Colombian speciality – hot chocolate with cheese! Yes, what’s not to like? It consists of hot chocolate with some cheese – no surprise there! In theory the cheese melts in the hot chocolate – but nobody ever served us a hot chocolate that was hot enough to melt the cheese… LOSERS….yes, what can you do?!

CC with her hot chocolate and cheese. Note the unmelted cheese….

The hummingbird garden was not very ‘garden’ like – it was a bit run-down with only a few feeders – but we saw hummingbirds! 🙂

A cool hummingbird in the hummingbird garden.

A long-tailed sylph. Obviously today was the day for birds with very long tails!

The walk is pretty much uphill all the way until the high point is reached – which is at 2860m altitude. The starting point is at 1800m altitude, so it’s a hefty climb of around 1000m to get to the top!