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Plantation House: stay in Salento for comfort & convenience
We checked out the rooms at Reserva Acaime and if an avid birder, it looked well worth staying there for the photo opportunities alone but obviously, that's about all there to lure you there. The eating options are going to be very limited unless of course you like squeaky cheese. ;) We stayed in Salento as most people do and did a day trip to Valle de Corcora. We can highly recommend the Plantation House:
As a general rule, we had steered clear of hostels when traveling around Colombia for the five weeks we had already been in the country. Though we had started out by staying in the country's most noted hostel, Bogota's Platypus, and did a brief stop at Mompos' Casa Amarilla, we had found budget hotels catering more to Colombians to be not only nicer but also better value. They were generally more quiet and with fewer backpackers, easier to keep to yourself when you wanted to. But as we headed to Salento, it was tough to avoid wanting to stay at The Plantation House. Reports were excellent and after a fun experience on La Ciudad Perdida group trek, we decided to give the hostel scene another go. We were glad we did as The Plantation House was everything it was said to be and provided us with a great place to stay as well take photos of what appeared to be a resident motmot!
The old wooden building has a lot of charm and is small enough to feel really cozy. There were times when it was a little noisy when we went to bed but it died down earlier enough to not be a real problem. We were going to bed pretty early to be fair. The people staying at the hostel were very friendly and a nice group that was easy to get along with. It didn't have the “can you top this” feeling you can get when sitting around with a group on this kind of circuit. The room was not very big but not overly cramped and was nicely if simply furnished. The communal baths were clean enough and featured tons of hot water. The kitchen was kept pretty clean too and a real plus was a fairly steady supply of fairly strong coffee that was free. There were nice places to sit on the veranda and this was the place's real plus as the grounds were quite lush with many birds. We spotted a gorgeous motmot both of our mornings there, who was a real poser too.
The owner is an English guy married to a Colombian woman and they have the cutest little girl who so obviously has her Daddy wrapped around her finger, very endearing. They do tours of their coffee plantation as well as organize things further afield but in no way are they pushy in “selling tours.” A really pleasant place to stay and can see why people wind up staying longer than planned.
We paid 37000 COP ($18.50) per night for our double room. You can definitely find cheaper in town but we felt it was a fair value room when taking in the overall ambiance.
