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Apparently, Cuenca is the most colonial looking city of Ecuador. As Baños and Quito feature more modern architecture, Cuenca seemed like a cool, different stop on our way to Peru. From the moment we arrived, we immediately felt like we were in Spain. The historical center of Cuenca features many houses with balconies that were completely decorated with flowers, which reminded us of Andalusia. Cuenca’s main attraction is the New Cathedral of Cuenca, which is an enormous church, with several blue domes on its roof. The bricks of the New Cathedral reminded us of being in Italy, we were super surprised by the European vibes of this city! We found Cuenca the perfect stop on our way to Peru, check out our picture diary & route to Peru in this blogpost.

Bogota initially was not included on my must visit list in Colombia, but because the south border of Colombia currently is quite unsafe to visit, we ended up having to take an airplane to Ecuador from Bogota. We therefore decided to spend one day in Bogota. We took a collectivo from Villavieja to Neiva, and from Neiva we had a direct bus to Bogota (about € 12 per person). This was supposed to take 5 hours, but took us over 7 hours, including the bus breaking down once.. but in the end we did make it safely to Bogota! We found one day in Bogota the perfect amount of time. Lots of travelers arrive in Bogota for their travels in Colombia and it is a fine place to adjust to the time difference.

When we visited Colombia I knew that we had to visit the coffee region. I had seen pictures of the dreamy Cocora Valley and discovered that you can easily visit the Cocora Valley as a day trip from Salento. We decided to stay in Salento for three days and found that the perfect amount of time to explore this beautiful area. Read on to see what we did in Salento!