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San Félix is a village belonging to the municipality of Salamina in the Coffee Region of Colombia. It boasts a beautiful landscape featuring the world’s largest wax palm forest.
Introduction to San Félix
San Félix is a hardworking agricultural community with a cold climate. It’s known for its production of excellent cheese and milk as well as potatoes, avocados, and strawberries. The village was originally settled by farmers from Boyacá, which is noted in the architecture.
Getting to San Félix
San Félix is about an hour drive from Salamina. If you don’t have your own transportation, you can catch a bus in Salamina.
Main Square in San Félix
The only real attraction in the village is the main square, which is a large open space surrounded by historic buildings. The most important building on the square is the Church of the Immaculate Conception (Iglesia de la Inmaculada Concepción), which wasn’t open during our visit.
La Cabañita Láctea
On one corner of the square is La Cabañita Láctea, which offers some of the milk products the village is famous for. They have milk, cheese, and yogurt for sale. We took some yogurt to snack on and it was delicious.
Samaria Valley
The Samaria Valley (Valle de la Samaria) is about a 15 minute drive from the village down a narrow unpaved road. This is where you can find the world’s largest natural wax palm forest.
The tallest species of palms in the world, wax palms grow an average of 50 meters tall but unfortunately are endangered because of cattle eating their seedlings. The palms are protected by the Colombian government. It’s illegal to cut them down or harm them in any way.
The Samaria Valley is a much more natural and peaceful setting to see wax palms compared to the more popular Cocora Valley near Salento. It sees only a fraction of the visitors thanks to its remote location.
Furthermore, unlike at Cocora Valley, the landowners at the Samaria Valley are focused on conservation of the wax palms rather than exploitation for tourism. You won’t find ridiculous artificial constructions set up for selfies and Instagram photos. Instead, you’ll be able to better appreciate the landscape filled with wax palms.
Ecohotel Valle de la Samaria
Ecohotel Valle de la Samaria is one of two establishments at the Samaria Valley offering tours, food, accommodation, and horseback riding. It’s the first one you’ll come to along the road into the valley, and is a small place with a restaurant and some cabins.
Guided Tour of the Wax Palm Forest
For COP$15,000 per person (as of March 2024), visitors can take a an hour-long guided tour through the wax palm forest (in Spanish). The guide does an amazing job of explaining the entire life cycle of a wax palm and their uses. He also explained the dangers to their existence and how locals are working to protect them. There’s a shorter 15-minute walk and a full-day tour as well, but the hour-long tour is perfect in my opinion.
The tour starts at the restaurant where the guide leads a group along a narrow ridge with wax palms on both sides. At the end of the ridge, you walk down into the actual forest where the wax palms grow naturally.
Inside the forest, there’s a high concentration of wax palms. The guide gets you up close and personal with them allowing you to touch the trunk.
Deeper in the forest, the guide points out wax palms during different stages of their lives. There are sprouts that have just recently emerged from the ground and others that have been forming for over 20 years. In addition to the wax palms, you’ll see some flowers and other interesting plants.
The tour ends at the Tree of Life, which is an endangered local species on the property. Visitors have the chance to cross a bridge to a platform on the tree or relax on the tire swing. From there, it’s a short walk back to the restaurant.
Eating at Ecohotel Valle de la Samaria
We had ordered our lunches before taking the tour and expected them to be ready at 12:30pm. To say we were upset at waiting over an hour extra is an understatement. The tomato soup came out at around 1:20pm. It was a small portion but tasty.
Our main dishes came out about 20 minutes later. I had the chicken while Marisol had the trout. We both tried our meals in the house special Samaria sauce, which was recommended by the owner. Unfortunately, it was nowhere near as good as we expected. The sauce was simply raw tomatoes and slightly cooked onions with bits of cold cheese and some salt. Half of my chicken was as hard as a rock.
Furthermore, the potatoes that were supposed to come with each dish never showed up. The owner promised to bring out one big batch for our group of 12 but after waiting until 2:15pm we gave up and left. To worsen the experience, one member of our group ordered a lasagna and wasn’t served until 2pm.
Our Thoughts on Ecohotel Valle de la Samaria
Overall, the tour was excellent but was soured by our experience at lunch. Go for the palms and the tour and skip lunch. We can’t speak for the accommodation, but the cabin looks like a great place to stay surrounded by nature.
