Cocora Valley

Interesting facts

The valley is said to take its name from Cocora, a Quimbaya princess and daughter of the local chief Acaime; the name is usually translated as star of water.

The Quindío wax palm is the tallest monocot ever recorded, normally reaching about 45 metres and rarely as much as 60.

Colombia's Law 61 of 16 September 1985 made the palm the national tree and outlawed its felling, with fines convertible into arrest.

The genus name Ceroxylon comes from the Greek for wax and wood, after the thick white wax coating the trunks.

The palm was described scientifically in 1860 by the German botanist Hermann Karsten, who named it after the Quindío region.

Wax palms shelter the yellow-eared parrot, an endangered bird closely tied to these palms.

Spectacled bears, mountain tapirs, pumas and Andean condors are among the rare animals recorded in and around the valley.

A nursery at a farm a few kilometres up the valley raises young wax palms to help restock the slopes.

Besides candles, the palm's stems were once used locally to build houses and even simple water-supply pipes for poor farmers.

Why it is worth it

The Cocora Valley is the place to see Colombia's national tree in its own landscape. On green, cattle-grazed slopes of the Central Cordillera, between about 1,800 and 2,400 metres above sea level, stand groves of Quindío wax palms, Ceroxylon quindiuense, the tallest palms on Earth. Their trunks, pale and ringed, rise bare for 45 metres and more before ending in a small tuft of fronds, so that the trees look like pins stuck into the hillside, often with wisps of cloud drifting between them. The effect is strange and dreamlike: a palm grove in the cool, misty mountains, far from any beach.

The valley holds most of what remains of this palm's wild population. The trunks are coated with a natural wax that was once scraped off to make candles, and young fronds were cut in great numbers for Palm Sunday, until the species was declared the national tree and protected by law in 1985. It is classed as critically endangered, and a palm needs some eighty years even to begin reproducing, which makes every old tree in the valley a survivor. In the same year the valley became part of the Los Nevados National Natural Park, the high Andean reserve of volcanoes and páramo.

Walking is the way to see it. Trails climb from the valley floor along the young Quindío River into cloud forest and lead about 5 km to the Acaime reserve, where hummingbirds of several species gather at feeders. Coming back down through the palm meadows, especially in late afternoon when the mist lifts and the light turns soft, gives the classic view of the tall trunks marching over the ridges.

Getting there

The valley is reached from Salento, a small town in the Colombian coffee region, about 11 km away; jeeps leave from Salento's main square for the valley entrance. Armenia, the departmental capital, is about 24 km away, and Matecaña International Airport (PEI) at Pereira about 34 km; buses connect both cities with Salento.

Cocora Valley

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

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