Tom & Claire's Big Adventure: Living the Sachamama slow life, Salento, Columbia

Wow what a blissful life. Set high in the Columbian hills lies Sachamama nature reserve. A place where 'tranquilo' is the everyday philosophy and where many hours of the day are spent reading and watching the myriad of birds flying though the valley. The reserve and coffee farm is owned by Pedro, or 'Pedrito' as his wife Mar affectionately calls him. They built Sachamama 6 years ago and live there with their beautiful children Nita and Sarita and cute dog, Simba.

Sachamama comes from the Quechuan word meaning Mother Jungle

We met Pedro, a wonderfully inspiring, generous and passionate Columbian man while doing his coffee tour a month prior and arranged to spend 10 days with him and his family to get a taste of the simple life and practice our Spanish.

We filled our Sachamama days assisting Pedro with his reforestation projects; planting trees, drinking coffee, cutting grass with machetes, drinking more coffee, reading, helping Pedro with coffee tours, Spanish-English classes with Pedro's daughters and drinking even more coffee.

We slept in tents inside the house, had only cold showers, (when the water was running) played games and ate by candle light in the evening. There was no electricity so bedtime was at 8pm, there was no alcohol, and most of the food was made from scratch. Yogurt was made from the local farmers milk, arepas (maize flat bread) were made by grinding boiled corn and forming the patties in the morning for breakfast. And of course, the coffee was brewed from the beans growing in the forest - you could really taste the difference - even after drinking 10 cups of coffee a day, there were no adverse side-effects from the caffeine. Nothing like having a fresh cup of brewed organic coffee at the source!