Termales de Santa Rosa

The journey across from one side of the Andes to the other is only 300km or so but it takes the best part of two days of driving to cover this distance. You start at 2800m in Bogota and descend to just over 300m in Honda before climbing again to a maximum height of 3700m and then coming down again to 2100m at Manizales. All this, for the most part on single carriageway, with a constant line of slow moving trucks. At one stage we were stationary for over an hour as we waited for a tow truck to remove a jack-knifed truck that was blocking the road. Once through, there was a 5km long queue of traffic the other side. This was on top of numerous sets of road works where only 1 direction was allowed through at a time. All in all fairly painful.

By the time we arrived at the Termales de Santa Rosa we were definitely in need of some relaxation. We had been told that the road to the Thermals was really bad however when we got there we found a well graded gravel road that was no problem at all. There are two sets of Santa Rosa hot springs and we chose the ones at an old hotel.

These were lovely with a big hot pool with a hot waterfall at one end and a cold waterfall at the other. Above the pools was a huge, 180m high, waterfall which came down into a small meadow.

Although a bit rundown the place was very relaxing and there were very few people there. We spent a few hours relaxing in the waters.

We couldn’t stay for the night at the hot springs but fortunately there was space to stay in a flat area just outside the gates where we had a very quiet night.