Coffee Time

An early morning with early breakfast so that we could go with our tour leader on a morning hike on a trail around the property on which we are staying. We feared that the trail would be muddy after yesterday's shower, and it was in a couple of low spots, but generally we kept our feet dry.

We walked through forests of both endemic and Asian invasive bamboo, and learned about features of each. It was a beautiful morning for a walk. Only two other group members joined us.

After hiking, we gathered our gear and got on the bus for a drive to Montenegro. Not the country (we were there last spring), but to a town of that name. We had some time to walk around the town square on our own. Then our tour leader bought us coffee in a local coffeeshop.

The place was packed with locals -- all men. The coffee was pretty bad. Our leader explained that Colombia is the second or third largest coffee producer in the world, but coffee consumption per capita is quite low here. That's because the best coffee is exported, and only the poor quality coffee is local.

After that cultural experience, we walked across the square once again and boarded Willy's Jeeps, dating to the 1950s, which have been tricked out as transportation. Each Jeep was plenty full with four of us riding in each, but the locals typically pack 20 or more people -- standing room only -- onto a Jeep.

The Jeeps took us over some very rough roads to a small coffee plantation owned by Jesús Martín. This man is rather famous for trying to get Colombians to buy and drink high quality coffee. We went into his fields with him to learn more about the coffee process.

Coffee is so labor-intensive that he only has about 30 acres under cultivation, and at any given time at least 20% of that land is out of production due to a five year rotation schedule. Beans are picked entirely by hand. 

Traditionally, pickers were paid by the pound of beans they picked. But this caused many beans to be picked before they were properly ripe, or after they had become diseased. One of his innovations is paying a daily wage and stressing to pickers that he wants only beans that are the highest quality to be picked.

After learning about coffee in the field, we saw how beans are sorted, shelled, and dried. There are three different processes for this, depending on the type of roast that will ultimately be done. The dried beans are then bagged and sent to be roasted (we'll see that tomorrow).

The coffee farmers and their half-dozen full time employees (more are hired in picking season) then served us a traditional farm lunch. There was an excellent soup, choice of meats, rice, potatoes, plantains, and salad. Nothing fancy, but a very good meal. Following goodbyes, we were back on the Jeeps.

Back at our eco-lodge, we had about an hour to unwind. Then there were options. About half the group accompanied our tour leader on the same hike we had down in the morning. Mary opted to make the hike a second time.

Two of us in the group, however, opted to take advantage of the lodge's zip-line course. Two young men from the lodge staff took us across the seven lines. It was a nice course! And the cost was only about $8 U.S., which is quite a bargain (but we tipped the two young men generously, as well).

The only other adventurous person to be my zip-line partner was Randee, an Indiana native just a few years younger than I am, who now lives in Arizona with her husband. Neither of our spouses could be persuaded to join us.

After zipping in the hot sun, we retired to the patio outside our rooms for a cold drink. A couple of other group members, who had opted for neither hiking nor zipping, were already there. Soon the hikers returned and joined us, and in no time at all our entire group was gathered for lively conversation. We have a very good group of travelers this time.

The evening meal at the lodge was once again quite good. But after such a full day, we were all ready to retire early after dinner.

Medellín Reál

Medellín Reál (med-aye-JEAN ree-ALL) is Spanish for "the real Medellin." That's what we saw today. Not that the fancy, high-rise apartments and mall with expensive shops aren't real, but most of the population doesn't live that way. Most of the population lives in slums, and that's where we were today. One of the things we appreciate about O.A.T. is that they take us to such places and allow us to meet real people.

The bus took us into the city and dropped us at a Metro station. We rode this light rail train to the end of the line, and then got onto a cable car, very much like in La Paz. The cable car took us to the top of a mountain, over the tops of home-built brick-block homes with wrinkle-tin roofs.

We disembarked the cable car and walked the narrow, broken streets of Communidad Ocho (Community Number Eight). This was vacant land that people with no place else to go started building shelters on some years ago. Before whoever owned the land could react, there were so many people and so many simple houses under construction that there was no turning back the tide.

During the time after the collapse of the Medellin Cartel, paramilitary groups took control here. Sometimes they fought leftist rebels, sometimes they fought one another, but always, they kept control with a reign of terror.

We met Luís, a young man who is part of an organization attempting to revitalize Communidad Ocho. He was a member of the paramilitary in this neighborhood. He says that he now patrols these streets to spread peace and love instead of fear and hatred. He is studying at the university to become a civil engineer, but with the organization, he is working on projects to clean up garbage, run a recycling program, build community pride, and help other paramilitary veterans who can't find employment.

After a tour and explanation of how the organization started, women from the community fed us a good meal at the organization's community center. We had rice and shredded beef, with salad and plantains, and a drink made from a mixture of club soda and beer (not as bad as it sounds).

Once finished with lunch, we were off to the airport. Instead of driving miles out of town to the international airport, this time we went to the much smaller, old airport in the midst of the city. The plane was a small ATR turboprop that bounced us over the mountains and onto a much flatter plateau.

We landed in Pereira, the capital city of the Colombian department of Risaralda. A city of nearly 800,000, it is located in the foothills of the Andes in a coffee-producing area of Colombia known as the Coffee Triangle. From Pereira, we drove to Alcalá, a town of about 25,000, roughly an hour away. Then we kept driving into the country.

We are staying on a coffee plantation on which an eco-lodge has been constructed. It's a bit rustic, but we have the necessities. We stopped at a supermarket in Pereira to stock up on beer and wine. There is a swimming pool here, as well as a game room. We enjoyed a very nice meal this evening, so we are well taken care of. We'll just be a bit isolated for a few days.

Gautapé

After a nice breakfast at this fancier than usual hotel, we set out by bus for the village of Gautapé (gau-tah-pay), a tourist town on the shore of the Embalse Del Peñol (Reservoir of Peñol -- pronounced pen-yol). The reservoir was created in the 1970s by construction of the Gautapé Hydroelectric Dam.

At a rest stop along the way, we drank cocoa and at pan de queso or cheese bread. The cocoa is bitter dark chocolate sweeter heavily with cane sugar. The cheese bread is a round roll, looking somewhat like a bagel.

We got an up-close lesson in how the cheese bread is made at this busy roadside location. The one baker makes up to 2,000 rolls sold here on a typical Saturday.

The rest stop was also selling cow hides, which locals use for upholstery. There was a wide selection of hides available at the gift shop. Fortunately, no one from our group wanted to take one home.

Just before reaching Gautapé, we stopped at a marina that could have been on the shore of any large lake in the U.S. and took a ride on a pontoon boat. From the boat, we viewed Piedra del Peñol (the stone of Peñol), a volcanic pillar rising more than 700 feet above the lake level.

We also viewed the burned out ruins of an expensive lake home once owned by the notorious drug lord, Pablo Escobar. Escobar was nowhere near here when the home was raided by "vigilantes" (who were in reality extrajudicial government police) attempting to pressure Escobar by destroying his assets, prior to his death in 1993 in a shoot-out with police, military, and para-military forces.

Following the boat ride, we entered the town and had a tug-tuk ride through the narrow cobblestone streets. A key attraction of Gautapé are the zócalos (three-dimensional murals) that adorn the lower portions of the houses and businesses here. The tuk-tuks were a great way to see many of these.

The zócalos represent the type of business or attributes of the families in each location. A bakery has baking scenes, a shoe repair shop shows a shoemaker. Families that have been in the area for many generations, before the tourist influx, often show sheep or llamas.

We actually had the opportunity to meet one of the primary artists who makes his living creating zócalos. His nickname (just like the florist we met yesterday) is Nacho. However, his works are always signed Nachos -- plural -- because his two sons now work with him in the business of creating and maintaining this art.

The tuk-tuks dropped us at a restaurant on the main square where we had one of the worst meals of the trip. Mary's fish was OK, but the steak was all gristle. At least the beer, a locally brewed stout, was good.

We had a bit of free time in the town before meeting the bus and taking the two hour trip back to our hotel. The hotel is attached to a gigantic, new, upscale shopping mall. So, we spent some time in the evening strolling in the mall while rain fell outside. The crowd was amazing! There were literally thousands of people, of all ages, walking the mall. Many were walking their dogs, as well. The restaurants and food courts were full. It was the place to be in Medellin on Saturday night.

Tomorrow we fly to a rural agricultural area where we are told that internet connections may be spotty. Posts will be as we are able.

Flower Parade

We weren't quite ready to leave Bogota's beautiful weather, but we packed up and headed to the airport this morning for the half hour flight to Medellin. In the local dialect, it's pronounced "Med-aye-jean." No wonder it's so difficult to understand what people are saying here!

The airport is actually some distance from the city, and on the way in our tour leader directed the driver to take a detour to the village of Santa Elena. There we visited "Nacho," an interesting man with excellent English and a passion for gardening, flowers, and history.

Nacho demonstrated for us the "silla" or chair that local people used to carry heavy loads on their backs. Sometimes that load was actually another person, sitting in a chair. More often, it was carrying produce from the mountains into the market. The produce of Santa Elena was primarily flowers. Second only to the Netherlands, Colombia exports more flowers than any country in the world.

To celebrate this heritage, Santa Elena holds an annual festival in which local families create large flower displays and carry them through the town along a two mile long parade route. (Think the Rose Parade in Pasadena, California, but entirely on foot!) Nacho's family has won prizes for best display over many years, all with flowers grown in his own garden.

After a demonstration of the silla and a garden tour, we were invited into the house for a refreshing glass of lulo juice (see yesterday's post), and an opportunity to view a video of a few minutes of the parade. Then we were on our way.

The area around Medellin is much more mountainous than we experience around Bogota. This rural area is also significantly less prosperous -- not as poor as Bolivia, but definitely not like the urban area.

The bus took us directly to the center city of Medellin. There is a very different "vibe" in this city than in Bogota. Bogota was sophisticated, relaxed, and businesslike. Medellin is a circus. The downtown pedestrian mall was crowded with vendors, street performers, people shouting through bullhorns. It's a loud and boisterous place.

The people on the streets were not dressed professionally, as in Bogota, but very casually. There is a working class feel, as if this is more of a gritty, industrial city. Also, people here have more indigenous features and body builds. We were told that there are also a great many refugees from Venezuela here, with not a few of them homeless and living on the streets.

We had a traditional farm lunch of beans and rice, but unlike Mexican fare, the beans were kidney beans. Shredded beef, sausages, pork rinds, and a fried egg topped the dish. There was no salsa or other spices, so it was much more bland than we expected.

Back on the crowded streets, we made our way to the state museum where we viewed paintings and sculptures by Fernando Botero. Botero is an internationally-known native of Medellin, now in his 90s, with a unique and distinctive style.

Botero has donated many works to this museum with the stipulation that he has final say in how they are displayed, and that they can never be sold or moved. Some of his display decisions are controversial, such as placing his portrait of Christ next to that of the late Medellin Cartel drug lord, Pablo Escobar. Or, his placement of the Virgin Mary next to a portrait of a prostitute. Both women have almost identical facial features. Unfortunately, photos were not permitted in the museum, but I've added an internet download of just one of the many paintings we saw.

There are a number of Botero sculptures in bronze on display in the square outside the museum, but when we finished our tour, a thundershower had driven most people to take shelter. One family who took shelter in the lobby of the museum had a toddler, a little girl barely able to walk. We noted that her body matched those of Botero's images, with short, chubby legs and tiny hands. Perhaps she embodies something Botero is trying to say about his subjects.

We didn't get to our hotel until almost 6 p.m. It's a pretty fancy place, but far out on the mountainside, overlooking the city. Our bus had to wait for an electric gate to open before entering the grounds. It appears that we are in a walled, secure area.

Urban Art

Today's events were an "optional" tour, but all 12 members of our group took part. First stop was an indoor fruit and vegetable market. We weren't too excited about that, because we have visited markets in all parts of the world and they tend to all be pretty much the same.

We got to the market very quickly because today happens to be one of two days each year when private cars and motorcycles are banned from the streets of Bogota. This is done to encourage bicycle commuting and use of public transportation. Tourist buses and taxis are exempt, so we traveled unhindered.

Lulo

This market was unique in that it was so incredibly clean. There were none of the smells or slippery aisles that characterize most markets in developing countries (maybe because, in Bogota at least, Colombia seems to be beyond "developing" and all the way to developed).

Tree tomato

The other unique characteristic of this market visit was that Alejo, our tour director, made it more of a food tour than simply a market visit. He came prepared with napkins and wet-wipes, and he started buying and feeding us fruits that were unique to Colombia.

Sapote

First us was something called lulo fruit. It has a reddish exterior and even redder interior with seeds. It was fairly sweet. We tasted a Colombian variety of guava that wasn't that different. Colombian varieties of "tree tomatoes" (which aren't tomatoes at all) are just as bad as others we've tasted. But yellow dragon fruit is much sweeter and tastier than the usual, reddish variety.

Chirimoya

We encountered something called chirimoya that we'd not encountered before. It was pretty stringy and has large seeds, so hard to eat, but it was generally tasty. There was also something called sapote that was sectioned, kind of like an orange, but with a very non-citrus flavor. And finally, we were introduced to mamoncillo, which is sort of like a lychee, but with a big seed that makes it not worth the trouble to peel.

We stopped by the stall of a woman selling herbs and herbal medicines. One was a powder that you toss into the air when you have people visiting your home and you want them to leave. We don't know how it works, or if it drives you out of your own house. But for $2 U.S. we thought it was funny enough to buy a bottle, even though we can't think of any guests we'd want to use it on.

After the market, the bus drove us a short distance to an industrial area that has also been designated as a graffiti district. We were introduced to a woman named Anna who described herself as a political scientist and an artist. She took us on a walking tour that had us dodging lift trucks and semis. 

Nearly every factory or warehouse wall here has been covered with street art -- all with the permission of the management and the city. In fact, festivals were held here in 2017, 2018, and 2019 in which international street artists from around the world were invited to paint.

Most of the works were done with spray paint, although latex house paint was applied by rollers for some of the backgrounds. Nearly all the artwork makes political or social statements.

A major goal of these festivals was to move the Bogota and Colombian governments to decriminalize street art, and to encourage building owners to give permission to artists eager to paint their structures. A distinction is made between street artists and vandals who deface public spaces with gang names or drug-related symbols.

Our lunch was a traditional Colombian soup called ajiaco (ah-hee-ah-koh). It's basically a chicken soup, but with rice and avocado, in addition to beans and other vegetables. It was very filling.

In the late afternoon we had a lecture on the political turmoil that rocked Colombia from 1948 until 2016. The details become more complicated on every hearing. After this, we were visited by two veterans of the conflict. One was a man who, as a youth motivated by his Catholic faith, went into a rural area to try to help the poor and eventually joined a leftist rebel group and took up arms against the government. The other was a woman who fled a broken family situation at age 12 and found refuge as a soldier in one of the paramilitary groups.

These two told their stories, which conclude with both of them becoming disenchanted with their groups, entering a reconciliation program, and eventually getting married to each other. They are a symbol of the emerging Colombia, but they agree that many of the conditions in the rural areas that were the root cause of the conflict remain unchanged today.

As a group, we had a very nice dinner at a restaurant just a block from the hotel, then returned to pack. We have a morning flight to Medellin.

Bogata

This morning we met the rest of the travelers who will be with us for the main tour in Colombia. There aren't as many as previously listed in our travel documents. Three people canceled at the last minute, so there will only be 12 people in our group. That's fine with us. Of the 12, only one person is younger than Mary and I.

After our orientation meeting, we boarded a bus and headed for downtown Bogota. At the very new and modern Gold Museum (Museo del Oro) we were introduced to our local guide, Alejandra. She took us very quickly through the highlights of the museum, which is the largest collection of pre-Columbian gold artifacts in the world.

Although there was lots of information, the biggest take-away was that gold was valued by indigenous people, not as an economic commodity as it is for Westerners, but as a spiritual and symbolic substance. Gold was mined and shaped into ceremonial objects, but was to eventually be returned to the earth by being buried with rulers and priests, dropped into lakes in rituals, or buried in sacred rites.

In the square outside the museum, our tour leader purchased a palm fruit from a street vendor so that we could all taste it. It was not very tasty. The fruit is supposed to be an aphrodisiac. Alejandra's observation was that, when something isn't very good, it's marketed as an aphrodisiac so people will buy it. 

Also, he purchased a package of large, fried ants that indigenous people snack on. Not everyone in the group was on board with that, but Mary and I each tasted one. They actually weren't all that bad, but no one asked for seconds.

We walked a few blocks, passing the site where leftist presidential candidate Jorge Eliécer Gaitán was assassinated in April of 1948. His death ignited La Violencia, the Violence, which ultimately instigated 52 years of civil war in Colombia, complicated by drug cartels, communists, and right-wing paramilitaries.

Reaching the main square, we got a look at the parliament building, the Bogota mayor's residence, the main cathedral, and "the ugliest building in Colombia," the very modern Supreme Court building. The Supreme Court was attacked in 1985 by members of the M19 movement. By the time the crisis was resolved, almost all of the 30 to 40 rebels were dead, scores of hostages had been killed or "disappeared," and 11 of the court's 25 justices were slain.

The Cathedral is not ornate, but quite handsome. During the brief time we visited, a mass was taking place in one or the chapels. A young woman with a lovely voice was chanting beautifully in Spanish. We couldn't understand, but it was mesmerizing.

Alejandra lead us several more blocks, past 17th and 18th century buildings preserved in the old central city. We entered one, which is now a restaurant. We had very nice lunch in a 17th century building furnished with antiques, and Baroque chamber music playing in the background. The food was excellent, the wine so-so, but the blackberry juice was delicious.

After lunch, the bus met us a couple blocks from the restaurant. Most of the group returned to the hotel, but we and one other couple opted to be dropped off at the base of the cable car leading up to the top of Monserrate, a 10,000 foot-high mountain overlooking the city.

The view wasn't much, because smog covers the city nearly every afternoon. But there was a beautiful little Catholic church at the summit. Unusual features in the church were a black Madonna, and a statue over the main altar -- not a crucifix, but of Christ on the way to the cross, stumbling.

We were surprised to discover, behind the church, a marketplace with a lot of cheap souvenirs and a long line of food stalls serving ethnic Colombian foods, including tripe and blood sausages. It was interesting to look at, but we wouldn't be likely to eat any of it. Also of interest, but not purchased, were wine flasks made from cow hooves.

This adventure concluded by taking an Uber back to the hotel. We've never used Uber outside the U.S. before, but it worked well. Unfortunately, due to rush hour traffic, our ride took nearly an hour. The driver, of course, spoke no English.

Finally, we went to the other brew pub that is in the neighborhood near our hotel. The beer was better and the crowd was bigger. Mary was a trooper, even though beer is not her thing. Once again, we managed to order and pay properly, despite limited Spanish skills.