Bogota, few degrees north of the equator and less than a month until the start of summer. Within minutes of landing I swapped out my Brazilian beach uniform of the previous month for pants, a long sleeve shirt and my winter jacket. At an altitude of 8K feet the approaching summer was obviously taking the long way around. Weather notwithstanding it felt refreshing to be back in a Spanish speaking country and back in the shadow of the mighty Andes.
La Candaleria is the colonial epicenter in the southern part of Bogota and is in a word ¨gritty´´ The origninal structures are in decidedly different states of disrepair, poorly lit streets buckle and open holes approach without warning. Despite these pedestrian woes it retains a charm of cultivated neglect. The grid pattern is simple enough to figure out though, Calles run north south and Carreras run east west. I was pleasently surprised to see arepas being sold at regular intervals on the street. I had previously understood the arepa to be an exlcusively Venezuelan treat, at least thats what my arepa bar in the East Village would have me believe. In fact the arepa is simply a staple of the North Andes gifted down from the native indians. If you haven´t had the pleasure of indulging in an arepa they are basically corn bread and cheese patties cooked over an open grill. This is the more traditional approach but you can also opt for the arepa rellena which is two arepas filled with either chcken, pork or shredded beef. Hot off the grill at 75 cents a pop they are a street food conniseur´s nirvana. That being said the empanada bars are also a worthy option. The Colombians eschew the traditonal emapanda dough and use cornmeal trade oven cooking for that of an overworked friolator. I often hear people speaking of the South American cooking as spicy but this is either a regurgitated fallacy or most folks have a very threshold for spice pain because outside of Colombia I have yet find a salsa with a good kick. You average empanda stand here always has a bowl of dark brown fiery salsa at arms lenghth and each bite seems to be rehttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.video.gif
Add Videowarded with a large spoonful by the locals. Good stuff. With blistering mouth in tow you don´t have to walk very far in Bogota to see a Fernando Botero image tacked up in some rincon bar or dry cleaner. Botero is to Colombian painting what Gabriel García Márquez is to literature. Fortunately these sun bleached and cigarette stainded reproductions can be upstaged by the originals in the Donnacion Fernando Botero which has an impressive collection of 200 paintings and sculptures. I visited the museum a few differnt times to look at his paintings. He is famous for those blimpy, fleshy and dimuntive people as well as pictures of sliced fruit. Bogota´s north side might as well be light years away though, lots of concrete and steel spaced generously far apart. A place for shopping not walking.
An over night bus deposited me in Calli a few days later. It seems to be a requisite stop on most folks iteneraries. Its chief natural resource being the gene pool. It is known to produce the most beautiful women in all of Colombia and beautiful they are. The problem I found with Calli is that the women are as overwhelming as their city is underwhelming. Aside from nightlife it is about as interesting as watching wet paint dry. It didn´t take long to board a departing bus. I did what any self respecting coffee drinker would do while in Colombia and headed to the Zona Cafetera in the Quindio Valley.
Salento is the smallest and oldest pueblo in the Zona Cafetera. It is the type of place where little old ladies look out window, smile and say hello as you pass by their houses. Surrounded by lush green hills dotted with coffee farms the mist and moody weather lend it a mystical quality. Oranges, lemons, beans, bamboo, tree ferns, bananas and, pineapple grow unattended on the sloping terrain. I think it is one of my favorite places. Needless to say the coffee is as good as coffee gets. On an afternoon hike I stopped into a tiny nondescript Mom and Pop finca to get a tour. The short tour concluded with a tasting. The beans were skillet roasted, ground and percolated in front of me. The subsequent cup of coffee proferred up was pure magic. Doctoring up the brew with sugar or milk was never a consideration, black gold! I am not one to go in for black coffee but there was not the slightest hint of bitter to be found anywhere. If the world had access to this caliber coffee on a daily basis I think the world would be a different place.
Just east of Salento is the Cocora Valley which is real cowboy country. Trails that traverse the farms of the lowland soon give way to thick jungle vegetation, river and waterfalls. It was fun to share space with horses in groups of four or five moving freely about on and off the trails grazing on scrub plant. If I hadnt seen sign of branding on them my assumption would have been that they were wild. After three kilometers of challenging inclines the jungle abruptly ends and you arrive in the cloud forrest. A local farmer had set up a mirador with benches in front of his farm. He was keen to take a break from brushing fresh pitch on his fence posts and chat. There is something very relaxing about talking to a local while clouds pass by in a direct line of sight. One curious element of Cocora are the prescence of wax palms. These palms average a height of 12 stories. At times the fronds of the top appear to be floating on top of the clouds like an ethereal sombrero. Lovely stuff.
The only strking contrast to all this natural beauty up here is the prescense of well armed military personel. The FARC guerillas at one time were well entrenched in the mountains just east of here. My understanding is that they have taken flight much further out and the soldiers are mostly here for visual reassurance. While I as visitor here certainly appreciate that, I find that I feel much better when M16s aren´t around.
Anyway ...
Some pics can be found
HERE
And some newer pics can be found HERE
No comments:
Post a Comment