A Taste of Colombia

Recent weather: 80s and sunny
Recent reads: Acts-1 Corinthians, "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald, "A Memoir of Hope by Hope Solo", "Welcome to the Monkey House" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Writing from Medellin today. I have had poor internet for the last week so this a delayed post.

Saturday, September 27th, I took a bus from Quito to la frontera where I safely exited Ecuador, walked across the bridge, and was through Colombian immigration in no time. Once across the border, I hopped a bus to Popayan, Colombia, another 7 hour journey. There isn't much to Popayan but it served as a good resting point after a full day of bus travel. It is a beautiful, white-washed, colonial city, much like Arequipa, Peru, and Sucre, Bolivia.

A nice walk up to the morro for a full view of Popayan

From Popayan I took a van and off-roaded 4 hours to San Agustin. You know you're in for a bumpy ride when the driver offers you a plastic baggy before we hit the road. I had to explain to a few of the other gringos what he said the bag was for and, while they chuckled at first, two of them ended up using the bags.
San Agustin is another small town, not unlike Popayan. The highlight was definitely a day trip through the archeological sights on horseback with my cowboy guide, Jose! Throughout this area, there are many religious sculptures and burial mounds created by the local Andean culture between the 1st and 8th centuries. There are many questions, few answers, and much mystery surrounding these sculptures so I often took much creative liberty in assigning my own titles to the structures.

Me on my horse, Minerva, and Zorro. 

Oh, Minerva...

I want to think the are holding the babies in a fun, playful way but I'm pretty sure the children depicted were for sacrifices.

I call this one the "Mr. Burns" because his hands look mischievous.

Jose, my guide. Yes, he carries a machete.

After San Agustin, I was ready for Colombia at full volume so I went to Cali. I read somewhere that you need Cali more than it needs you and I realize what that means now. Cali doesn't cater to tourists. Sure, they know tourists come here but the culture of Cali has only one speed: salsa. You can either try to keep up or move on to the next city. Dancing salsa is in their blood here. If you're going to take a salsa class, Cali is the place and if you came to Cali and didn't salsa, you didn't really experience Cali.
My hostel had free group salsa lessons every night so I really had no excuse, and after a grande cerveza, I wasn't even looking for a excuse. I was thinking so hard about the steps that the instructor would yell at me, ¨mas sabor!¨ And then, when I would give him some "flavor", and hedd discretely tell me that whatever steps I was now doing were no longer salsa. After my class and a night at a salsa club, it was clear that salsa dancing is not my calling. Fortunately for all of us, I have no video documentation to prove it.

Iglesia Ermita--what you can't see are the tons of locals just camped out on benches doing a whole of nothin'.

While this looks like a quiet afternoon cup o' joe, the audio for this photo would be blaring urban salsa.

After a few relaxed days in Cali, I was ready to move again so I was off to nearby Buga. I happened to run into a microbrewery there-okay, you caught me-I went there specifically for the brewery.

Holy Water Ale IPA

Holy Water Ale Cerveceria

After Buga, it was time to head to Salento to taste more of the beverages that Colombia has to offer--namely coffee! Salento was one of my favorite towns in all of South America! It was a tiny little pueblo but with a whole lot of personality. The buildings were painted bright sassy colors. There were tons of quaint shops, food stands and unique restaurants. And so many people, locals and tourists alike, were out and about, making the town vibrant.

Salento was a lively town on a Sunday afternoon.

Everyone was out for the afternoon.

The view of Salento from the top of the stairs.

 But the main reason I went to Salento was to learn more about coffee and Colombia. Don Elias, the owner of a local cafe finca, took me on a little tour of his backyard, demonstrating the whole coffee process from picking to roasting.

On my way to Don Elias' finca

He is very proud of his coffee beans.

Picking away...

And there's this little waterfall in his backyard.

Passionately talking about roasting. "Low heat!"

As with other resources, often the best of the country is exported and the locals do without the very thing they have spent their livelihood doing. Coffee is no exception. Often coffee farmers are paid very little for their crops and the best coffee is shipped around the world, marked up more than almost any industry in the world (except maybe another Colombian export: cocaine) and sold faster than you can say "non-fat caramel macchiato."

The daily grind

Old school

From the tree to my glass...

Hopped up on coffee, I hit the road again. Coming up: a recap of my time in Medellin!