Coffee Country (or In Search Of Juan Valdez)

Could this be Juan Valdez himself?

To begin with, a couple of confessions:  Number one, I don´t drink coffee, or at least I´ve only drank a few cups in my lifetime.  Three, to be exact.  Three cups in fifty-nine years. This has been something of a claim to fame for me.   Every so often I would recount the dates and the occasions for each, which would drive a few of my friends and at least one of my sisters half nuts.

After being in Colombia for two weeks, however, those dates and occasions now have to be updated.  In fact, not just for one time, more like a dozen -- hell, I´ve practically been binging on the stuff.  It was that darn almuerzo they have here -- lunch, I´ll blame it on lunch then.

Almuerzo or lunch is the big meal of the day in Colombia.  It´s generally three courses -- soup, salad and some kind of carne or meat, served with fruit juice of a tropical blend.  All in all, it´s probably equivalent to American supper.

Yet it wasn´t the food itself that caused my downfall, it was what came after the meal.

With my plates pushed back and me working away with a toothpick, invariably some smiley waitress would arrive with a teeny cup smack in the middle of a saucer.  I´d look at it -- the cup was the type you pinch the handle with two fingers and the woman seemed so proud...as if she were saying, you think the food was good?  Now try some of our coffee.  You'll see what really makes us famous.

At any rate, that's how it started.  Just one little cup...I mean, who would ever know?  They talk about la cultura de cafe here, the culture of coffee, and now I see why.  The stuff is delicious.  An entire lifestyle is based upon it.  And a tad afterward sets off one of these big meals just right.

Almuerzo or lunch -- at Bahareque in Cali

Now to my second confession, despite the title of this post I didn´t spend much time up in coffee country.  The weather´s the blame on this one.  I intended to stay longer, but the rain and mist and chill up high gave me other ideas.  With the clouds and all, you couldn't see much scenery in the mountains and to hike about on the trails and such you were sloshing through muck.  So I bailed for the lower altitudes, in particular to Cali, a city in the lowlands known throughout Colombia for salsa dance. 

As for Cali, my four days there can be summed up with a few experiences:

• While walking an area rife with music and gaggles of people on the street one night, the doors of a club burst open like those of an Old West saloon, and a couple gyrated out onto the sidewalk, arms flailing and bodies contorting to the rhythm of salsa.  Evidently the club couldn´t contain their exuberance any longer.  Without skipping a beat, they looped around outside, to the enjoyment of everyone, and swung back inside.

• In drastic contrast, of the fifteen or so people who stayed at Cafe Tostasky that weekend,  four were robbed or threatened of being robbed, with me being one of them.  A guy with a knife relieved a trekker from Ireland of her camera; a rogue cab driver extorted about fifty dollars from a mother and son from the U.S.; and a teen wielding a stick with nails jabbed through the end, truly a nasty looking weapon, demanded money from me.  (As for what happened, let´s just say that despite my age I can still get down the road!)

The city of Cali -- dancing and danger

Not to be negative on a place, but to report is kind of my duty.  What am I but your humble correspondent anyhow?

Unlike in Medellin and Manizales and Armenia, all cities I´d visited, Cali had a menacing quality, an aura of threat about it.  I´m not saying don´t ever go there, just go there with both eyes open.  Which is what people do who visit there.  The lure of the dance draws los turistas there in droves, for instance, and from what I tell it´s worthwhile to them. 

To keep it in balance though, this was the only place in the country I´ve felt unsafe so far.  Compared to de altura, the highlands to the north, Cali is a place of heat and humidity, and a lot of mosquitoes.  After three or four days you get a feel for a place, and the feel of this place, for me anyhow, was not good. 

As soon as I could, then, I headed back north.  The climate there is more bearable, and I´ve never been much of a dancer anyhow.

Local color in Cali

Colombia's monsoon -- the view from above

Santa Fe de Antioquia

I didn´t know what to do.  As nice as Medellin is, I was getting itchy feet.  I´d been there twice and seen much of the city.  Now I wanted to see more of the countryside.  So what was holding me up? 

According to CNN Worldwide News, Colombia was in a virtual state of calamity due to flooding.  The only thing was, I had been there for two weeks and I hadn´t seen any.  Oh, it rained every night, sometimes  down pouring for hours.  In Medellin and farther south in Manizales and Armenia and Cali -- through the coffee country, where I had been traveling --  torrents of brown water were spilling off the hillsides; landslides, lots of them on the roads; fields of standing water, lots of them, too.  But no floods.

As sometimes happens, the dilemma was solved for me -- by an influx of biology students from Bogota, of all things.  They had booked up the entire Palm Tree Hostel, my home away from home in Medellin, for a conference.  Myself and about six others were politely shown the door.

It was one of those spontaneous moments:  I went to the Terminal del Norte and cruised the ticket windows, which seem go on and on and on, there´s so many bus companies here.  Finally I got to one offering a bus leaving in twenty minutes for Santa Fe de Antioguia...which was supposed to be a nice place to visit, an old-style Colonial town up in the mountains.  I stepped up to the counter and dug for some pesos.

Landslide, a big one, almost choking off the route

The ride in there was a bit of a calamity though, I will admit.  The road clung to the side of mountains and curved like a writhing snake.  This was bad enough, but to make it worse it was almost obliterated by landslides every few kilometers or so.  What should have been one-and-a- half hours in dragged on for three-plus.

For some reason anymore I can´t take much of the curvy-ques, the switch backs, that is.  They give me terrible headaches and make me sick in the stomach.  The trip in to Santa Fe de A. was baaaack and forth, baaaack and forth almost all the way and left me groaning with my face buried in my hands.  But it was worth it -- the scenery, the glimpses of life of the mountain folk here were memorable.

Some of the Harley motorcycle riders have a bumper sticker:  ride hard, you can rest after you die.  I rode hard into Santa Fe de A. and kept in mind all the nauseating while the second rule of traveling -- GET THERE.

After getting there, of course, I had to collect myself and put forth with rule number three -- EXECUTE.  Get out and do things, that is.  As best as possible, partake of the local life, try to talk with the locals (in español, of course) and so on.  I´ll go into this more in another post, Jim´s rules of traveling.  But for now back to Santa Fe de Antioguia.

The town itself is almost 500 years old and was the first capital of Colombia.  As such, it was built by the Spanish and fairly reeks of character with interesting fountains, courtyards, handicrafts and so on.  Compared to the modern style and chicness of Medellin, Santa Fe is sturdy compesinos clomping about in rubber barn boots.  It´s clumps of horse manure here and there, smooshed into cobblestones laid centuries ago.  It´s residents who are a little leery of los turistas, especially white ones.  Annoying motor scooters are blatting around, but mainly it moves at a slower pace, the pace of rural Colombia.

The lobby of Hotel Caseron -- a veritable museum

People ask me, what do you do in these places anyhow?  I tell them that there are generally "tourist activities" available -- paragliding, rafting trips, horseback rides up canyons and of course the scenery.  There´s usually scenery.  And these are all nice in there own way.  But too often I´ve gone chasing off after the sights and missed the best part of a place, or certainly one of the best parts.

Anymore I've come to look around the neighborhood first; to look at the people, how they dress, how they eat, how they move even.  Sometimes a place will  have such an aura of quaintness, a character, that the very buildings themselves will seem to give it off.  And this is certainly the case with Santa Fe de A.

I sat in the shade at the square, nursing a Coke and taking it all in -- the comings and goings of the people and the vehicles, the dogs lying in the shade, the breezes rustling the leaves.  I became a type of snoop even; inspecting building blocks, peering around corners into people's back yards.  Soaking up the local culture?  Yea, alright, we´ll go with that, to make it sound good.

However, all of this was cut short for me by a weather report.  The forecast of heavy rains the next few days snapped me out of the idyll and I decided that I´d better catch a ride back out to Medellin while I could.  Unfortunately I didn´t get to explore the surrounding countryside, but sometimes that´s the way it goes.

Eventually the rainy season will end though, and the roads will be repaired, in good Colombia time and all that.  Whenever that happens to occur, I expect that Santa Fe de A. will still be there, pretty much unchanged.

T

Two shots of the Sweet Home Hostel, where I stayed

City Of Eternal Spring

 

Plaza de Esculturas ( Plaza of the Sculptures)

It often takes me a while, but after a week-plus here I am getting a feel for the country of Colombia and am drawing a few conclusions.  Here are some then, in no particular order:

To begin with, to my list of my favorite cities in the world, I now have to add another -- the aptly named "City of Eternal Spring," Medellin.  So-named because the weather remains spring-like almost year-round. The place so maligned in U.S. media, especially in blood-spattered tv shows and films, that I drew frowns and semi-ferocious warnings from people back home when I said I was going there.  So much for the U.S. media...and the attitudes that they sow into people.

But to return to more pleasant subjects...Ahhh, yes, Medellin...Europe has its Paris and this part of South America has its Medellin.  It has been said that the most beautiful women in the world can be seen passing by the cafes here.  After sitting in my share of these by now, I can say that if they aren´t the most beautiful per say they must certainly be among them.

Liliana, my companion about town for a day

Medellin...situated long and narrow in a valley between mountains often shrouded in mists, the city has a magical quality about it, and a metro train system that whisks you the length of the place in minutes, to add to the enchantment.

Why haven´t there been romances made about this place?  Or comedies say?  Plots of flowers and statues decorate almost every intersection in center city.  Not to mention the alpine-like scenery.  The place is a veritable song begging to be sung.   

What is a city but steel and concrete and fumes if not for the people, and the people here are some of the friendliest and most open I´ve ever met.  And helpful, did I say helpful?  It´s as if they´re out to disprove the reputation that´s been foisted upon them by worldwide news.

In judging a place, I have found, sometimes it´s the things that don´t happen to you.  Let me tell you a few things about my first full day out exploring this city, and what didn´t happen there.    

• I walked about center city and rode buses and the metro and never saw another white face all day long.   Nary a Caucasian to be seen.  This is by no means an international city, not yet anyhow (except for perhaps the El Poblado District, which I didn´t spend much time in).   It´s as if the place has been thriving unto itself, in splendid isolation, for decades.

• It took me a while to realize, but I never saw another person wearing short pants all day long either.  I never saw another adult´s bare legs, in other words.  I was wearing my frumpled but trusty trekking shorts and felt quite self-conscious by day´s end, as if I were doing something disrespectful, in violation of the culture.   I don´t know the significance of this but it was noteworthy, I would say.

• Center city was mobbed, yet only one person tried to sell me anything or to foist anything upon me as I was passing by.  Only one.  And that was some guy trying to sell me a lottery ticket.  After experiencing the cities of S.E. Asia and of course the U.S., this seems significant.

As small and general as these observations may be, I somehow find them amazing.  At the least they´re a window into the mannerisms of the people here.

 

Marvelous Metro

Not that it´s all wonderful, of course.  Expanding slums cling to the mountainsides.  Unlike in the U.S., the poor folk are squeezed to live up onto the higher slopes; there they get the view alright, but not the good digs or services.  The air is somewhat dirty and I end up gagging after hiking about town for a few hours.  And for the economicos, those of us on a budget, in other words, the food and such is somewhat expensive -- three to four dollars U.S. for a good full meal, for example.

As they say in Chinese culture, there´s Yin and Yan, up and down, to everything.  And what do you get on the up side here?  Well, let´s see, there´s that climate, the friendliness, the transportation, the scenery, those women...Ahhh, sie, que bellisima...the women.

One of the cafes of Medellin

Money-Less In Medellin



Mists of Medellin -- El Poblado District

To all of you who´ve followed me in the past, you´ll notice right away that this is different than my previous web-logue -- call this a new blog for a new continent.  Time for a change and all that.  Getting right to it then, or as Yogi Berra would say, it all started at the beginning....

On every trip I´ve taken, after the security madness at airports, the ear-poppings in pressurized cabins, comes a head jolt of sorts -- the wow that I´m really entering a new land.  Dorothy, you´re not in Kansas -- or Choconut -- anymore.

That wow on this jaunt came on one of the most scenic and exhilirating landing approaches that I´ve ever had -- to  Jose Maria Cordova International Airport in central Colombia.  Circling, circling...adjusting flaps and rudder every so often...our Airbus A-320 lowered in over green-clad hills and mountains, cloaked in swirling mists and cotton candy clouds and cut by jagging brown rivers.  The countryside here is beautiful.  I wasn´t looking out the window, I was gaping out.  Unfortunately I left my camera in my day pack in the overhead and couldn´t capture it.

The lady at the Spirit Airlines counter in NYC told me I should have a window seat going in, and she was right!



However, my idyll only lasted a few hours -- until I reached center city and inserted my debit card into that first ATM and got a No Transaction Allowed flashing at me.  Breathless I tried another ATM and another...and the same thing.  

"Pilar" of the Palm Tree

"This can´t be!" I cried, fighting off the panic of having no money in a strange land with darkness descending, where I knew no one, absolutely no one.  For a while anyhow, that debit card would be my only friend.  I did have some U.S. dollars, yes, but all the money changers were closed. 

It wouldn´t have been so bad except that I´d called Pennstar bank before I left and cleared it with them that I was going to South America.  The service rep assured me that things would be fine, the bank had no blocks on its cards down there or anything.  As my friend would say, Hello!  In screenwriting the opposite thing happening in a plot line is called a reversal, and it certainly was one in this case.  To say that I was upset is to put it mildly.

At any rate, enter here the Palm Tree Hostel.  Or should I say that I entered there and told them my story.  No problema, the staff assured me, seemingly without blinking an eye.  I could have a room on credit, with breakfast included with the room price.  And a free dinner was offered for all trekker/guests Friday evenings to boot.  This was the end-of-week gathering for guests and it just happened to be on the next day.  As Geraldo would say, coincidence?

So no worries, mate.  My room was set and my food was set at least for 24 hrs.  The staff even offered to float my some money! which fortunately I didn´t need.  What a bunch, though!

An emergency e-mail to Pennstar got them cracking on removing the block on my card, which was accomplished Saturday morning.  I had money again, what a feeling! and set off to explore the city.

And what a city this is -- nothing, absolutely nothing like I had been led to believe in by U.S. media.  For now, I´ll just say that this country, this people, have gotten a bad rap .  Maybe even say that they´ve been slandered in film and tv and such.  But more on that later.  Much more.  I´ve only been here five days and don´t want to generalize too much yet.

Where The Fat Lady Stands -- In Center City

No sooner did that emergency get under control than I learned that some hacker had invaded my e-mail account and was using my good name to send spam to people on Viagra and offers of dating services for Russian women.  Once again, the feeling of semi-panic.  With a little help from my friends, I made some adjustments and trust and pray that that´s now under control.

At any rate, the natives are open and friendly here.  The city is wonderful.  These can make up for a lot of glitches, I have found, and worse.  Nevertheless, however wobbly, the adventure in South America has begun.  

Sunday leisure -- in Parque Simon Bolivar