Some of the Faces of Colombia

We are always fascinated with interesting looking faces and upon occasion we get lucky and get a good photo. We think you too are fascinated with faces, scroll on and enjoy.


Two oldtimers having a sit and a visit on a park bench
This is a James Bond picture as I was clicking photos of people as we were walking up the street.
There is so much coffee drank in this country, morning, noon and into the night and everywhere imaginable.
A heavy load for an old man. We see this often and it is not just men who carry the loads.
The faces of children everywhere. These boys are getting a ride in a minature Chiva, being pushed by bigger boys.

An Indigious lady from an Indigious village we visited one day,
And a fine looking gentleman from the same village.
These are cowboys into town from the country for Sunday happenings. My it was a busy plaza that day.
A fruit and vegetable seller of which there are many.
Lots and lots of horses and cowboys in the small towns. The click of the horseshoes on the streets is very noticable and unique to us.

The Beauty of Jardin

We were still in Guatape so our first leg of the journey was a direct bus to Medellin. We had to change bus stations ( we were wiser this time) and had to change some money both of which happened quickly and we had only an hour to wait for our bus to Jardin.

The journey was to be 3.5 hours but ours lasted 4.5 hours as we broke down twice. The first was to change a fuel filter that was quick to change but gave us a bathroom break at a truck stop and a chance to stretch our legs. The second was much more serious as we broke an axle and this time we had to wait for a new bus and gave us a chance to meet most on the bus. And as before when this has happened Nancy and I were the most popular people on the bus and the only gringos. They are so curious about us and have so many questions but our spanish runs out pretty fast. It is times like this that we wished we were fluent.

But we arrived before dark, found a beautiful hotel very quickly, right on the park and felt very welcome immediately. The following pictures will show some of the reasons we felt like that. Such a wonderful place to visit.

The picture above is the town of Jardin from a high hill that we accessed by taking a gondola. The hills surrounding the town are planeted with coffee that is shaded by banana trees. Thousands of hectres of coffee.
Some of the backs of the chairs, covered with cowhide, in the cafes around the park are painted with scenes of the town and country side. This is one such work of art.

The church in Jardin from the balcony of our hotel.

And our hotel. It is very nice, and costs us $20 a night. Every day the same women who are in the picture sit in these chairs in front of the hotel and drink coffee all day.We are certain that if we took one of their chairs it might be the scandal of the year.
Yesterday we walked to the edge of town and this is the view that greeted our eyes. We think it is as close to the beauty of the Swiss valleys as anything we have ever seen
Many of the houses on many of the streets have these flowers hanging from the balconies and to our eyes they look so beautiful.

We are in a very rural area of Colombia and this is one form of transportation for the people to reach far away villages. They load them with everything, top and bottom and we are amazed every time we see them.

But just today here and then tomorrow to a bigger town near by for one night so we can catch a bus to our next destination, Manizales.

Guatapé Reliefs

In the town of Guatapé, the last town we visited, many of the homes and businesses have raised reliefs on the sides of the buildings. They are very beautiful, always freshly painted and tell a bit of a story. The following 5 pictures show some of the ones we captured this year. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

Correcting a mistake

When we left Medellin we were heading for a town called Guatape and it is a little bit south of Medellin but a whole lot east. Without thinking too much about it we took a taxi in the morning to the bus station of the south (there are two bus stations in Medellin, one to the north and the other to the south). Upon arriving, we asked about busses to Guatape and were promptly told that we were at the wrong bus station and we would need to take a taxi to the other bus station to get a direct bus to Guatape. Hmmm and we didnt have a plan B so rapidly had to make one up. We thought of a different destination but upon looking other destinations we discovered a bus that had RIO NEGRO on the front of it and from looking at maps we knew that was in sort of the direction to where we were going. Not only that it left in 15 minutes so on we hopped on this bus.

It took us very slowly to Rio Negro on a most interesting, hilly, and colorful route. Upon arriving we asked about a means of transportation to Guatape. A gentleman offered to guide us to the taxi collectivos (regular taxis that go only when they are full), about 1 km away. Here is a taxi collectivo like the one we rode in.

We thought we were going right to Guatape in this taxi but about 40 minutes later we stopped in a town called El Penol and that was the end of the road for this taxi driver. Once again we asked about transportation from here to Guatapè and this time the vehicle was not so far away, in fact this Willies was only a few meters from our cab. We rode in the back and 30 minutes later we finally reached our destination. Generally a 2 hour trip that took us 4. But when you are retired you have more time to do those things.The town we are staying in is a tourist town, on a lake, sorrounded by mountains and is pretty. But the surrounding countryside and surrounding towns are not touristy but very agricultural. This morning, via Willies and colectivo taxis we visited a couple of these towns and had a most enjoyable day.

This picture is from the window of the taxi and shows some of the market gardening that is so abundant on this volcanic soil of the Andes.

After the veggies are picked and packed, they are loaded on various types of vehicles and brought to the centers of these small towns and then wait for buyers from Medellin to come and take them away to the big city. The above picture shows a chiva that was loaded, half with people and half with veggies all coming to town.

The above photo shows the farmers waiting for the buyers and we were told that something like this happens every day.

This mural could be on the wall on any agricultural town anywhere in the world. It says ¨The Land Is In the Heart of All¨

Medellin Colombia

Ah Colombia again!!!! Our journey here was most uneventful, even a bit enjoyable as we broke it up in Miami in a very nice hotel that we liked a lot. We arrived the next afternoon, changed money and caught a collectivo right to the hotel that we had reserved a month previously.

Always when we arrive at a new city, even if we have been there before we are a bit nervous because it is so busy and traffic going every which way and so different than our home in Warner so mostly that night we just got settled and organized into our hotel and watched what was happening from the window of our hotel. Such a busy city it is and we are situated right smack dab in the middle of it. Actually this part of the city is a bit dodgy, especially after it gets dark but we don`t stay out much after dark.

At dusk, the fruit sellers come out and sell their delicious looking fruit to the many thousands of people who are out and about as in the picture below.

One of our day activities was to ride the metro to a gondola that is part of the metro. Medellin is in a valley and up and down the valley there is a regular metro but at one end of it is a gondola that goes way up the mountainside to communities that are built on the side of the mountain. The cement structure in this next picture is the tracks of the regular metro. (The metro here is all above ground and very new, very effecient, and very crowded.) But it doesn`t have escalators, just tons of stairs and our knees do not like stairs so much.

This picture below is of the gondola that services the communites high on the mountain. There are 3 stops along the way where people from different communities get off or on. Most effecient. They are building another such gondola on a different part of the metro but it will not be open for 2 months more or less.And a view of the valley sides of Medellin from on top. What a boon this must be for the families that live on the side of the mountain. The trip on the gondola takes 20+ minutes and we had great visits on the way up and back and learned some of the communities we were travelling over.

This morning we again got on the metro and travelled to the Botanical gardens. They are very beautiful and peaceful in the midst of the chaos of busy Medellin.

We thought these red bananas made a really pretty picture. Don`t know what they taste like though.

And in this part of the world they have the most beautiful wild orchids of which this picture shows a couple of species.

We had some thoughts about staying here another night or so but there is a big convention coming to town and and there will be no rooms at the inn so we are off tomorrow, not far, a couple of hours south to a small city called Guatapè. We spent a few hours there last year and liked it a lot so will spend a few days there this time.