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.