Thursday, February 28, 2008

Silvia, A Small Indigenous Village

There is a small indigenous village close to Popayan that we did as a day trip, on Tuesday, their market day. The people in Silvia do not like their picture taken so these pictures were taken on the sly. They still dress in their traditional dress and use their original language. They have much to learn about markets from the indigenous from Guatemala and Ecuador as except for many vegetables and fruits, and the occassional animal, all things that were for sale were made in China. They are craftspeople but none of the items they make are for sale at the market. We think mostly is that there are no tourists there to buy their crafts.


The main entrance to the market that is covered with plastic as it had been on and off raining all day.
Two old men sitting in the park having a visit. They come from small villages that surrround Silvia so market day is also a social day.
Three young girls looking around for what we think are three young guys.
Everything you need for turkey dinner. Even desert.


Just a mom and her daughter going about their market day business.
A young man in traditional dress. We love the purple color.
Make this picture large and check out the shoelaces and the woman who is spinning.This is the main market building and the market was closing down. Many people eating lunch before their trip home.
Chivas loaded and heading home.

We are going to stay in Popayan until either it quits raining in Ecuador or we decide to come home from some other city but don't have to make the decision for at least a week and this is a pretty nice city to be in.

Monday, February 25, 2008

A Very Hard Trip Back Over the Mountains

We complained a bit about our slow trip to the east side of the mountains and we knew we had to go back to the west side and reports were that this trip of 120 km was not going to be easy. And it wasn´t. That 120 km took 6.5 hours, mostly on a bone jarring but not dangerous road. There are at least 15 busses a day (by 3 different companies) each way that traverse this route. The first 15km were pavement and the last 15 km were as well but the 90 km in between were a solid path of huge potholes and boulders and washes. It reminded us a lot of riding the horses and we had to hang on often, just as tightly. We could have gone by air, but the price difference was between $28 for the bus and $700 to fly, and we would have had to backtrack 4 hours to get to an airport so we definately had choices. But here we are, by bus, on the side of the mountain we need to be on to continue our journey into Ecuador. The city is called Popayan and there are quite a number of travellers here and it is sort of nice. They have been far and few between on this journey.

The beginning of our journey after we left the pavement as seen through the front window of the bus. I doesn't look too rough but it was.
Just a vista on our way to the top of the mountain. We were lucky not to have pouring rain this day as other travellers talked of having that and then no scenery for the passengers to enjoy.
There is so much rain here, that the fence is growing moss.
Some different vegetation as we neared the top. It was very flat for a number of kms and very different than the rest of the trip. It reminded us of the high plains of Ecuador.
We just like the clouds in this picture as we are nearing the top.
We needed to stop midway for a bathroom break and a stretch and some relief from the jarring. They also changed drivers. ´This picture shows a bit more what the road was really like.
Just a good closeup of the always present military. Actually there was a permant military base here.
Besides a bathroom, the place we stopped served meals and guess what was on the menu.
Not only to wash your hands after a bathroom break but probably used to bath in, and to wash dishes. It was very cold this high up and the water was not heated.

This picture was taken right after a rain shower so the reason for the raindrops on the window of the bus. We are starting our decline.
The lower we get the more beautiful it becomes. And oh how we loved the green grass. So different than Southern Alberta.
Even my grass at home that I water constantly and fertilize 3 times a year is not this green and I don't have a cow to keep it mowed.
Just wow.
There was a waterfall that contributed to this stream, and it was this stream that we followed down the mountain.
We have a bit of a dilemma in our travels. We are heading for Ecuador for the final two weeks of our journey, as our return is from Guayaquill, on the south west coast of Ecuador. There are two areas of Ecuador we want to visit, one is the coast and the other is a small town called Baños. We have learned in the past week that a volcano near Baños is acting up big time and a couple of weeks ago they evacuated the town for a short time. And that makes us a bit nervous about going there. And then just the past couple of days we have heard of flooding on the west coast of Ecuador so once again we are unsure of travel in this part of Ecuador. Not sure what we are going to do but internet research is high on our list of obtaining information as well as talking to other travellers coming from Ecuador.


Saturday, February 23, 2008

Our Hacienda Made More Special

We didn't tell you everything about our wonderful Hacienda yesterday, we saved the best for last.

When we were arriving, there was a tour group from a city north of Meddellin that was just starting to eat breakfast. Nancy and I had not eaten yet and were hungry so we just put our packs in our room and went to the dining room for breakfast. Most of the seats were full with the tour group but there was a couple of seats left at one of the tables and a gentleman there invited us over to sit with them. We chatted a bit, the usual things, and then he asked us what we had in mind to do this AM. We had nothing specific planned, so he, as the group leader, invited us to come with them on their tour bus for their morning's outing. We readily agreed and off we went, receiving the best seats in the bus, and a constant barrage of questions.




Not only sitting on one side of us was the tour group leader but on the other side were these two girls, the two youngest people on the tour.
Our journey that morning with the group was to the narrowest and wildest part of the Rio Magdalena. This picture is a vista on our way down the valley.
And here is that narrowest part. Lots of water in a very narrow passage.
We made a hike down to the bottom of the river valley.
This lady is indiginous, and is making crochet thread from the bark of the Plantain Tree.
Later in the afternoon, we were invited to a celebration the group was to have in the evening. They had hired a band that played traditional Andean music and it was very good. We do love the pan pipes and had never seen ones this big.
Just more of the band.
The music made the feet want to move and many of the crowd got up and started to dance.
Including Nancy. The tour guide who is beside her insisted we get up and get with the celebration.
And I get to dance with the prettiest senorita there. She asked me and how could I refuse?
They were such a good group and you could really tell they liked each other a lot. It was so quiet when they left the next day and we missed them but they had a 17 hour bus ride back to their city and could not stay to entertain us any longer.





Lucas Takes us on a Horse Ride

The reasons we were heading to San Augustine were for it supposed beauty and to visit an Archeological site. A great part of the site is close to the town and is spread over 75 acres and also houses a museum. It is well done and definately worth a visit. But as well, in the area of San Augustine are a number of other sites that are exactly where they were placed by these ancient people long ago and the only way to get to these sites is by horse. I had been kidding Nancy for a long time that if we wanted to see all the things that were important, we would have to go on horseback. She just laughed and said "no way". That was until we met Lucas, the guide who had helped us find the place to stay that we wrote about yesterday.

Lucas does many things and one thing he does is to guide people on horses to these out of the way Archeological sites and he convinced Nancy that it was easy, not dangerous and she could do it, and to my astonishment she said "yes." So we signed up for a four hour horse ride for the following day.



And the journey begins. It was hard to take pictures on the horses as both of us were hanging on so tight so the only ones you will see are on level and non muddy terrain. Lucas is in the background.
Nancy was amazed that she got on the horse. This was maybe 20 minutes into the journey and we were already wondering when it was going to be over. Only 3.5 hours left to go. And very little of it was on flat level ground. Most of it was galloping up hills or picking and sliding down very wet hills. It had rained hard the night before our trip and the trails were washed with gullies that occassionally the horses had to jump across. It was really not an adventure meant for two 65 year olds, one who had not ridden a horse for over 50 years and the other for over 30 years.
This was the first site we visited and one of the burial statues that are spread around this part of Colombia. And always present, our handsome cowboy Lucas.
This statue was as far as the horses could go and then many steps down and up the hill. Little is know about the people who populated this land and they dissappeared or dispersed several centuries before the Europeans arrived on the scene. And yet they left behind at least 500 statues.
The prettiest statue. They think that there was color in many of them but most have faded over the years.
The sign of a true cowboy. Can he open the gate without getting off the horse? He opened many and never once got off his horse to do it.
Lucas' beginnings were that he was raised by a mother and father who ran pack trains. He also was a wealth of other information. He told us, from Lucas' point of view, much about Colombia and himself. We learned about the rebel group FARC and the paramilitaries who were hired by the rich families of Colombia to get rid of the FARC and all the very ugly things that happened during this war. At one time, it was a war of ideology, but now it is just a war of who controls the drug trade. He had no solutions but seemed to come out on the side of FARC.
Other things about him were most interesting. He more than likely had about a grade 8 education but he spoke quite fluently in 4 languages, English, German, French and Spanish, all learned from tourists. He was a most accomplished horseman and not only did small 4 hour trips but 6 day trips to Popayan and 6 week trips to Ecuador. He always smelled a bit like alcohol, talked often about various women in his life and any money he had, he spent. He certainly was the persona that Tom T Hall had in mind when he wrote one of his more famous songs "Faster Horses, Younger Women, Older Whiskey, More Money." We so did enjoy him and would recommend him for a guide for anyone.
Just a vista that I was able to take when I wasn't hanging on so tight.
The River Magdalena, like the Mississippi in the US, runs from the south of Colombia and enters into the Caribbean at Barranquilla in the north of Colombia. Here it is near its beginning and the valley that houses it. In Barranquilla it is many km wide and we have crossed it many times during our times in Colombia.
Just to show how steep some of the mountains are that are farmed. The soil is rich and there is lots of rain.

This trip happened 3 days ago and Nancy and I are just barely able to move now. We both had blisters, Nancy on the palm of her hand from hanging on so tight to the saddle horn and I on my tail bone as I didn't have enough padding in that spot. Maybe in another 50 years we will give it a try but we kind of doubt it. It was a hard day but we still have lots of laughs over it.

Friday, February 22, 2008

What a Difference a Day Makes

After we had crossed the mountains we were heading for a small town called San Augustine. It is Colombia´s most famous archeological site and by all accounts, from post travel research and fellow travellers it is a very beautiful town. We arrived in the morning to a barrage of touts, all wanting to take us to their hotel but being the independent people we are we tried to shoo them away but one was most persistant and followed us. We checked out every hotel in the center of town and were most dissappointed at what was there so we finally accepted the tout´s aid and he stopped a bus, threw our packs on top and took us about 3 km out of town, and then walked us another 1km up and down a hill to quite a nice place but was in the middle of no where and we would have to make that trek every time we wanted to leave to go anywhere and that was not acceptable to us. So back to the top of the hill, on the bus again, and half way to town we stopped again, down came the packs and there were two choices here. We chose one of them and sent the tout on his way, $5.00 richer. Our choice was not a good choice but we were tired and fed up with looking for a place to stay. At this point we were so dissappointed in what we thought was going to be a very beautiful spot, a spot we would like to stay for a few days.

After a night´s sleep both of us laying awake wondering what we were going to do we came up with a plan. Up early and a km walk into town, we chose a guide, told him what we were looking for and in his very good english says "I will help you". We got in a van and were going to shown a number of hotels in the country that had busses passing right by them. Our second stop was our last. It was perfect and the following pictures show the reason.Our first view, the back porch of the Hacienda Anacaona.
The other half of the same porch.
Our large room held two beds like this, a big bathroom and in the loft were 3 single beds. Everything was spotlessly clean.
It gets cool at night and there is a fire burning in the dining room.
The view looking straight out from our door.
The view from a balcony into a lower garden.
This wasn´t the only hammock. They were positioned in various spots all over the complex.
If you turned your head a bit, this was the view from our door.

There were many humming birds that came to visit the garden as well.

This finca changed our whole outlook about the town and the surrounding area and we realized why people thought it was so enjoyable. For sure now we were here to stay for a few days and explore the countryside and the archeological sites.

The cost of this place is $35 Canadian a night.