The Sirens Of Colombia

I have been very very naughty and I propose to continue this behavior for at least another week. Tex Mex nachos on the square in Barichara? Sure…

I have allowed my true nature to surface and take control of my life. I like it very much. 

Well, says Layne the quartermaster, we are saving money even when we have an extravagant lunch. Oh dear, I reply, does that mean I have to put down my book and take a tuk tuk into town again? 

Rusty is learning to enjoy riding in the bouncy noisy three wheelers, especially if it means he doesn’t get left behind at the campground.

And the campground is the cause of my total abandonment of morality, and the Puritan work ethic and the need to produce, and test and push the boundaries. I am sunk in lassitude. 

It doesn’t look like much, a flat space in a dusty field at the height of dry season, parched leaves, croaking cicadas and the calls of weird and exotic birds filling the fields. And yet this place is absolutely magical. 

I sit in the shade in my Kermit chair and listen to the breeze and the birds, I read, I watch Rusty sleep and before long it’s dinner time and we gather in the kitchen with the volunteer farm workers from England and Massachusetts and we cook and play cards and I win. A perfect conclusion to an excellent day.

Tomorrow more of the same, sun and shade, breeze and birds, books and silence.  And perhaps a crossword and an exercise video. And a few chores. And so it goes at Guaimaro campground outside Barichara in Colombia. 

The native Guaimaro tree after which this place…

…is named. 

My sin is laziness. I confess to it and I apologize for it but were you here you’d understand, you’d sympathize or you’d leave in disgust. I had the excuse of momentary ill health to allow me to adopt the pose of the sloth early in the week, but the indigestion is gone and the strength has returned and the excuses for lounging around  have evaporated.

To be fair I have done my duty, helping with laundry, emptying the toilet, keeping us supplied with electricity and water, and even enjoying romantic walks with Himself. 

We went to eat lunch in a noted restaurant in Barichara called Elvia, owned by Colombia’s fifth best chef. Rafael Buitrago opened our meal with light fluffy corn cakes with tomato jam: 

We had fried meat balls, croquettes filled with a cream sauce and pieces of fried beef served in pot kept warm by smoke and embers. 

Grille langoustines served with pigs ears that tasted like crispy bacon and a gray creamy sauce made of ants. It had no strong taste and the ingredients were pulped. Local food…

We shared a main course of grilled yota, a vegetable unknown to me. It tasted like slightly sweet pasta served with beans and water cress and potato pieces topped with discs of toast. It was all designed to highlight local products. 

Layne had a margarita made with Yerba Buena a mint flavored leaf but I stuck to mineral water. It was the middle of the day and hot.  

There was a photographer at work helping the famous owner do some useful publicity thing. 

We had a plate of various chocolate flavors to sip up with local banana bread with our coffees. The whole extravaganza for two, all taxes and tips included cost about $68.  

We make the effort to visit Barichara from time to time, it’s only $3 and fifteen minutes in a tuk tuk from the campground, and it’s worth getting to know as it’s a pretty town known as a heritage city, history preserved in a place where there is no advertising allowed. 

That’s very cute but it’s hard to figure where the stores are and what they might be selling so Layne has enjoyed doing her usual exploration, locating the hole-in-the-wall bakery… 

She picks her way through the vegetable and fruit markets:

Or the hidden and unadvertised D-1 supermarket. That’s the grocery chain with the peculiar name. 

And while she stands in endless lines I walk Rusty. 

Barichara is a tourist center but for Colombians who live in the capital six hours away and spend weekends and holidays here enjoying the country. Foreigners are almost unknown though you will see a few Europeans meandering around pretending they know where they are going. Americans? None of those as they know Colombia is dangerous. 

Barichara spills down the hillside in curving asymmetrical slopes, each cobbled street like the last and takes several visits to identify landmarks. 

The town square is shriveled and parched by the lack of rain but locals bring their dogs to walk here in the afternoon. 

The traffic is mostly one way and the sidewalks though narrow and enormously high are regular and easy to walk. 

The city is spotless with no dogs or trash in the streets. Rusty loves it. 

An old Indian scooter caught my eye as it advertised  a scooter rental shop. 

Waiting for Herself to finish shopping. 

It gets dark before seven and this close to the Equator there is no summer time switch as sunrise and sunset hardly change year round. We were in eastern time but now I guess we’re on central time as the US changes.

I have no idea if Colombia can outlive its civil war past in my life time but I fear that for years to come this country will be tarred with the fearsome brush of the cocaine trade. 

Colombia itself isn’t ready for tourism not least because no one anywhere speaks any English, and that is the language of travel.  I find the place fascinating and we have decided to put in a weeks tourism before Holy Week shuts the country down on the 23rd. Our idea is to see a few sights and then we will pause again, 10,000 feet high in the mountains in a rented apartment to avoid the Easter crowds. We figured we might as well start acclimating to altitude while we wait for the national week off to wind down.  

Meanwhile I promise to get my energy back and get on with posting pictures as we spend another week in the campground, enjoying the fact, still surprising to us, that we are in South America. 

Another night in the silence and serenity of a campground cool enough at night to require a blanket, dark enough to see the stars in the sky and inexpensive enough at $15 a night to allow us to save money while we bliss out.  

This overlanding life is full of surprises.