I like Bucamaranga, a city nicknamed the pretty (“lindo”) because it is famous in Colombia for its parks, the first thing a local will say if you mention the city. Above was our street camp Thursday night after we visited the Bosque del Lago del Cacique (woods of the chief’s lake) park:
We drove into the city to see the Saint Pius Park which like every city park has no dedicated parking so we found a lot half a block away:
We paid two dollars for an hour’s stop and it was worth it for the ease of visiting the park. Luckily the entrance gate roof was tall enough and we fit in one corner under the ridiculous low roof lining the lot.
They have free WiFi in the park but you need an ID number and an address to register for it. Our cell signal using our Verizon international account worked fine for me.
Rusty loved this park and surprised me playing with the local dogs as they chased balls.
This place reminded me of Highland Avenue in Birmingham Alabama where there are similar city parks surrounded by apartment blocks on hills.
Unlike in Alabama there were fried delicacies for breakfast and diced papaya in carrot juice, surprisingly refreshing and delicious. We asked the lady not to put grated cheese on ours.
One comment mentioned cellphones and they are everywhere all the time. I am posting these pages on my iPhone mini 12 but in the car I use it for mapping not communicating. Colombians never put them down.
After his romp in the park Rusty had to stay in the van at the Botanical City Park and he was none too pleased. The gate guard was cool about him coming in as long as he’s stayed in the car where he obviously suffered horribly.
The garden has, they say, 400 native species planted on 18 acres of land in the city.
They also collect and have stored dried and preserved samples of 3500 plants.
They have some of the largest mango trees I’ve ever seen, too big to grow in Key West yards!
These lobster claws are perfect drinking troughs for numerous small birds.
The raked leaves are collected in bamboo compost bins.
A Colombian botanist Luis Arango Restrepo persuaded the government to fund the park in 1982 and it was built by 1990 and this associated with Alexander Humboldt institute in Colombia.
The garden is named for a Colombian botanist and priest Juan Eloy Valenzuela who was born near here in the town of Giron ( see below!) 1756. He lived to be 77 when he was the parish priest in Bucaramanga and a noted botanist and someone decided to murder him. Colombia is always over the top!
The story is that a rumor went around the city that Father Valenzuela had secreted a treasure in his parish house, where in fact all he had was a few trunks of botanical souvenirs, preserved plants as mementos of his many expeditions to Colombia’s wilderness.
Higinio Bréton and his brother Matias believed the rumors had broke into his home on the night of October 31 1834. They questioned the priest and stole a few valuable church plate but before they left they killed the old man over his pleas for mercy.
The city was scandalized and put up a reward to find the priest killer. Sure enough the brothers were arrested and tried. Matias got a prison term but Higinio got the death penalty (which was abolished in 1910 in Colombia). Normally he would have been shot but for this heinous crime he was garroted.
They say he walked with a firm step to the gallows but his face paled a little they say when he saw the chair with the iron noose they put around his neck. Slowly they tightened the screw at the back and slowly he was strangled in front of god and everybody. The city church bells rang when the priests murderer was dead. They say he asked for forgiveness from the gallows as he was strapped to the chair and that made everyone a little happier.
They cut his head off and put it on a stake in the main square and it stayed there a year until the blonde hair and big blonde beard had fallen off the skull.
And that is the story of the murder of Eloy Valenzuela here celebrated among nature’s beauty. Aren’t you glad I can read Spanish?
And through the trees you can see some pretty wrecked housing. I wonder who might live there next to this oasis.
We got interviewed for a school project asking tourists what they thought the park and what improvements would we like to see?
My first thought was that I’d like to see some information about the statue of Valenzuela which I subsequently looked up myself.
The anxious dog? He was snoring. Notice the car parked right next to GANNET2. It’s a Latin thing because when there’s an empty parking lot, park right next to the single big van all by itself. Why? Beats me.
We wanted to see the town near Bucaramanga recommended by the cop who pulled us over at the checkpoint.
Giron is a famous tourist attraction in the country and you can see why:
I’d better come clean and admit driving Giron was too much. The cobbles were awful shaking us fit to loose any dentures we might have had.
The streets were narrow and the side street turns were impossibly tight in a 21 foot van.
I pride myself I can drive anywhere but not Girón.
Clearly that was a destination we should have planned, not visited on a whim.
You can’t do it all…
Back out into the mountains we went and took on the dirt road towards El Cucoy which gets its own write up in the next post!
After that we got back on the highway trying to reach Barichara and the campground before dark.
Then the engine monitor light came on. Nerts! Layne pulled the manual out of the glove box so when we finally saw a place we could pull over we could see what had broken.
It turns out it’s some minor engine control malfunction and I reset it at the campground. I’ll deal with that later. The brake light is on of course but I’m grateful for the comment that it doesn’t mean much. That backed by the dealer inspection helps us face travel thousands of feet above sea level. And past homes fenced in like prison cells.
This is San Gil about half an hour from the campground and I’d advise you to stay away. I lost my shit here when Google Maps sent us up a dead end and I had to back down a narrow street for quarter of a mile. Not a wide one like this:
The sun was starting to set and Google kept wanting to send us back to hell but we picked our way out.
The final stretch to Barichara was a horrid bouncy road but we arrived in a well kept little town.
And as we closed in on the fence the sun did its thing over the mountains.
I took this picture the next morning, Saturday.
Rusty loves it here. He took a turn around the campsite, played with the camp dogs and then gave me a huge kiss which is his way of saying thank you.
Home for the rest of the week.
