Farm life begins!

Now, talk about a bumpy ride! And a whole 5 hours of it, with a touch of a hangover...But we made it! But it was a beautiful ride, told particularly to me by an English friend we had made who accompanied literally every man, old and young, who would get out to pee while looking off into the mountain vista when the bus stopped on the country road. We stopped at a place with amazing San Cocho soup, so Sarah and I added some of our amazing Hass avocado to that and had a sweet little lunch. Finally we arrived, but hardly…because I was already angry with the bus company for blowing us off and lying about when the bus left, and ignoring me as I spoke to them in clear Spanish when I would ask them why they told us it would leave at 10 if it wasn´t until 10:30. The bus dropped us off where a taxi stood near a sign that said San Agustin was still 5 kilometers away. I wasn´t about to pay extra for not being taken all the way to where I paid to go, but it turns out the taxi was paid for by the bus company because of an agreement they have with the tourist agency, which still ticked me off because the driver and his accomplice were trying to direct us where to stay and which hostal and la di da di da. I had the directions of how to arrive to the farm, and we would take a jeep car from the plaza and the driver would know where the farm was, so their continuous questions of the owner and where the farm was were pushing my buttons. And again, when we were dropped off at their tourist office, men were there awaiting to try and trick me into paying some $13 dollars for a taxi because it wasn’t a market day and there were no jeeps going to where I was going. Nonetheless, we arrived to the plaza where the jeeps are, and we had an hour to spare until it headed out…Oh the scams of tourism…We went to the small main plaza of San Agustin, where out of some 100 people, about 95 were eating ice cream…Sarah and I were perfectly fine with this habit so we joined the club and killed some time. Finally we got on the very bumpy ride with some 12 other locals. They all knew exactly where we were going, because the only foreigners that ever get on the jeeps are going out to the farm of the Ome´s. We arrived and were happily greeted by Edimer´s sister, Jueli, with a dinner of soup, rice and eggs. Oh, plus her five energy filled children and their father Don Igieno! What a house! But, I got a big sweet hug within twenty minutes of knowing Laura Camilla, the six year old girl. The next day, Sarah and I woke to the rain, and what more could we do but watch a movie? Edimer put on a pretty entertaining yet bizarre movie called Perfume, which he thought I´d be fascinated by because it had to do with the distillation of plants to make essential oils, however the movie is about a serial killer that is trying to capture the essence of the most beautiful women of an old French town…yea, pretty strange, but interesting! After that, we went walking about picking oranges, avocados, blackberries, and the local fruits of guayaba and caimo off the trees :)!

The pure pleasures of people, places, and FOOD in Popayan

Leaving Salento felt nice, as Sarah and I were definitely ready for new adventures. After stocking up on goodies, we headed off to Armenia where we would catch a bus to a larger town, Popayan, further south, where we would be awaited by our Couch Surfing host, Jaime. I hadn´t read hardly anything on his profile, so I really had no idea of the treat we were in for! But, all we could do was anticipate the new city throughout the rough bus ride…another small bus with no AC. However, the weather was nice as long as the breeze was blowing, and that is why Cali was such a disaster-standstill traffic in the smog filled and hot streets for some two hours…If I´d had known Cali´s traffic, we would have left Salento much earlier. But again, you live and you learn. We got ourselves two helados (ice creams) to help our nausea, and that was all we could do. Of course, when we arrived to Popayan, of course all the taxi drivers told me that the bus I wanted to take wouldn´t be running at the late hour of 830…mentiras (lies)! We crossed to the other side of the road and the minute I asked some young boys nearby which bus to take, they pointed to the one pulling up. That is the moment I understood the advantage of speaking the language in a foreign country! We got on and there were no seats (or more so double seats) that would suffice the size of Sarah and our packs. I walked to the back and within a minute, a cute boy that sat in the back offered me a space. We began to talk and he was extremely sweet, rushing me in the end to get out my notepad to write his name down to find him on facebook. As soon as he got off, another man came to sit by me, who was also very sweet and respectful. He let me know when to get off, and from there, I called Jaime and he pulled up on his motorcycle with Naomi, the German couch surfer who was already there. I immediately knew this was going to be a very sweet time, but I was worried that Sarah would be frustrated with the inability to communicate when Naomi said she preferred Spanish to English and also because I didn´t know Jaime spoke perfect English  in addition to Italian, French, a bit of German and Esperanto. Our cab followed his moto down a curvy ranch road for about 10 minutes out into the country, and when I got out, I was in awe at the blanket of stars in the sky despite our close proximity to the city. We were greeted by a seemingly mean dog, Simon, who ended up being a sweetheart. We would meet all the animals soon enough, Roberto, another puppy that learned to bark and seem mean from Simon, and Keoni, or Jaime in Japonese, and Jaime, the man…haha, would soon explain that all the animals of the house are named with human names, despite the discord of his grandmother, Susana, because they are just as much part of the family as all of the humans! I thought that was cute. The house had a sort of main courtyard and Jaime´s room had its own entry, as well as the living room, his grandparents room, his two sister´s rooms, and the kitchen. Jaime immediately offered us water after we declined a beer from Naomi because of our dehydration after a long 9 hours of trying not to drink so much water in fear of having to pee on the bus…you start to develop the apprehension of that terrible state…After talking an hour or so, we went to bed with the plan to meet Jaime around 12 to get some lunch in town. When we woke up, we met Jaime´s grandmother, who reminded me much of my own, Meme. She immediately called us hija (daughter) and offered us homemade arepas with cheese and farm fresh eggsJJJ. We headed into town to wander about until lunch to find a nearly all white city, every building with this very colonial look and completely white. We found several fresh ice cream machines that we couldn’t resist trying before lunch, too. For lunch, we took on the recommendation of a very sweet man who worked at the radio station where we happened to poke our heads into to look at a poster. He invited us in and gave us tons of recommendations, especially for food! We went to this great vegetarian restaurant called Salud y Vida. We got to pick 7 things off a large menu of things like Vegetable or Corn soup, grain burgers, cauliflour soup, cabbage salad, garbanzo beans, rice, papaya cake, blackberry pudding, pineapple juice, and more! All for the whopping price of 3,500 pesos, something close to $2! That´s about the running price of lunch in Popayan. Afterwards, Jaime took me to a small market where I could find a decent watch for cheap, so I got a digital waterproof Casio with alarm clock and stop watch and all for a whole $12! I was definitely getting along well with Popayan! And eating lunch did nothing to stop Sarah and I from eating for the rest of the day after we all parted ways. We had some four hours to go around and try tamales and empanadas de Pipian, mashed potato empanadas/tamales with a spicy peanut sauce, yuuuum! Afterwards we met Jaime at El Morro, a big hill that looks over all of Popayan. It was beautiful although we were a bit late for the sunset, but we agreed to get there earlier on Friday with a bottle of wine J. After night fell, we walked down and scoped around for a bar to have a beer in then headed home on the motorcycle, making that Sarah´s first ride ever! And I think one was enough… The next day we would head out to some thermal pools about an hour away from Popayan. After quite a journey, we arrived to the warm pools in Coconuco. They were lovely, and of course because we didn’t bring towels, it was best that they weren’t any hotter because otherwise it would have been miserable getting out. Soon, I made friends with all the Colombians there, including an older man who was with a younger guy that offered us a ride back into Popayan. James was his name, and soon we would find out he was the owner of the company who was paving all the road out to Coconuco and beyond…he had lots of money. At first, the offer seemed great because a long journey back didn´t seem appealing. However, in addition is was No Car Day in Popayan, meaning that he wouldn´t be able to enter the city until 7. We wouldn´t find this out until after he dragged us to everyone one of his construction sites…as if we were interested. This is when his comments about wishing Sarah would stay forever started to creep me out, but hey, at least they weren´t directed me because I couldn´t act like I didn´t understand because of the language barrier. He continued urging us to come visit his discoteca and restaurant that he owned. Well, after waiting an hour to enter the city in some little café where he was trying to tell us we could buy/try/do anything we desired, or in other words, spend his money…the military finally let us back into the town, where then James would INSIST that we at least stop by his restaurant. When we arrived, the appearance seemed pretty nice, so we figured, if it´s free why not at least give it a shot. Well, our karma for indulging in everything offered for free was that the food was CRAP, and we had to bare another hour and a half of James asking me if everything was okay because  Sarah looked bored and blah blah blah…I was definitely excited to never see this man again when we finally said farewell. The best part was telling the whole tale to Jaime when we got back home, oh right, after Sarah and I tried to take a cab and thought we knew where we were going…The truth was that when we got in the cab, I already insisted on the cost of the ride, and the whole ride Sarah and I were, for some reason, a bit goofy and delusional, however, Sarah insisted on the way to go, but I had said to turn around, and because Sarah didn´t speak Spanish, the driver definitely thought she would be wrong, but of course she prevailed J! We sat chatting with Jaime out in the small courtyard, and that is when I fell in love with his tiny black cat named Keoni. When we were ready for bed, the three of us cooped up in Jaime´s little room and had a sweet slumber party! For Friday, Sarah and I only had a few things to do on our list, one of which would be the sunset at the Morro with a bottle of wine…So, we woke up at ease because Jaime didn´t have school that day, and took a lovely two hour hike to a nice little spot on the river where he had been going since he was young. When we got back, our lovely mother Susana had cooked up some lovely San Cocho, a soup from southern Colombia which includes beans, yucca, finely ground corn, onion, squash, carrot, plantains, and cilantro, yuuuum! Afterwards, we went into town to of course, buy more food from a nice vegetarian place where the owner knew us for how many sweets we bought (bars of macadamia nuts with honey, peanut with honey coated in sesame seeds, fried yucca bread, and alfajores), try some empanadas de pipian, get me some black leggings, use the internet, and then go to the Morro with our lovely bottle of wine! Afterwards, we went to see some live music in the main plaza, which was some of the best live music I have seen so far! It had a very African twang to it because it was a group of young people, girls that were singing, that came from Juan Chaco, which is an area on the Pacific coast of Colombia where many African descendants are today. The speakers were horrible, so we walked around a bit searching for where we might find the Rumba, or the party, that night. Jaime kept apologizing for his lack of socializing/going out as we had been walking for some hour and a half to find a cool place to drink. Just in the nick of time, when we were about to just head back home, a highschool friend of his called who was nearby at a bar who would know where to take us. We met up with them at a little tavern, then headed over towards the club, debating whether or not we should buy a bottle of rum before entering so it would be cheaper. By this time, we were across the street from the club, but we bought a little bottle that Sarah would stick down the back of her pants and cover up with her sweater around her waist…haha! Yes, ridiculous. But, we got in safe! All up until sarah started to pour the first shot, and our waiter came up and took it from her like she was an infant playing with a knife…it was hilarious, but for a moment we were a bit upset about losing our bottle. Nonetheless, Jaime´s friend managed to negotiate some small amount of money to get our bottle back, and the rest of the night we spent dancing to Salsa, Merengue, and Reggaeton music. When it was too hot or simply too ridiculous, sarah and I would step outside and watch the even more ridiculous street scene as we began blabbing away our tipsy mouths…What fun memories. It was totally the night out that we needed and had been searching for all month long, and it finally came just the night before we would go to the farm. By the end of the night, Jaime was DRUNK, and absolutely hilarious, so we hopped in a cab and headed home. I have to tell a funny story for Sarah, because she insisted on getting water before heading home, so we stopped on the way at a tiny little store where she walked in alone, obviously a foreigner unable to speak Spanish, asks for two waters, and they told her some price that was a decent rip off, but they insisted that was the price. Two military men were there with the guy working and they were all drinking from a bottle of rum, and by this point, Sarah´s drunk rebelliousness decided to pick up the bottle and take a swig before walking out, just to show them who they were messing with! HAHA, I thought this was great! We finally got home around 2, and Sarah put the alarm for 7 insisting that we make the 9:30 bus to San Agustin. We woke early and gathered all of our things, enjoyed one last sweet breakfast and chat with Susana, and then headed off to the bus. We were cutting it very close to 9:30, but it didn´t even matter because another company then told us we would leave at 10, which didn’t end up being until 10:30 of course because that´s what they like to do to travelers, lie so that you buy the ticket. Anyways, on our way to San Agustin we went!

Last days of Salento!

Later Thursday afternoon, I walked down the road to a hostal run by some artisans where I had heard there was a guitar lying around. I was greeted by a sweet woman with dreds named Carol, who told me a bit about her artwork and then led me to the back where I met another Argentine from Cordoba, Matias. We spent the next couple of hours chatting and I played him some music, which he insisted would have to accompany him on his journey south back home. How would deny that request from this adorable, dark skinned Argentine??? I returned the next night down to Yambolombia, the hostal where Matias was volunteering and with a couple other traveler there, we started a lovely bonfire and sat around singing and talking for the evening. When the night was over, I invited Matias and another friend, Luciano, to walk me home and eat some of the leftovers of humus and curry. Matias went crazy for the humus, eating it by the spoonful! And on that walk, they posed to me the idea of buying some motorcycles in Quito, Ecuador, and riding south to Argentina from there! At first, I took the invitation very sarcastically, with a very unsure maybe, visualizing myself riding on a motorcycle through south America…I figured it impossible. But, I continued to think about it, and after getting of a skype call with Fanni Farago, I was convinced I should take advantage of the opportunity to ride through South America with two males, one of which can take apart and put back together a motorcycle! Saturday was the lovely day of Love and Friendship, so Sarah and I went in to buy ourselves some friendship bracelets J, and of course some gifts for everyone else. Sunday, some volunteers that would take the job of Sarah and mine´s, which we were doing a pretty lousy job at…decided to try and cook an asado, or a big bar-b-q, for any of the travelers who wanted. Well it ended up at 20…and it was raining, which made our asado a bit of a challenge in the end, but everyone enjoyed it! By this time, Sarah and I were pretty set on leaving by Tuesday at the latest, so Monday, I told Horacio, the ranchhand who lives at La Serrana, to wake me up to milk the cows at 4:30 AM!!! I ended up regretting not getting up to do it every day, not only because Horacio is a really amazing soul, but because it was beautiful to watch the sunrise and have a fresh glass of warm milk in the morning that came from my working hands! Later that day, Matias, Luciano, his girlfriend, and I took a hike down to a beautiful spot on the river and relaxed until just before sunset. I told Matias about milking the cows, and he couldn´t wait to do it so he promised me he´d be there Tuesday morning to join me. Along with him, a couple of my kind, portenos (from Buenos Aires, hehe) showed up as well. That was nice because I was able to say farewell after our few days of friendship and they were actually the ones traveling with the guitar that I was playing. Afterwards, Sarah and I packed our bags and headed to town to catch the bus out, which almost headed off with our bags and without us as we sat in the plaza talking to Luciano!