Bogota - The Botanical Garden

For our last morning in Bogota we decided to visit the Botanical Gardens close to the Marriott Hotel and look for a plaque and tree dedicated to Professor Idroba, Mama Leny's uncle, (Leny's maiden name is Idrobo) who taught Botanics at the public university in Bogota and did much research at the Botanical gardens. Prof. Idrobo also spent three years in London, UK working to save the Queen's roses from blight.  He succeeded.

We found the Herbal Medicine garden that is named after Idrobo, but could not find a plaque or any other sign.  Further checking at the offices confirmed that Professor Idrobo has donated his extensive collection of botanical books to the research center at the garden, but perhaps because it was Sunday, no knowledgable staff were on hand to give us further information.  So we just enjoyed the natural beauty and enjoyed our walk through the gardens and the plant houses.

Bogota - Cerro de Monserrate and La Catedral De Sal

The day started with the sun shinng and a few clouds in the blue sky. It was chilly when we left the apartment hotel at 8:00.  Our prearanged taxi drove thorough the fairly quiet city streets to the funicular railway station at tyhe base of El Cerro De Monserrate - the Hill of Monserrate - where we waited for a transport to the top of the hill.  The hill can be accessed by funicular railway, cable car or by walking.  The summit is 3,152 meters (10,314 feet) above sea level.  Bogota is ~2,650 meters above sea level.

The hill of Monserrate contains the Sanctuary of El Senor Caido, (the fallen man) a favoriote place of pilgrimage for locals and visitors.  The sanctuary was first built more than four centuries ago - in 1657 - as a monastery, but got its current name from a shrine that contains a sculpture made by Pedro de Lugo y Albarracin of Christ lying on his side after apparently being taken down from the cross. 

The hill now contains the sanctuary, which is a working catholic church, a French restaurant, a Colombian restaurant and a self service cafeteria, a host of souvenir shops and some amazing views of Bogota, to which our camera can hardly do justice.

After descending the hill on the funicular railway, our taxi took us an hour or so north of Bogota to the town of Zipaquira and it's salt cathedral. The hill of Zipa contains a salt dome that has been exploited for centuries, first by the local indians and later by the Spanish conquistadiores and now by the Colombian Salt Company.

The current salt Cathedral lies in the second level of the salt mine.   The salt dome was formed from an inland sea that existed in this area in Pre-Tertiary times.  During the Teriray era ~250 million years ago, the pacific plate and the south american plate collided to form the Andes and the salt dome was pushed upwards to be part of the east Cordillera of the Andes.  It is currently 2,652 meteres above sea level.

The first salt cathedral was closed and abandoned when the first level where the cathedral was located became unstable.  The current cathedral was started in 199 and inaugurated in 1995 by President Ernesto Samper Pizano using several of the galleries from the original cathedral but with a completely new main gallery containing a 16 feet x 10 feet (known in mathematics as the perfect ratio) cross. There are fourteen small chapels built nto the rock at the sides of the main tunnel leadng down to the cathedral.  Each of these chapels contain a cross and seveal small kneeling platforms and each chapel represents one of the fourteen events that the bible says occurred on Jesus' last journey carrying the cross to his crucifixion.  There is also a wedding chapel, a stone sculpture depicting the birth of Christ and a stone sculpture inlaid into the floor that takes inspiration from Michelangelo's creation of Adam

Cali - Kilometer Diez y Ocho

Much of the day was spent shopping at a mall anchored by La Catorce, though on this particular expedition I sat in a little food court and tried, with only partial success to access the Internet through the advertised mall WiFi.

After the shopping was complete at the mall and a few other stores that were not represented in the mall we went back to Lucero`s for lunch before taking a drive to Kilometer Diez y Ocho (18), the highest point – 3,000 meters above sea level – on the road across the Occidental Cordillera between Cali and Buena Ventura.  The road was busy with buses and cars and quickly climbed through many twists and turns into the mist.  The views of the mountain peaks and valleys were spectacular as was the view of Cali laid out beneath us.

The temperature grew noticeably colder as we drove and then after around 5,000 meters we were in the mist.  Just past the peak at Kilometer 18 we stopped at a store selling flowers, plans and ceramic pots that was advertising a viewing spot.  There was no view because of the mist (but they did have bathrooms)

The intrepid travelers jumped back in the car and went looking for chocolate con queso.  Back over the peak the restaurant we had in mind was no longer open, all that remained was a burnt out shell, so we continued a little further down the road to La Cabana and enjoyed our hot chocolate in the mist

Buga

Today we took a drive into the countryside to visit Lucero’s in-laws in the small town of Buga, about 80 km north-east of Cali. The normally bad traffic in Cali was made worse this morning by two fender-benders that snarled the roads we were on.

Eventually we made it through the city and drove east past the airport to Palmira, before turning north and driving through fields of sugar cane and past sugar mills where the cane is turned into sugar for shipment domestically and internationally. The mountains of the west (Occidental) Cordillera visible on the left and the mountains of the central Cordillera closer on the right. The mountains on the right rise to almost 5,000 meters and are significantly higher than in the west where the highest peaks struggle to reach 3,000 meters and most are below 2,000 meters.

Buga is one of those towns where not much has changed architecturally in the last few hundred years. The city is famous mainly for the miracle that occurred 300 years ago when a statue of Jesus was found that inexplicably grew to life size, dripped blood from wounds left by the nails on the cross and cured people of ailments. We visited the cathedral built to house the statue last time we were in Colombia, so this time we walked through the narrow streets admiring the architecture and looking for a post office to mail post cards.

Many of the town’s streets are narrow thoroughfares built for horses and the occasional carriage. The houses on the sides of the street have entry doors that are tall and wide enough for a man to enter riding a horse. The entry doors lead into an inner courtyard open to the sky where the rider dismounted. The rooms of each residence were built around the courtyard.

The streets around the center contain shops and churches, below is one example of a store in one of the main streets leading to the main square.

This is one of the many churches in this strongly catholic town

And this is the church where Lucero and Humberto were married

And this is the town square with Manuel-Jose in the center of the picture feeding the pigeons.

After we found the post office, now called 4/72 Postale (after the latitude and longitude of the center of Colombia) and paid $3 each to send postcards to mum and Sofia we stopped at a café for Champus and Pandebono. Champus is Lulu juice (a Colombian fruit), pineapple, cooked corn, panella (brick brown sugar) and naraja (orange) tree leaves. Pandebono is Colombian cheese and bread dough made from Jucca, formed into rolls and cooked in the oven. Both Champus and pandebono are delicious. The picture below shows Rodolfo (Lucero’s father in law), Lucero, Manuel -Jose and me.

Cali - day 3

Today was a quiet day, spent mostly in and around the apartment since it rained most of the day.  We are catching up on our reading.

Aunt Maria and her family came to visit in the evening, to catch up on all the family news.

Cali - The Sugar Cane Museum and Ginebra

The weather forecast was still calling for rain, but we decided to chance it and taking two pairs of shoes each, the intrepid five (Mama Leny, Patricia, Lucero, Manuel Jose and I) headed off in Lucero’s SUV to the Museo de la Cana de Azucar (Sugar Cane Museum) about 60 km east of the city on the road to Buga. 

Much of the valley of the Cauca river between the first and second Andes Cordilleras was cleared in the eighteenth century to grow sugar cane.   (The Andes splits into three spurs, called Cordilleras, south of Colombia.  The River Cauca runs north between the west and central Cordilleras and the river Magdalena runs north between the central and east Cordilleras.  Each of the Cordilleras has mountains in excess of 12,000 feet, and the valleys between the Cordilleras are ~3,000 feet above sea level)

 We found the museum, but were a little disconcerted to see we were the only car in the large parking lot and later discovered that the museum is normally closed to tours on Monday.  However, one of the Museum employees offered to give us a tour and we gratefully accepted.

There was much to see and learn about growing and processing sugar cane in the nineteenth and early twentieth century in Colombia. These are some of the highlights.

The house was built in the 18^th century by the Borrero family and has never been rebuilt or restored or remodeled.  It is exactly as it used to be.  The Borrero family is still a powerful family in the Cali area.  The first owner of the plantation lived in the house and fathered 16 children here, even though the man and his wife slept in separate – but connected - bedrooms.

Here we are on the balcony of the main house.

The juice from the cane used to be extracted by squeezing the cane and letting the juice run out.  This was one of the earliest juice extraction tools.

The property has an amazing selection of tropical plants and flowers.  This is just one example called the Emperor Cane, since it reminds people of the Emperors walking cane.  There were many other examples of exotic plants including a tree whose fruit provided glue, a bush whose berries provided a soapy substance that could be used for washing clothes, a fruit whose tiny inner capsules provides a red food coloring and red stain that the Indians used to paint their faces, and leaves of bushes that made a tea to cure different ailments.

 

This particular plantation was forward looking and as soon as the iron rollers were available, the owner built an aqueduct to channel water to a water wheel that then drive rollers to crush the sugar cane and extract the juice.  The wheel is activated by pulling this handle to dam the water so it drives the water wheel rather than flowing over the end of the aqueduct.

The trail we followed around the property was 1 km long.  There were many constructions along the path representing sugar cane production and extraction in different parts of Colombia.  This was the start of the trail and gives some small idea of the beauty of the grounds in the museum.

After the Sugar Cane Museum we drove 15 km north to the town of Ginebra where we stopped for late lunch at the restaurant El Jordan.  More details of the lunch and the beer of the day (Poker) can be found at http://www.365beers365days.blogspot.com/.

Cali - day 1

Arrived safely in Cali last night after a 45 minute flight from Bogota.  Cali is 240 km SW of Bogota, but is only 3,000 feet above sea level so the temperature is more tropical than the cool weather in Bogota.

 
This is a view from Mama Leny’s apartment looking west toward the west Cordillera of the Andes mountains. The mountains are covered by low hanging clouds as the rain approached from the Pacific Ocean. The apartment is on the more prosperous south side of the city.

The rain came early so we had a quiet day visiting with Patricia’s mother (Mama Leny) and sister (Lucero) and Lucero’s six year old son (Manuel Jose). We ventured out in the rain to a local (multi-story) version of Walmart called LA14 (La Cartorce) where we shopped for groceries, a few ornaments to complete a Christmas model of Bethlehem and the birth of Christ at Lucero’s house and a new TV for Mama Leny.

Cali merchants plan for the rain, which is a regular occurrence in this tropical climate, many stores, including this LA14, have covered parking. At one point during our shopping trip we were on the floor next to the roof and the rain was hammering on the rooftop. It sounded just like a tropical storm shower in Houston. We then ate a Colombian restaurant on the third floor of LA14 where Manuel Jose tried out the drinking straw glasses we had bought from Houston.