Panama City day 10 - Sunday

day 9

Quindio Day 9 - Saturday

A little over 100 km north of Buga, close to the city of Armenia is the Parque Nacional Del Café – The National Coffee Park. This is a theme park for coffee growing and production combined with rides for children and adults alike.

For curious coffee drinkers the park is a showcase for growing, harvesting, shelling, drying and roasting coffee beans, mainly from Colombian plants but also from plants native to Africa and Asia.
It is fascinating to see old and new methods for extracting the coffee bean from it’s two outer shells, washing the mucus from the bean...
drying the beans in the Colombian sun, reusing the bean casings as fertilizer or as fuel for roasting.

I may be the only person in America who didn’t know that coffee beans are exported as virgins. That is, the beans are roasted to local taste in the country where the coffee processed and consumed. The only coffee beans roasted in Colombia are those used for local consumption of coffee.

Coffee beans pulled from the bush have a tough red outer shell. The outer shell is removed and a sticky mucus is washed from the beans before they are dried on long racks in the sun or in concrete sheds that trap hot air.

After drying the bean’s paper thin inner shell has a light vanilla color.

The dried beans are then tumbled with rotating drums to remove the inner shell revealing grey beans that are then packed in burlap sacks for export to the Americas, Asia or Europe where the beans are roasted to perfection and sold to consumers.

To attract families the park includes a roller coaster, a go-kart track, a water chute and several staged revues with coffee themes. There are other walking trails that are well signposted in both Spanish and English through a bamboo forest, a replica of an Indian burial ground and over a suspension bridge. Cable cars, a chair lift and a railway connect many parts of the park for those weary of walking and there are places to rest, eat Colombian food and – of course – drink Juan Valdez coffee.

This was a very enjoyable day.

Buga Day 8 - Friday

Buga is a small city 90 km north east of Cali with a population of about 250,000. It was originally the main center of Valle de Cauca – the route to the port city of Buenaventura on the Pacific Ocean is easier from Buga - before Cali wrested away control of the regional government.

The city is an agricultural town with factories producing glass, soy cooking oil and sugar from cane. Buga has managed to retain a center that is reminiscent of Southern France and northern Spanish towns with wide doorways in buildings on narrow streets.
The wooden doors open to allow horse and mounted rider access to an inner courtyard surrounded by rooms and with a central fountain. Here the rider dismounted and tethered his horse to the fountain.
The rooms around the courtyard were stables and servants quarters and the cooking areas. An open archway then led to second courtyard where there was a garden around which family day rooms and bedrooms were arranged.

Buga had, and still has, a number of rich families. The houses in the city used to belong to the rich until some of them moved out - with the introduction of the horseless carriage – to the surrounding hillsides. Families apparently did not mingle much and there is a joke around town that the Papaya trees in many family gardens were planted so that the backward children of the families who interbred could be tied to the tree while daughter visited mother. The details of this story could not be confirmed though it should be noted that there are a number of Buga families with hyphenated family names where both names are the same.

Buga is now famous as the site of La Basilica de Milagroso, where there is a life-size statue of Christ on the cross that is said to have been found by a lady washing clothes in the Guadelajara River in 1590. When found the statue was very small, but over the next five years it grew to be the life size statue of Christ nailed to the cross that is now interred in a special room behind the alter of the cathedral.

The discovery and subsequent growth of the statue was, of course, deemed to be a miracle by the Bishops and Archbishops of the time and a church was built to house the statue. Word soon spread and pilgrims come from all over Colombia to visit the statue and petition for miracles.

So many came that a much larger cathedral was built with a large open area covering three city blocks and a statue of Mary Magdalene in front of the church.

Every seven years during holy week the statue is carried on a dais by four elders of the church and paraded through town with a great deal of ceremony. Sometimes, however, the statue cannot be lifted however hard the elders try and a replica has to be substituted in the parade.

Buga is a delightful town with a town square and the obligatory statue to a Spanish Conquistadore. It is well worth a visit with a stop at Leo’s Pizza, where the ebullient owner makes and excellent pizza and serves it with panache.

Los Fallarones National Park day 7 - Thursday

The Pance River has its beginning high in the Los Fallarones, in the rainfall that falls as the clouds carrying the warm moist air from the Pacific Ocean rise in a valiant attempt to cross the 3,000 meter escarpments. Most days the clouds fail to cross the peaks and the Gods celebrate by playing boules in the sky. The crash of the God’s balls send thunder rolling across the sky and lightning lights up the peaks. The clouds give up their quest and spectacularly dump their contents onto the mountain top and depending on the precise point of release, the precipitation fills the rivers flowing west back to the Pacific Ocean, or they feed the Pance and Cali rivers that tumble eastward down the hillsides towards Cali.

The Pance River is a key component in the Los Fallarones nature reserve. Nature trails have been established along the banks of the river and venturing a little distance into the forest and this is where we spent our day. We walked the trails, watched and listened to the birds and the butterflies, marveled at the industriousness of giant red ants as they carried pieces of green grass and yellow and purple blossoms across the path into the tunnel that led to ant nest, watched for but did not see and mammalian wild life and listened to the comforting sounds of the river bubbling and gurgling its way across the rocks in the river bed.

We bathed tired feet in the icy cold waters of the river and sat on the bank and listened to the soothing water, then ate a late lunch at the Ecological Park in an outdoor restaurant constructed from Guadua – a local cousin of the bamboo, but with stems that have a larger diameter and are obviously much stronger than bamboo. The food, as usual, was tasty and filling so we sat a lot longer and enjoyed the beautiful day, the gorgeous surroundings and each others company.

Cali - Random Obversations

· Taxis are really tiny, most are either Hyundai Atos or Chevrolet Spark, neither of which is sold in the US. Think BMW Mini without the trunk. Four adult passengers can fit in a taxi, but there is no room to spare.

· Taxis fares are really cheap. A 15 km drive across town costs 10,000 Pesos or about $4

· Most taxis, a few private cars and the Mio city buses run on natural gas. The natural gas filling stations are called Gazel and a non-scientific survey indicates about 1 in 10 gas stations also have a Gazel forecourt. Gazel pumps are mostly next to Terpel gasoline stations, but sometimes next to others.

· There are Mobil, Esso, Texaco, Petrobras, Terpel and other gas stations but no Shell.

· Motor cycles are everywhere, many are inexpensive Chinese imports. All motorcyclists are required to wear a crash helmet and a red canvas wrap. Both have luminous letters on the back matching the motor cycle’s plate. In the city virtually all comply with the law and only have one or two riders, all wearing the vests. In the country it is not unusual to see families of three (and sometimes four) riding on a motor cycle, and the luminous vests are rarely seen.

· Horse drawn carts are still common in the suburbs, occasionally you see a motorcycle pulling a trailer loaded with steel or wood parts or garden equipment and plants.

· There are multiple levels of public transport.
o The newest is the Mio, with air conditioned articulated buses that travel on dedicated routes that run into and across downtown. The suburban Mio has non-articulated air conditioned buses feeding passengers onto the dedicated routes. These buses run to a timetable and are clean and well maintained. Fares are 1,200 pesos ($0.50) per trip.

o It seems like every fourth vehicle in the city is an 18-26-seater mini-bus that is not air conditioned. The buses are colored for the route they take through the city and they are cheaper to ride than the Mio. More often than not every seat is occupied and the aisle is full of standing passengers.

o Less common but still seen in the suburbs are 6-seater micro buses converted from Jeeps or regular vans. These are usually carrying at least 10 people.

· A standard tip in a restaurant is 8% of the bill. Many restaurants include service on their final bill so always ask if service is included before leaving a tip.

· Cali people (Calinoans) are gracious, polite and friendly and always ready to help with directions, suggestions or friendly advice. Few know any English, all tolerate bad Spanish.

· Private cars follow the European model in that most are small, with the occasional SUV and a very few small pick-ups. The largest car I saw on the street was one (and only one) Mercedes 350. There are no convertibles and no two-seater sports cars.

· A flash of green, or yellow or red in the suburbs is usually a bird stopping to rest on the grass or a wire. Colombia is one of the most diverse ecological areas in the world. Birds and butterflies are numerous and colorful.

· The land is bountiful. Fresh fruits are available everywhere. Pineapple, banana, papaya and mangoes have wonderful, full flavors, chontaduros, revered by many Calinoans and available at roadside stalls everywhere, tastes like lard unless it is served with honey, then it tastes like lard coated with honey.

· Living 3 degrees north of the equator is perfectly acceptable if you are 1,000 meters above sea level and the mountains provide a downdraft of air that result in warm days and cool nights year round. Few places are air conditioned; those that are, advertise the fact.

· Public toilets are few and far between, except in malls and grocery stores and facilities in restaurants tend to be rudimentary. Men are apparently not expected to have a bowel movement outside the home; none of the public restrooms I encountered had toilet seats in the cubicles.

· Temperatures are measured in degrees Celsius, distances are measured in kilometers, weights are measured in grams and kilos, natural gas is sold in cubic meters – but gasoline is sold in imperial gallons. Prices for unleaded are 7,790 pesos or about $3.12 per gallon.

· Exito is the Cali equivalent to Wal-Mart. Performance and Appearance Chemicals in Exito are Simonize or CRC; seat covers, steering wheel covers and sunshades are all from the PRC with trilingual packaging. Shell Helix had a very small shelf presence.

· The city and suburbs have a very logical road numbering system. All north-south streets are called Carrera XX and all east-west streets are called Calle XX, with XX being a number. Street intersections are signs listing both the Carrera number and the Calle number at the intersection, so it is easy to correct ones direction after getting lost.

· There are Panaderias (bakeries) everywhere. Empanadas, Arepas, fruit and roast corn are sold at many roadside stalls. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day; dinner/supper is usually a snack later in the evening.

There are seven Colombian beers brands sold in Cali. All are lager style. Aguilla has the most body and fullness, though Aguilla Light tastes like flavored water, Poker contains too much fizz and Redd's - a high powered malt liquor at almost 8% alcohol - is too sweet, Costena, Club Columbia and Pandera are all easy to drink, neither of them have a lot of body. Peroni, an Italian beer brewed in Panama City is the biggest imported brand. Heineken and Corona are also available.

Cali day 5 - Tuesday

Today was our cultural day, visits were planned to a couple of museums and an art gallery, but first we ate lunch at Lucero's while Mama Leny did laundry. Mama Leny has a small apartment and it would be difficult to fit a washing machine into her apartment without taking up a lot of space in her kitchen. So, once a week, she hires a washer. The unit is delivered to her apartment and hooked up to water and electricity, she completes her washing then two hours later the washer is taken away. Total cost - less than $4. This is a real service economy. Anything can be ordered for home delivery and service is quick, cheap and always carried out with a smile.



After another excellent meal, Lucero drove us downtown to the Calima Gold Museum, located in the building owned by the Colombian Central Bank - Banco De La Republica. The primary Gold Museum is located in Colombia's capital city, Bogota, but Cali, as Colombia's third largest city, has been lucky enough to warrant a smaller version of the museum with many interesting artifacts. Though the museum only occupied one room it was full of interesting facts, including information that the Calima region, which stretches from the Pacific coast in West Colombia and across the mountains to Cali, had been settled for more than 10,000 years. This particularly impressive figure had gold earrings that had expanded his ear lobes to more than four inches in diameter, a gold nose ring, breastplates and belt and various gold ornaments. There appears to be little information on Calima on the web in English. The one site I did find http://www.procalima.org/ has some great photographs (click Projects then photo gallery)

This area of the city is characterized by colonial architecture that has been preserved. White stucco walls to reflect the sun, wooden shutters that can be opened to let in the cool afternoon breezes that blow down from the mountain and roofs made from half round tiles to protect against the regular rain showers.

From the Gold Museum we walked a couple of blocks to the Archaeological Museum - the Museo Arqueologico La Merced. The museum contains ceramics and pottery from the pre-hispanic societies which inhabited the southwest area of Colombia. The museum building is an old colonial church and monastery that has been converted. In the first exhibit room and at various places through the other four exhibit rooms the original floors and walls of the church have been exposed to show the construction methods used in colonial times.
One room focuses on ceramics, another on burial practices and a third on pottery colors and decorations. Glass cases with examples from each region are in each room. You can borrow, but not keep, a guide to the exhibits in English.

In the central courtyard of the museum is a copy of one of the stone statues found in San Agostin where civilization flourished from around 1,000 BC. There is also a sheltered recreation of a burial site from the Tolima people in the Magdalena valley. Remains of human civilizations dating back 16,000 years have been found in this region.

Here Sofia is descending the circular staircase in to reach the burial chamber 20 feet below ground. The dead were laid flat in coffins created from hollowed out tree trunks, then at some later date the bones were removed from the coffin and placed in ceramic pots, and (though this was not completely clear) the tree trunk coffin was reused.

From the Archaeological Museum we took a taxi 15 or 20 blocks (for less than $2) to the Museo La Tertulia (Museum of Modern Art) We arrived on completely the wrong date. The museum had been cleared of all exhibits and was dedicated to a display of movie posters. Only movie posters. Nothing else. And the modern art exhibits were not due to be returned until next week. Unfortunately we did not discover this until we had paid the $5 entry fee ($1.66 each) so we walked around and looked at movie posters for a little while.

The Museo La Tertulia is located on the street that runs alongside the River Cali on the opposite side from the park with the painted cats. So we crossed the street and the bridge over the river and looked at the artists submissions to be the "Cat Mother" The 20 cats are all about 4 feet tall and six feet long and each was decorated by a different artist in a competition. Several of the cats had been moved from the park so they could provide a whimsical sight on one of the downtown plazas.

From the cat park we crossed the road and walked to the Ventolini Ice Cream shop for Colombian Ice Cream. The store not only sells excellent ice cream (think Marble Slab Creamery) but also has a coffee bar selling espresso and various other coffee drinks with and without alcohol and since it was six o'clock somewhere in the America's I decided to have an Irish coffee along with my ice cream. "Got Milk" anyone?

Cali day 4 - Monday

Today was a quiet day, taken up primarily with errands for Patricia, Sofia and Mama Leny. I tagged along to look at the sights and sounds around the city and occasionally practice my poor Spanish.

The malls in Cali are open, airy and clean with excellent amenities and we went first to buy earings for Aunt Lia. The Chipichape mall buildings used to be the engine sheds and repair shops for the Colombian railway system in the central plateau, but with the decline of the railways the buildings fell into disuse before a private company took over and converted the disused buildings into a mall with wide corridors, multiple cafes and a large selection of stores on two floors.

While the ladies shopped I checked out several sculptures of partially naked ladies adorning one of the open air food courts. The sculptures are by a Caleno called Emilio Hernandez (http://www.hernandezemilio.com/) Interesting sculptures. I wouldn't mind one of these in my back yard.
Minor fact. None of the malls are air conditioned, the weather is cool enough all year round that as long as there are ample open air courts to allow air to circulate under the canopies that protect from the frequent rain showers, then there is no need for air conditioning.

The ladies were done soon enough and it was time to eat. Patricia had memories of a restaurant - La Cazuela - on Calle 6 that she ate at 10 years ago when she lived in Cali. Her memories were not just of the restaurant but of a particular dish made by that restaurant - Cazuela de Langostinos - so off we went. The branch she used to eat at on the north side of Calle 26 was obviously closed as we drove by, but our driver spotted the second branch of the restaurant 50 yards further down the street on the south side. We pulled up just as the owner was taking the padlock off the front door.

It was a strange and surreal experience. We were the only diners in the restaurant all the time we were there. They had run out of beer and wine - the owner said he had not yet ordered after being closed for Holy Week - and the owner appeared to be the waiter and the chef. With some trepidation we decided to stay and ordered the Langostinos and some lemonade and sat waiting for the ghosts to appear, the doors to mysteriously close and lock, the walls start to close in and the lights to dim.

None of this happened. Cazuela de Langostinos is a thick red soup, piping hot and full of small shrimp and a few onions. The soup was served with fried plantains, white rice and French bread and we were offered, but declined, Colombian hot sauce. It was excellent. The broth was made from fish and the flavor was delicate enough not to overpower the shrimp, and there were shrimp galore and they were very tasty. This was our most expensive meal to date in Cali, a little over 110,000 pesos for four people - around $45 - but it was worth it.

The ladies still had errands to run so I accompanied them on the promise of a good cup of coffee when they were finished.

We had been searching for a Juan Valdez coffee shop for three days and I was beginning to tease that these coffee shops were a figment of their imagination. I was assured they were real so late in the afternoon we headed to another mall where they knew a Juan Valdez existed, and voila, there it was. Juan Valdez coffee shops are Colombia's answer to Starbucks, the only thing that disappointed slightly was the size of the paper cup. The largest of the three sizes was equivalent to a small Starbucks, but even so, the Latte Arequipe (Caramel Latte) was excellent.


Once again it was time for supper, and we decided to repeat the Arepas de Choclo, but this time at a roadside cafe Lucero knew close to Jamundi. It appears that Cali is somewhat like Houston in that nowhere is close to anywhere else. We always drive miles and this was no exception but the drive was worth it to see the open ovens used to cook Arepas. The restaurant was Mazorca Tierna on the side of highway 25 just north of Jamundi.

We (here Manuel Jose and I inspect the Arepas in the oven) were given a demonstration of Arepa cooking from start to finish by the cook and we enjoyed Arepas de Choclo, roasted corn and Agua Panela with cheese (and an Aguila beer for me, no one else in Patricia's extended family drinks alcohol)

Cali day 3 - Sunday

Lunch is the most important meal of the day in Colombia. Lunch is the big meal and then dinner / supper is usually a snack rather than a big meal.







After eating an early lunch at Humberto and Lucero's we drove to Jamundi where Humberto and Lucero have bought land so they can build a house in the country. This view is from their plot looking west to the Los Farallones de Cali montain range. The services in the development include a club house with a swimming pool, sauna and steam room and a soccer field and two tennis courts under construction.
We then took a drive several miles into the mountains on a dirt road. The scenery was spectacular, but the drive was somewhat harrowing with big trucks, cars of all shapes and sizes, motorbikes and cyclists also traveling on the single lane road. We eventually turned round after we reached a bridge over a scenic river and headed back to Cali.







After dropping Lucero, Manuel Jose and Sofia at home we continued into Cali to look at some of the sights. This is a statue of the founder of Cali - on July 25, 1536 (Sofia's birthday) - Sebastian de Belalcazar.

Once again there were many entrepreneurial vendors at the site, and we bought some roasted corn to eat.





Next was the church of San Antonio standing on a hill with spectacular views of the financial district and downtown. Once again there were many vendors arond the parking lot and we bought some more roasted corn to take home for breakfast in the morning.





This a view from the San Antonio church across the artist's district of San Antonio - where it is prohibited to build houses taller than two storeys - to the skyscrapers in the finacial district and city center. The skyscraper on the left is a residential building just outside the western edge of San Antonio district.





On the western side of the Belalcazar monument parking lot is a view of the Cali River seen through the trees.

This view of the river is in the west of the city. The river winds through Cali from east to west and at one point has a dozen or so painted cat statues in a park next to the river.


From San Antonio church we drove through the San Antionio area looking for El Penon park where we had been told there was a street market of paintings for sale. We wanted to add to our collection of paintings from places we had visited. We eventually found the park and looked at the large varirty of oils and watercolors and found an artist who painted watercolor scenes of the area. We liked and bought two paintings, one of Hacienda El Paraiso and one of the San Antonio church.

We made one more stop at a book store and bought a book on Colombia with pictures by an English photographer and ordered a second book with Colombian recipes that we will pick up on Tuesday.

For our last stop of the day we went looking for Arepas de Choclo. These are Arepas cooked in a special earthen oven, then split in two, filled with Colombian white cheese and reheated. Despite the fact that I don't like corn bread, I love Arepas de Choclo and these are essentially the same as cornbread since they are made with corn and sugar blended together. An Arepa and a Poker beer made for a nice supper before we headed home for the night

Cali Day 2 - Saturday

Eating at someone’s house is an experience not to be missed when traveling. Meals contain local fruits and vegetables and breads and meats and there is no possibility one can revert to the safe – and unadventurous – food one would eat at home. And so it proved this morning. Fresh fruit was offered for breakfast – Zaporte – soft pink interior surrounding four large seeds wrapped in a tough brown skin, with a taste a little like Papaya – Apple Guava – crunchy guava that looks like an apple, the texture and crispness of a nut – mandarin – small oranges – Kumis – a drink similar In texture to liquid yoghurt, but lighter in flavor – freshly squeezed orange juice and Colombian coffee. All delicious.

Patricia wanted to visit with her family and Humberto had to take the car to a repair shop to have the exhaust fixed so he and I drove to an area of the city where there were dozens of repair shops and parts stores for cars and motorbikes. A female relative of Humberto’s ran a shop where exhausts are repaired so we left the car in her competent hands and walked to the bus stop for the Mio. The Mio is a recently completed mass transit system that consists of dedicated lanes for air conditioned buses and bus stations with enclosed air conditioned ticket and waiting areas. There are half a dozen routes through the city, so we spent an hour riding the T39 and T41 lines through the city center and the financial district, then south down Calle 7 and back to where we started. Very interesting.

As we got back to Humberto’s house a street vendor drove by on his bicycle with a cooler full of champus. Patricia ran out of the house with a large plastic jug, the vendor filled the jug and we sat down to drink Champus – a delicious drink of corn, pineapple, and several other things (recipe to follow when I find out what exactly is in the drink) and eat lunch before we headed off to visit the Hacienda El Paraiso.

Patricia, Lucero me and Mama Leny (Patricia's mum) are enjoying champus.

Hacienda El Paraiso is the restored house and grounds of the site of a famous Colombian love story (we site in Spanish http://www.inciva.org/) The grounds are lovely and the story behind the house is interesting. Unrequited love because the young lady in the story died.

This is Humberto (Lucero's husband) and Lucero (Patricia's sister) and their son Manuel Jose

The whole group at the entrance to the house and grounds. The house was restored in 1983 and opened to the public in 1988 with period furniture and pictures so it looked as close as possible to it's condition when the family in the story lived in the house.

There were several very large and very old trees in the grounds, this is just one of them.

There were a dozen vendors in front of the grounds, close to the parking lot, being entrepreneurs and taking advantage of the opportunity presented by the visitors. They were selling roasted corn, sugar cane sticks and sugar cane juice, arepas and various fruits. Here Sofia and I are eating "oblea" which is like the crispy covering on an ice cream sandwich, but instead of ice cream the inside was smothered in caramel.

And here are Patricia and Sofia engaged in a duel of corn.