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.