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After crossing the mountains, high valleys and the broad plateaus of the interior, Donald and I headed for the Caribbean coast, the ground level for a country that seemed to tower above the sea. Our trip would continue with a total of seven nights in Cartagena, four nights in the Tayrona National Park and one night on Rosario Island.

CARTAGENA: BACKGROUND
After defeating the Calamari, a tribe of indigenous Caribe Indians, Pedro de Heredia with his 150 men officially established Cartagena in 1533. Beginning with ten huts and a small church, it is one of the oldest Spanish colonial towns. Because the shape of the bay reminded him of his homeport in Spain, Cartagena, Pedro de Heredia called the new city Cartagena de Indias. In 1552, after a fire spread through the settlement destroying the wooden buildings, the city was rebuilt out of stone, brick, coral and baked tiles. Located on the Spanish Main, Cartagena became Spain’s most important port, the transshipment point for all the treasures dug out of the soil and plundered from the Indian tribes. Before being loaded onto Spanish galleons, its warehouses bulged with gold, silver, emeralds, pearls, sugar, tobacco and spices from the Far East that had been transshipped from the west coast of Mexico. However, this accumulation of fabulous wealth did not go unnoticed and for the next 200 years, Cartagena continually had to defend itself from attacks by Dutch, French and British privateers, operating under instructions from their government and from pirates, free lancers plundering for their own account.

After an attack by the French just thirty years after the establishment of the city, it became obvious the city needed to be fortified but work did not begin in earnest until after Sir Francis Drake’s attack in 1586. Operating under the blessings of Queen Elizabeth, Drake destroyed 25 % of the city including the recently completed cathedral. After a promised payment equivalent today to two hundred million dollars, he allowed the remainder of the city to go unharmed. Cartagena was vulnerable to attack from both land and sea and construction of fortifications would continue until completed in 1756. By that time, Cartagena was surrounded by seven miles of thick highly defended walls and considered the strongest fortified city in Spanish colonial America. Even the churches were built like fortifications.

Cartagena and Veracruz, Mexico, were the only two colonial cities allowed to engage in Spain’s lucrative slave trade and slaves, brought from Africa, built the fortifications, cleared the land and did the farming. The slave trade and its prosperous port made Cartagena one of the wealthiest towns in Spanish America and also one of the most beautiful. In 1984, UNESCO declared it a World Heritage Site. Facing the Caribbean Sea, with its vibrant mix of ethnically diverse people, today totaling over one million, Cartagena has long been a cruise boat destination and a tourist mecca, receiving the country’s largest number of tourists.

WE ARRIVE
The conquistadors arrived on horseback, those fantastical monsters that scared the local population, and Donald and I arrived almost five hundred years later on Avianca flight 9546. We landed in Rafael Nunez International Airport, named after a hometown boy who, trained as a lawyer, became famous in the mid nineteenth century as the only president elected to serve for four terms. He helped craft Colombia’s constitution and in his off hours composed poetry as well as the national anthem.

We checked into the Casa Pestagua Hotel, conveniently located within the city walls in the sector called Calamari or El Centro. During colonial times, this area was the city’s economic, political and religious center. Here the aristocrats and wealthy built their mansions, the government set up administrative buildings and the church built the cathedral and the other churches. The architectural styles represented that which they knew from home, late Renaissance, Baroque and Moorish, developed by the Moslems who, after controlling Spain for over 700 years, had been thrown out in 1492. Similar to other Spanish cities, the layout of Cartagena included squares and plazas.

Our hotel was built from local material, limestone, coral and wood. It reflected the influence of Moorish architecture with its round arched colonnades and central courtyard filled with an assortment of potted plants, fountains and water channels framed by tall palm trees. It was owned in the 17th by el Conde Pestagua, a wealthy aristocratic count who was described as an “administrator of commerce”. His wife was considered a patron to the Catholic churches. The rooms are large with high ceilings and thick stucco walls. The owners created a space of harmony and tranquility and similar to the other mansions, they hid their property behind high walls and a formidable thick wooden door. This place, once called “the most beautiful house in Cartagena”, was eventually abandoned by its owners and similar to many other colonial and republican mansions, it fell into disrepair. Casa Pestauga was rescued by Pedro Gomez, a famous builder, who hired the well known architect Alvaro Barrera and the building was restored to its former glory and opened in 2007 as a boutique hotel with eleven rooms. Today, the frescoes have been returned to the walls and ceilings and the rooms are decorated with 19th antiques with bathrooms, institutional in size, dripping in marble.

To be continued

JUAN MARTIN REDEEMS HIMSELF
The mysterious man with the shovel was Juan Martin who, along with his wife, owned the tour company that had planned our excursions in the coffee region. According to Johnny, he did not speak English, maybe explaining why he never introduced himself to us.

The third event in our trifecta was a “horseback journey through El Valle del Risaralda” with a promised surprise at the end. As per the program, we would drive to a hacienda fifteen minutes away from the hotel where we would find horses and the trail that led through the valley.

The hacienda turned out to be a 7,500 acre spread complete with a horse breeding farm. We pulled up to the stables and directly in front of us, framed by the dust and the stable hands, was a young horsewoman directly out of a Goya painting sitting astride a black horse as shinned and polished as she was. Getting out of the car, the only attention we received from her was a disdainful smirk and with the flick of her wrist, she and the horse were off. Apparently, she belonged to the horsey set and Donald and I dressed in jeans, tee shirts, wearing ball caps did not meet her aesthetic.

We were introduced to Pedro, the man in charge of our ride. Johnny had told us about him. His grandfather was an Indian and had grown up in the mountains. He was being trained by the village elder to become a brujo, a kind of spiritual magician who can cure animals as well as people and when necessary, can call up the spirits of the dead. They taught him to smoke a puro, a kind of cigar whose fragrance can ward off evil spirits or materialize the good ones. When called to action, a brujo first drinks ayahuasca, a concoction that induces a trance, and then he is ready to foretell the future or make decisions for anything that needed to be decided. However, the Catholic nuns kidnapped his grandfather and placed him in a mission school before his training was completed. As a result, he only learned how to contact the spirits from the beyond but when they showed up, unfortunately, he did not know how to command them to do anything further. After that, the spirits would just hang around until they got bored and then go back to the beyond. In 1953 during the time of La Violencia, that insane period of Colombian history between 1948-1957 when Liberals and Conservatives tore themselves apart leaving 350,000 people dead, his grandfather was kidnapped again. This time he was forcefully conscripted into the army and was never seen again.

Pedro’s background, just like the country, is a jumble of ethnicity, a mixture of those who were already there and those who showed up later. His grandfather, an indigenous Indian, married a black woman, whose ancestors arrived as slaves from Africa. Their son married a woman who, even though illegitimate, claimed to be 100% Spanish. She maintained her lineage, dubious at best, stretched back to the Conquistadors. It was only when she exhibited a passion for gold jewelry that they believed her. When you do the math, their son Pedro is ¼ Indian, ¼ Black, and ½ Spanish.

Regardless of the blood coursing through his veins, Pedro is totally campesinos. Just as Juan Valdez loved his mule, Pedro loves his horses. He feels awkward walking and would stable his horse in his house except the extra bedroom, that had once belonged to his daughter, is presently occupied by his wife’s pet pig. When we arrived, Pedro, whose face is creased with the road map of his life, was sitting on a small stool next to a fence and his favorite horse, Arepa, named after his favorite food, was by his side. He was smoking a cigar, the soggy tip clenched between his teeth, and playing a small accordion, along with beer, a cultural gift from the Germans. Smoke was whirling around his head leaving me to wonder if that was the magic smoke known to his grandfather. Similar to the other campesinos, hanging from his belt was a machete sheathed in a leather tasseled scabbard. Since he traveled by horse, he required a shorter machete and his was made out of chrome, making it easier to sharpen.

As per the program, the ride through the valley was scheduled for four hours but we decreased it to three in deference to our nether parts still remembering our horseback ride from the day before. The stable boys brought out our horses. I asked for and received one not too wide. We were in the hands of professionals and like an airplane pilot, they walked around the horses, inspected all the parts and readjusted the stirrups to perfection. Pedro, wearing the traditional woven white hat with the black band, led the way and Johnny guarded the rear. Leaving Carlos Alberto in his car with another World Cup Soccer Game, our small procession set off down the main road, packed dirt sustained by a layer of gravel.

The estate, located to the east of the Western Cordillera, was acquired by the present owner’s grandfather in the early 1950′s. While Pedro’s grandfather was up in the hills conjuring up spirits, this grandfather was down in the valley buying up property at what today must seem like a ridiculously cheap price. A small portion of the land closest to the main highway has been sold off to developers who are creating a small community of upscale houses, the perfect country retreat complete with swimming pool and satellite dishes. The land is rich volcanic soil with acreage devoted to cultivating soy beans and corn, part of which goes to feed the extensive herd of cattle. Ostensibly, the present owner, a doctor, has an eye toward the future, testified by the grove of young teak trees and the newly cultivated vineyard. The rest of the property is rich grassland through which mountain streams meander. Since our recent intimate experience with Colombian grass lands, it was interesting to learn they import grass seeds from Australia and Kenya and these pasture lands had been sowed in seeds from the United States.

Due to the high altitude, the morning felt like late spring and the clear air encouraged the brilliant blue sky. We came to a stop on top of a knoll and the entire estate surrounded us farther than the eye could see. From the moment we arrived in Colombia, from the first look down as we were approaching the runway in Bogota, we had been spell bound by the beauty of the country. Since I began writing about this trip, I have hunted through the dictionary and crawled through a thesaurus searching for the various words to describe the color green, then the quality of green such as lush, luxuriant, verdant, abundant, etc. etc. As if that was not enough, I searched through the variety of geographical terms in order to describe the contours of the countryside, such as mountains, valleys, gorges, ravines, creases and crevices, etc. etc. Because I wanted the reader to see it with us, I resorted to a variety of verbs that described the motion of the green landscape as it rolled out, stretched up, covered over, again etc. etc. I wanted my writing to have a palpable quality; I wanted company as we were dying of the heat and the humidity and invigorated by the fresh springtime air. Guess what, I cannot do it anymore; I have run out of words. ALL THAT IS LEFT TO SAY: SITTING ON THE BACK OF OUR HORSES, WE WERE LOOKING AT A MAGNIFICENT VALLEY. I will leave it at that and go on to another topic, the kind of horses we were riding.

OUR PASO FINO HORSES
Even though we have ridden horses in a variety of countries, Donald and I do not know much about horses, which was the main reason we refused to ride through the jungle in Tayrona without a guide, but that comes later. Speaking for myself, they all look alike and I am lucky if I remember which is the proper side from which to mount up. With Pedro setting the pace, the horses walked across the pasture but when we arrived at the main road, the horses kicked into a higher gear and began trotting or doing a running walk. Donald and I immediately noticed, unlike other horses when they trot, we were not being bounced around. We do understand the rudiments of posting, but even that was not necessary. The horses had a smooth gait and we had that sensation of being “one with the horse”. It was magic realism until we were told these were Paso Fino horses.

The Spanish reintroduced the horse into the Western Hemisphere as those that once existed had become extinct thousands of years before they arrived. Part of the reason why so few Conquistadors were able to conquer so many Indians was that the latter were terrified of the horse since they had never seen one before. In 1493, on his second voyage to Santo Domingo, Columbus dropped off twenty-five horses and these horses along with those brought in by the Conquistadors formed the lineage of the Paso Fino. This horse, which translates into “fine step” was bred from a variety of Spanish horses and is famed for its natural “even four beat gait” which can be called “the amble”. This means the horse, without any special training, gives a smooth ride. It is in his DNA and the Paso Fino comes in all sizes, shapes and colors. This horse is known for its “brio” which means the horse has “natural drive and willingness” along with pride and a pleasant disposition. Bred for endurance, it was favored as a trail horse. We can attest to this as our horses responded to the slightest touch of the reigns and with just a slight nudge in the ribs, they took off into a lope. Because of this smooth ride, we were able to hang onto the horse with just our knees, holding the reigns in our hands, not having to cling to the saddle horn. What can I say, just another special Colombian experience.

SURPRISE
When we reached that knoll with the entire valley spreading out around us, Johnny took out the surprise that had been hidden in his backpack. Out came a beautiful wicker lunch box, wrapped up in red ribbons, which included a red checked tablecloth, matching napkins, dishes, stemware, a bottle of wine and a beautifully prepared platter of cold cuts, cheese and crackers and grapes. We proceeded to have a party in the shade of the leafy acacia trees. Johnny turned down the offer of a glass of wine, maybe thinking he was on duty, while Pedro had no trouble sharing with us. While we were enjoying the special moment, we learned from Pedro that both his children were in college, the daughter to be a teacher and the son to be a pharmacist. Reflecting on the state of Colombia today, now the children of a campesino (a country person) and the great grandchildren of an Indian shaman have the possibilities of a profession and a stake in the future of their country. On the return trip, realizing we could stay in the saddle, we urged our horses on. I am not sure if we ever proceeded beyond the speed of a lope but we had an exhilarating ride, returning faster than we set out. Once again, Colombia did not fail to enthrall us.

This was our last day in Pereira and the next day Johnny and Carlos Alberto drove us to the airport. Our destination was Cartagena, the Spanish colonial treasure, located on the Caribbean Sea. We were leaving the campesino culture of the coffee region and looking forward to experiencing the Caribbean culture, knowing the people as well as the food, music and atmosphere would be different. Waiting for our next flight, we were innocent of any knowledge of what it would feel like to trade in the cool mountain air for what lay awaiting to the north.

TO BE CONTINUED: NEXT STOP CARTAGENA

SALENTO AN INTRODUCTION
With Carlos Alberto behind the wheel urging his KIA onward, negotiating the mountainous roads as if he was Juan Pablo Montoya, the famous Colombian Formula One driver, we reached Salento in considerably less than the usual one hour driving time from the Valle del Cocora.

Salento was established in 1850, making it one of the oldest towns in the coffee zone. Simon Bolivar, the famous Liberator, passed through this area with his men and assessing the roads to be deplorable, he ordered them to be rebuilt. As nothing happens fast around here, it took twelve years before a prison work gang showed up to improve the road system and by that time Bolivar was dead, buried and reviled. If their sentences were remitted due to good work, under the table payments to the boss man, or whatever, the prisoners were given a piece of land to farm and stayed in the area. The others, who were not so lucky, found themselves installed in a new prison made just for them nearby. As per their custom, the prisoners were soon joined by their families. People attract more people and when a census was taken in 1864, they managed to tally up 581 souls. Apparently, this was enough and the community was officially considered a municipality. This modest beginning did not encourage too many growth spurts as the population today comes in slightly over 4,000. Similar to Australia, expressing pride in one’s founding ancestors must mean acknowledging their dubious vitae. The town was named after Salento, located on the “heel” of the boot of Italy and famous for being colonized by mainland Greeks in the 8th B.C.

AFTERNOON IN SALENTO
Carlos Alberto drove directly to the plaza, requiring several turns around the block until he could find a parking space. As he zipped into a recently vacated narrow slot, we were immediately welcomed by a “meter maid”, apparently the first sign that it is Salento and not Filandia that is receiving the bulk of the tourists. He parked between two brightly polished Willys Jeep presided over by their owners. Their machetes, sheathed in woven leather cases, dangled from their belts and their sculpted bodies, with each muscle the product of their life of labor, hidden beneath their loose white shirts.

It was late afternoon and the plaza was still packed with people, tourist and locals both enjoying the sunny afternoon. To Donald and me it felt like early spring. In a manner similar to Filandia, the buildings have been whitewashed and all the wooden trim has been covered in bright festive colors. This is when we learned that the local governments have been making paint available to the people free of charge. Striped tents, filled with long tables, lined one side of the plaza and woman were selling home cooked food and plenty of beer. With few exceptions, the buildings surrounding the plaza were historic, especially since there had been no reason to tear down the old to replace it with the new. The bank building was the most ornate and the old hotel appeared to have been turned into a charming bed and breakfast.

Donald and I stepped into the Catholic church holding up one end of the plaza. While the Conquistadors arrived in the pursuit of gold, the Catholic Church turned up to save souls and today 90% of the country is Catholic. This church was similar to the majority of the small churches we visited. There was a single aisle down the middle with side chapels architecturally forming the pattern of the cross. The parish was prosperous and the high ceiling was constructed out of wood and shaped like the keel of a ship. Light flooded in through the tall windows giving the place a spacious feeling. The large crucifix above the main altar held a pale Jesus while the Jesus on the side altars had a dark complexion. When making a comparison, Christ always seemed to have had an easier time of it in the Italian churches than in South America. Here he truly suffers as blood pours out from the crown of thorns and the lashings on his body.

Johnny escorted us down side streets where many storefronts had been turned into gift shops, each with a similar selection of trinkets. More so than Filandia, the town has given itself over to the tourist trade. Today, they are not thinking about reeling in yanquis dollars as much as the Colombian peso. We followed Johnny into a gift shop owned by his friend to enjoy a glass of homemade coffee wine that he makes in the back of his store. He welcomed Johnny and greeted us with “buenos tardes”. He did not need to speak English for us to realize he was a most charming man, not quite elderly, but on the verge. I wanted to know what had been in this store before it became a gift shop. He told Johnny it had been part of their home and now they live in the back part where he made a small addition. His children were working in Bogota, and since it was just he and his wife, he opened his store to have something to do. He winked at Johnny and then gave us a knowing smile, as if we too were partners in his secret, and reaching behind the counter, first tilting his head as if listening for the imaginary drum roll, he pulled out a red ceramic jug. It was one of the traditional kind we had seen earlier that morning in Filandia. With a flourish worthy of a sommelier pouring a grand cru, he filled three juice glasses with a dark cherry red substance. Johnny took his aguardiente style, in one gulp, while Donald and I sipped slowly, trying to figure out the taste. It was a perfect blend of full bodied coffee and a sweet red wine tasting of cherries, a tasty liqueur for after dinner drinking. Unfortunately, it was only available in a red ceramic jug, making it too unwieldy to take home. Complimenting his wine, we told him it was fantastic and he agreed saying it was made by the gods with help from his grandmother’s recipe. I wanted to purchase a selection of the mini ceramic Willy Jeeps loaded down with brightly painted local produce and the little mules carrying sacks of coffee beans. When I put the money on the counter, he pushed it back and from Johnny’s translation, we understood these were his gifts to us as a way to remember him and his town. Leaving his shop, we felt we had made a friend and had enjoyed another traveler’s moment.

Back on the street, an old timer’s band was performing on the sidewalk featuring a shorter version of Juan Valdez singing and doing something that resembled an “old soft shoe”. His cronies were backing him up with the refrain, two guitars, a hand drum and a guacharaca, which looked like a stick being stroked with a three prong fork. The large tin cup they had placed on the grown was being filled up by groups of Colombian tourists.

Parts of the original town were still in business catering to local needs. The barber shop was open for business with its original fixtures now museum quality. An old bar was crowded with men leaning on its long counter made from a continuous plank of wood whose edges were now worn down with age. We looked through the dusty window of an old junk shop. Scattered about in a jumble was the detritus of other people’s lives but we knew the owner would soon sort it all out, make artful displays, raise the price and call his merchandise antiques. We stepped into the old billiard parlor, creaking our way across the wooden floor. We were of no interest to the local men lining the walls, watching and commenting on the games. Anticipating customers, several wooden tables and mismatched chairs had been placed in the center of the room and there was an old wooden bar supporting a huge antique silver coffee pot. When Johnny ignored my suggestion that we stop there for a tinto, I figured he had something else in mind.

A frame house fronted the sidewalk and as we passed, I interpreted the open wooden shutters as an invitation to look inside. I was confronted by a small bedroom that opened onto a communal area beyond my sight. The room was decorated with old fashioned furniture, dull with age, as if the sheen had been lost in the miasma of time. Two single beds occupied a side wall, divided by a night stand on which an Art Nouveau lamp shared space with a Meissen Madonna figurine. Attached to the wall above each bed was a silver crucifix. On the opposite wall, there was a wardrobe flanked by a well used rocking chair. A bookcase occupied part of the third wall filled with Spanish titles topped off with an old fashioned pitcher and bowl. A small pedestal table holding black and white photos in silver frames filled the empty space in the middle of the room. Everything had a place, leaving it hard to determine if the room was still being used or if it was arranged to be a historical display. It would have been interesting to wonder about the children who must have lived in this room and who comforted whom in the rocking chair but it was the photos that attracted my full attention. I carefully looked at each one, seeing unique individuals who occupied a period of time. They seemed to return my gaze. With their eyes following me, I felt they wanted me to linger, to hear the stories of their lives, enabling them to live again. However, Donald and Johnny were up ahead and I, along with the others, was only passing by.

We crossed the plaza and started down the hill when Johnny told us we were going to the Jesus and Martin coffee shop. We had seen another shop by this name earlier in the Valle del Cocora. Located in the front rooms of an old building, their eclectic ensemble of old furniture and couches, lamps with tasseled shades and scattered oriental rugs, succeeded in creating a bohemian atmosphere. It had the requisite notice board, simple advertisements, a scattering of magazines and a collection of young travelers, making it a perfect back packers “hang out”. Their coffee making paraphernalia was straight out of Italy. When I stepped up to the counter to order, I was surprised when the young woman addressed me in English. I had no trouble ordering three cappuccinos and upon her suggestion, with a touch of rum. We were beginning to realize good coffee is possible but you have to know where to look. Once again, these people select the best coffee beans and roast them to their own specifications, producing a world class cup of coffee. The search for the bathroom, led me to the back of the shop and when I saw the kitchen, I realized I was in someone’s home. Not missing an opportunity for a peak, especially since the doors were open, I found myself looking into bedrooms, not much different from the one I had seen earlier. Peering behind one door, I discovered an old woman sitting in a chair staring at a wall, sharing a striking resemblance with Whistler’s mother.

Back in the coffee shop, Donald was engaged in a conversation with a local man who appeared to be in his early ’50′s. He too had a woven leather case hanging from his belt but this time, instead of a machete, it held a cell phone. He told Donald that even though English was taught in his school at the time he did not pay attention but now he is taking English lessons because he plans to open a travel agency catering to American tourists. We wished him well on his business plan, told him we enjoyed his town and were happy to be there before his tourist buses arrived. Walking back to the plaza, a lost in South American kid with his dread locks pinned up on top of his head was strumming his guitar and singing softly to his dog. Maybe all was as it should be.

By this time it was late afternoon and the rays of the setting sun were slanting across the plaza. As we slid into the back seat of Carlos Alberto’s car, we knew we had experienced one of those special days, the kind you embed into your travel memory to be called up whenever needed.

To reach our next destination, the Valle del Cocora, we headed back into the mountains. When the road was not following the contours of the mountains, it was going up, over and down, crossing from one valley to the next. Lush tropical vegetation grew in profusion, enveloping us in a symphony of green. Lacy tree ferns lined the road while poinsettias and what we consider houseplants were growing tall out of deep ravines. Sparkling green moss covered every available surface while lichens were attached to unwitting trees. Johnny, our guide, pointed out the yarumo tree, growing on the side of the mountain, made distinctive by its broad silver leaves. We commented on the large groves of leafy bamboo telling him after all our years in Asia we had never seen bamboo grow so large. He explained this was the guarda, a type of bamboo indigenous to this area. Thriving on the climate in the zona cafeteria , it is able to grow up to eleven centimeters per day reaching maturity in six months. Called the “steel vegetable”, it is promoted as a renewable resource, strong enough to be used in construction and pliable for furniture manufacturing.

The Valle del Cocora, named by the indigenous Quimbayas, translates into “water star”, supposedly in honor of the daughter of an Indian chief who ruled five hundred years ago. Regardless, the name is appropriate considering the area’s high rainfall. The valley is part of the foothills of the Central Andean Range (Cordilleras) and located near the Parque Nacional Los Nevados ( National Park of Snow Mountain) with its snow capped peaks reaching fifteen thousand feet.

We came to this valley to see the wax palm trees, the palma de cera, named by Alexander Von Humboldt, the German naturalist/explorer otherwise known for the current that bears his name. In 1801, he chose this name based upon the thin layer of protecting wax that covers its gray black trunk. Even though there are over three thousand species of palm trees, this one is special. It is indigenous to this valley, referred to as the “cradle of the wax palm” and thrives in high altitudes exceeding 4,500 feet above sea level. It grows to 180 to 200 feet tall making it the tallest palm tree in the world growing at the highest altitudes. It will grow under 4,500 feet but not as tall. On Palm Sunday, the faithful parade with palm leaves in order to celebrate Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem. In Colombia, the fronds of the wax palm were so popular that the tree was almost loved into extinction. In 1985, the government declared the wax palm the national tree and protected it by law. Today, the tree is treasured as a national symbol and the Valle del Cocora is a nature sanctuary and a park popular with Colombia tourists.

Entering the park, we were once again stopped by the military. In the past, FARC, the left wing guerrilla movement, had invaded the park and blew up a hotel in 2006. Right wing militias had also staked out a presence. Today, that is considered the past and once again, Colobians are coming here to enjoy the beauty of their own country. Carlos Alberto remained in the car finishing the soccer match and Johnny, Donald and I walked to the stable. We would ride horses through the valley, meet the travel agent to plant a palm tree, and then enjoy a special lunch of freshly caught brook trout, a specialty of the area.

THE VALLE DEL COCORA
The stable hands seemed to know Johnny and we were soon saddled up and heading out for the trail. Ahead, loomed a wooden bridge, one of those constructed from guarda trees, spanning a stream tumbling down from the nearby mountain. Without any input from us, the horses nixed the bridge, preferring to charge through the water, seeking out the sandy eddies, avoiding the stones. They soon found the path, and when they turned left, an astounding narrow valley spread out before us, a Colombian Shangri La. Plush grassland carpeted the valley walls, covering all the ravines and creases of the valley’s terrain with a brilliant green, stopping only when over taken by thick forested areas. These palms, nature’s skyscrapers, captivated our attention. They were scattered everywhere, securing the valley floor, locked into the sides of the hills, and projecting skyward from the tops of the ridge lines. Each one a graceful silhouette against a brilliant blue sky. Looking up at their soaring height, we marveled at their tapering elegance and felt diminished in their presence. Our horses moved slowly prolonging the moments, allowing us to observe the details and absorb the peace and tranquility, interrupted only by the sound track of water rushing through the nearby stream.

We followed the trail through the valley until it ended at the beginning of the park. Ahead lay a dense jungle marked with hiking trails. As we turned to go back, the weather deployed another agenda. The wind began to pick up and as if called to a meeting, dark clouds began to gather where the mountains reached their peaks and then taking available seats, settled down on the sides of the slopes. What began as a fine curtain of rain turned thick and we were soon pelted with heavy raindrops. Mist tumbled down from the heights, wrapping everything it touched in a gray shroud. However, the wax palms, oases of calm in the maelstrom, refused to be covered up and as the mist fell toward the ground, they projected through it like giant mysterious lollipops floating in the ether. As quickly as the rain began it stopped. A tear in the clouds revealed the blue sky and shafts of light poured through, highlighting the wax palms, now seen as beacons in the midst.

THE OTHER SIDE OF PARADISE OR PARADISE IN THE RAW
While we were traveling on horseback, we were willingly mesmerized by the charm of nature’s power and beauty. However, our reverie was soon broken when Johnny told us to dismount and follow him. Ahead of us was a man we did not know, carrying a large plastic bag and shovel. Following Johnny, who was following the man, we were guided over the thick grassland now completely soughed in water. Earlier, we had marveled at the beauty of the grass. Now we were stepping in it only to find the elevated thick clumps were surrounded by bare earth, properly arranged to assure a twisted ankle or worse. We had admired the valley’s otherworldly charm but its etherealness faded with every hill we climbed. Those cows, magnificent in the distance, close up became insouciant beasts with green saliva dripping from their mouths, too fat for their own good whose manure piles made the walk even more treacherous. We felt like we were on a forced march with the addition of drizzling rain as another element of inconvenience. No mas, no mas we wanted to shout and thirty minutes later we caught up with the man in a small grove of wax palm trees.

Apparently, we were attending our own wax palm tree planting ceremony that began without us. By the time we arrived, the man had already dug a hole in the side of a steep hill and dropped in the contents of the plastic bag, a seedling. Without bothering to introduce himself, he incanted some kind of prayer, filled up the hole with loose dirt and as he turned, slung the shovel over his shoulder and left.

It was up to Johnny to explain just what had happened as I struggled to stand upright on the side of the hill. Apparently, a wax palm ritual had just been performed harkening back to the days of the Quimbayas who had a great respect for the tree. In modern parlance, we were now eco tourists, only the second ones to have had a wax palm planted in their honor. Knowing the need to protect them and that they grew slowly, I asked Johnny to point out where they planted the first tree. He looked around for the moment, looked down at my shoe and said under your foot. I guess this was not the green footprint they had in mind.

Lunch was served in an outdoor setting and while a small band played salsa and cumbia music, Donald and I feasted on perfectly fried brook trout, trucha, that had been swimming in the trout pool that morning. It was accompanied by the patacones, fried plantains and a sweet tomato relish that doubled as a dipping sauce. Crispy French fried potatoes were also included. In Asia we are always told the best potatoes come from the United States but now I think there are excellent potatoes in Colombia. After all the potato was first discovered in Peru, not too far away. No matter where, we always try to sample the local beer. We drank Poker beer for the first time and decided we liked it better than the Club Colombian we had been drinking. Johnny ordered chocolate santa fereno. This Colombian specialty, usually enjoyed at night, is a cup of hot chocolate drunk filled with white cheese, the same that we enjoyed at Ettica’s house in Bogota. The beer was served frosty and the chocolate hot enough to melt the cheese. It was 3:30 and we were happy and very full and ready for the next stop, the small town of Salento an hour drive through more mountains.