Category: Post-Trip

For the second half of our trip, we headed south from Cartagena (a town we’ll return to in a future post), stopping briefly in Medellin before immersing ourselves in the coffee region. This lush, mountainous area of Colombia would quickly win the award for our favorite spot. We easily could have spent our entire trip in the area and have already decided that it’s a must on any future Colombia itineraries.

While in the area, we decided that, despite the fact that we’re not coffee drinkers ourselves, we had to visit a farm to see where the world’s best cup of joe comes from. On a recommendation from Enrique, the extremely helpful owner (?) of Hostal Ciudad de Segorbe, the place we are staying, we set off on an hour’s walk to the family farm of Don Elias. At four hectares, it’s a small farm, typical of the region, with the coffee, as well as other produce grown alongside the coffee–pineapples, oranges, lemons, sugar cane–sold via a co-op. Upon arriving, we’re greeted by the grizzled but friendly Don Elias himself, our own Juan Valdez.

He straps a basket around his waist, then in his reliable galoshes, leads us around the farm, his steps sure even on the steep incline.

He shows us the beans, which are red or yellow when ripe, depending on the variety of plant. He plucks and pulls, filling the bottom of the basket. The growing season is from May to November and during that period, the workers on the farm (his family plus a few hired hands) go out every two weeks, with each man gathering about 30 kilos per harvest.

Once we’ve picked enough beans, we return to the farmhouse, where Don Elias demonstrates the machine that shells the coffee, shows us how the beans are dried, and then, over a primitive stove, roasts up a pan full of beans. The coffee is sold to the co-op after it has been shelled and dried, at which point it weighs about half of what it did when it was picked.

Until the coffee was put on the stove, it had none of the distinctive smell we associate with coffee. As soon as it begin to heat up, however, the air filled with the aroma. Once properly roasted, the beans were transferred to another machine, where they were ground.

After the coffee was ground, the only task remaining was to brew it. Then it was time to enjoy a cup, which with a few heaping spoonfuls of sugar, Jeff and I were able to do. We’re definitely not converts, but we did buy a bag of the local coffee, which sits and waits for any coffee drinkers lucky enough to visit.

Doesn’t it look like these two guys are playing telephone, the science trick/game where you attach two tin cans via a string and your voice carries down the string and to the person on the other can? They’re not. They’re actually talking on cell phones, albeit not theirs, thus the strings (which attach the phones to the desk and prevent theft). In Colombia it seems that personal cell phone ownership is not as high as in many countries we’ve visited. That doesn’t mean that they’re not ubiquitous, however. On every street corner, you’ll find a man or woman offering the use of one of their many cell phones for a set fee. Here, as revealed by the pink sign behind the woman at the desk, you can make a call for 100 pesos a minute (the equivalent of $0.05), as these men are doing. It’s the newest reincarnation of the pay phone.

Santa Marta is a stopover town. It’s a convenient place to organize a trek to the Lost City, an easy place to crash before heading into Tayrona National Park. It’s home to a port large enough to accommodate a cruise ship full of passengers that immediately hop a taxi to the nearby village of Taganga. Though a large city, Santa Marta doesn’t have much that would fall under the category of attractions. It’s mainly just a busy local city.

I guess it might not make that much sense then when I tell you that we stayed three nights.

After the past year of travel and all the trips that came before it, I no longer need museums, guide book starred attractions, or the other activities that commonly clog itineraries. I’m not opposed to them, and I do sometimes indulge in them, but more often than not, I’m just as happy to hang out, to grab lunch at the local “plate of the day” place, to sit on a bench and watch the world go by. What fascinates me most is not the thing that puts a place on the map but the people that call that place home. Life, plain and simple, is what gets me.

And so in Santa Marta, we walk the busy Carrera 5, crowded with the booths of vendors selling bootleg DVDs, flip-flops, bras and underwear, hangers, toys, and anything and everything else in-between. We sink our toes the strip of sand, not as nice as the beaches of the surrounding towns, and laugh at the girls playing supermodel for their friends’ cameras and the boys turning tires into toys.

For lunch, we ask bus attendants and gas station service men for suggestions, following their directions until we end up at a tiny place serving huge meals of soup, meat, yucca, and salad.

As twilight falls, we meander along the beachfront promenade, past overly muscled sculptures of indigenous heros, watching men slam domino pieces down on a board, clowns juggle machetes and balancing bikes on their chins, and vendors preparing pizzas and carne asade on portable grills. The sounds of accordian and steel drum merge into a beat that pulls couples from their chairs to dance close together, oblivious to the commotion around them.

And at the end of every night, we end up on the street full of food vendors, parked in a molded plastic chair, sipping passion fruit juice, nibbling on the many varieties of “Fritos”–empanadas, arepas, dedos de queso–, and chatting with whoever ends up sitting next to us.

If you were to put it into a guidebook, it wouldn’t sound like much. Which is why we chose to travel without a guidebook. Sometimes the best things just can’t be classified or contained.

It’s after eight on Friday night in Cartagena, Colombia’s most touristed town, both by domestic and foreign travelers. The sidewalks should be packed. The beat of salsa music should be resonating from behind the heavy wood doors of the clubs in the centro. Bar clientele should be spilling out into the streets. But instead there is silence.
Elections are this weekend.

Without ever intending to, Jeff and I seem to end up timing our travels with elections more frequently than you’d think possible. We landed in Nicaragua at election time. We were in South Africa as Zuma took the presidency. We were woken up at 4 a.m. by Likoma Islanders celebrating the election of their candidate. And now we’re here in Colombia as they elect a new senate (or whatever they call it here).

I’m guessing there are a lot of people who think that visiting a country during elections is not the smartest travel strategy. Elections have been known to bring out the ugly. But all we’ve ever witnessed is election enthusiasm that makes American elections look like the most boring event in the world. (Given, we’d probably look more closely into election schedules before we decided to travel somewhere like say Pakistan, not that its on the itinerary.) From everyone we’ve talked to here in Colombia, it seems this weekend’s elections are going to be entirely uneventful.

Which leads me back to Cartagena, and its dull state on a weekend evening. It’s not that everyone is so absorbed in the elections that they’ve all opted to forego partying in order to stay at home and discuss politics; it’s that they literally can’t go to the bar, can’t get their groove on at the club, can’t slam down the rum and cokes on the chiva party bus. In Colombia, it’s illegal to sell alcohol during the three day election period. You can’t buy it the day before the election. You’ve got to dry out before you go to the election booth. You can’t buy it election day. You might accidentally put your X in the wrong spot. And you can’t buy it the day after election. You might be more likely to start a riot when your candidate loses.

Actually, I’m not sure the reasoning behind the law, but I imagine it’s something along those lines. Whether things would actually get crazy if people were allowed to buy alcohol, I can’t say. (I kind of doubt it, especially since there’s nothing to stop people from stocking up the day before the ban goes into effect and drinking at home all weekend long.) But I can say that without the alcohol, Cartagena is one quiet town. We’ll see if it changes on Monday when the ban lifts. Until then the city will have to make do with fruit juice and coffee.