It occurs to me that I never finished my entry the other day about our trip to Sanctuaria but, instead, caught up on the preceding day’s events. So, I shall fill in some blanks here....
Down here the work days vary for us but we work 6 days on and 1 day off, Sundays being our day off. Yesterday was a treat because it was Martha’s father, Joaquin’s, 70-somethingth birthday and so we all went to her parent’s farm in Sanctuario which is located a bit northeast of Pereira, about an hour- hour and a half away. Tony went ahead on the bus with Martha and the kids while Jen, Evie, and I went along with Carlos who explained a lot of the landscape, architecture, history, and so forth on the way. The roads there are extremely tight, winding, and dangerous at times, but it makes for an exciting ride. Sanctuario and Pereira are on sort of adjacent ranges of mountains and so you cross over a bit of savannah on the way as well. Many of the roads past the Cauca Valley that are up in the mountains where Sanctuario is are subject to landslides and there were a few points where the road narrowed due to part of it having crumbled off the outward side and down in to the valley. The good thing about the soil over in this region, however, is that it is very rocky and densely filled with sheetrock type material that helps keep things together a bit. Plants have to put their roots down through these rocks in order to gain the nutrients they need, but despite this, many coffee, sugar cane, banana, and plantain plants grow nicely in this area.
The town of Sanctuario is quite small with very steep hills and streets at times, but is very quaint as well. Martha’s parents live down the mountain from the main part of town on a farm where they grow coffee, bananas, and plantains, among other things. I think that they may only sell the coffee and that any other plants they have are just for personal use, but alas, my memory hardly serves me well during the same day, let alone a day later so I cannot say for sure.
Her family was very welcoming and nice; they have a quaint house with a big wrap around porch and many many gorgeous flowers and plants that only add to the lovely scenery. Martha’s father, Joaquin, gave us a short tour of the land and facilities. We saw many coffee plants on their way to ripening (not just yet) but Tony showed us a neat trick of opening an almost ripe pod and sucking on the bean and its coating which has this sweet, nutty flavor that is quite good. He was also kind enough to show us where they wash and dry all of the beans and how to harvest yucca root....mmm yucca is so good!! Carlos explained to us that most of the coffee growers in the area export their beans while they are still green because roasting is expensive and beside a lot of places take pride now in roasting their beans in their own particular way once they get to wherever they’re going.
We didn’t stay for dinner or anything but had a nice little lunch and got to take in some awesome views, eat freshly picked bananas and play with some cute dogs so all in all it was a good trip. In Carlos and Martha’s car, only five passengers can be in it at a time, so I volunteered to walk back to town and take a bus back to Pereira with Carlos. Suffice it to say that the incline didn’t seem so bad in the car on the way down, albeit quite steep; we definitely got a workout on our walk back up at a pretty much constant 45 degree angle. Phew!
The bus ride back to Pereira was nice because the seats were a bit bigger and much better than being squashed three in a seat. Also Carlos was my personal tour guide explaining more about the landscape, Colombian lifestyle, and such which was really nice. He is such a warm person and loves to explain things and talk about Colombian architecture, agriculture, archaeology, and so on....all the a’s haha, but really he knows a lot about the area so he is the perfect person to know here.
The trip back was pretty quick (the minibus driver went much faster than Carlos, which made him a little uncomfortable and he mentioned it a couple times....reasonably so, though, because buses have gone off the roads of these mountains occasionally). Carlos and Martha gave us a ride to the La Catorce 14 or LA 14, a store not that far from our apartment actually. There we picked up some things to make pasta, rice, eggs, beans, various vegetables, a variety of hot sauces, of course, and some essential first aid type- field things to make life easier, but I of course forgot a few things because I kept forgetting to make a list.....damn brain. Anyway LA 14 is bizarre, things are not organized in aisles very well like bug spray was with the raid....anyway it’s like an all-purpose store with food, clothes, book supplies, and tons of more stuff.
Unfortunately, the jar of jalapenos broke as we were bringing the groceries home because I tripped going up the stairs....guess I should have listened better when my mom said to pick up my feet when I walk. Anyway, that pretty much wraps up Sunday. After getting back to the apartment, Jen and I watched another episode of Boardwalk Empire, of which we have the first season, and called it a night.
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