14 to 22 November 2015
Ok, ok, sorry for the second German blog title in a row, but the two weeks with my dad were German time. He speaks some Spanish. Often I had to translate though and especially in group tours I advanced to the designated interpreter. It was hard for my dad not to talk freely to everyone around him, so I was glad to help out by listening to his take on current world affairs.
“Wir haben wieder alles richtig gemacht” means “once again we have done everything right”. It fills dad and me with great satisfaction when we can make that claim. And we did for the second week of our journey in Colombia.
Our time in Cartagena was up, we felt we had done everything there was to do. We thought long and hard where to go next: adventure hub San Gil, in the Andes north of Bogota, or archaeological important San Agustin in the South of the country. In the end, the prospect of watching stars in the observatory in the desert of Tatacoa on the way to San Agustin was the decisive factor for my dad as hobby astronomer. We arrived in Tatacoa in the late afternoon in time for the talk at 7pm. The sky was clear and we were able to see various globular clusters and galaxies through the four telescopes. It was the first time for me and I look forward to seeing more and compare it to my dad’s efforts.
We got up early the next morning to do three short hikes in the desert before the heat became unbearable. It was a bit like a mini Grand Canyon tour. Red rock formations, fossil wood, small canyons, low bushes that were green because of recent rain. A bizarre landscape whose beauty you can see in the pictures.
In all fairness, we could have done better on the journey from Tatacoa to San Agustin. We arrived at lunchtime in the terminal and were talked into taking a ‘direct’ minibus. We learned that ‘direct’ means stopping wherever there are people to get onto the bus until it nearly bursts: people standing up and children sitting in the small aisle. It also meant changing from a minibus to a kind of pickup truck for the last 60km, which got fairly cold at this point of the evening. The coach would have been much more comfortable. At least we learned our lesson and three days later returned to Bogota in a luxury overnight bus which individual screens, snacks, coffee bar, wifi and all the legroom you ever wanted.
The hostel in San Agustin was basic. Less is more? Hm, not sure. But the owner was very friendly and helped organising our activities for the next days: horse riding tour to four sites of pre-Colombian statues, a private guided tour through the archeological park, jeep tour to more historical sites and white water rafting.
I don’t particularly like horse riding. I think the horse usually notices that I a) have no experience and b) am not a huge horse fan. So the horse normally does what it wants with me, including galloping, stopping to eat and trying to throw me off. These horses though were very well trained and to my surprise I quite enjoyed the tour.
The archaeological park in the afternoon was fantastic. I copy paste the text from the UNESCO world heritage site here, so you know what the place is all about (http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/744).
“The largest group of religious monuments and megalithic sculptures in South America stands in a wild, spectacular landscape. Gods and mythical animals are skilfully represented in styles ranging from abstract to realist. These works of art display the creativity and imagination of a northern Andean culture that flourished from the 1st to the 8th century.”
Our guide Anna Maria explained all those monuments in detail. My favourite was a sculpture with a large smile and wide opened eyes: the potrayed person is in a elevated state of happiness thanks to the coca leaves in the clearly bulging cheek pouches.
The rich symbolism of the Fuente de Lavapatas carved in the stone bed of a stream, where shamans undertook water births, was also fascinating.
I was also fascinated by Anna Maria, who is intelligent, cheerful and life loving in spite of losing her husband one month after the birth of her third child. I asked her how he died and she said he was murdered. Normally I would never consider this a possible cause of death, but in Colombia I guess that was/is not uncommon. The peace is still very fragile. There is lots of police and military on the streets and road check points. But in the month I was there, I could feel the hope and eagerness to progress and live. I like that they are very aware of their immediate atrocious past and are dealing with it.
That evening, Anna Maria and her friend took dad and me dancing (not part of the guided tour). The club didn’t sell beer, so we ordered bottles of almost undrinkable aguardiente. I was lucky I didn’t get to drink much as I stayed on the dance floor for most of the night with the dance partners that Anna Maria organised for me. Dad was slightly less fortunate, although our hosts gave him a 7 out of 10 for his Merengue performance.
The next morning was difficult. Luckily the worst was avoided when we were put in a car separate from ‘Quasselstrippe’, a middle aged woman, who was a compulsive talker. We saw her at all six sites that day: two pre-Colombian archaeological, a sugar cane factory, two waterfalls and the Rio Magdalena at its narrowest part. Dad and I were quiet that day and I only reluctantly took on my role as interpreter.
On our last morning in San Agustin, we went onto a three hour white water rafting trip, a first both for dad and me. It was good fun. At the end, we did one of my favourite things in the world: we jumped from a cliff into the river. Only later did I find out that precisely at this spot they were looking for a body of a guy who had drowned further up river the night before. Scary thought I might have jumped into a dead body.
Dad and I also did well to skip Bogota and go straight to Villa Levya, four hours north of the capital for one night. It’s a pretty colonial town, where we mainly ate and drank well and stayed in a lovely boutique hotel. You can tell that this region is more prosperous than the south we had just come from, the farms looked bigger and well maintained, the houses were better build.
Apropo skip Bogota. I have left it out so far. Maybe because I didn’t particularly like it. The traffic is just a killer. On our first day we visited the city centre, the Candelaria. There are a few main attractions like the Botero museum. To everybody’s horror I had not previously heard of the most famous Colombian painter, Fernando Botero. Not a huge loss as I found out. He is famous for painting and sculpting out of proportion fat people, so much so that it became the code word for dad and me when we saw similar dimensions in reality. My dad wants to add a note at this point to stress that he did know Botero before thanks to his unbeatable general knowledge. His verdict is: good, takes time to get used to, stayed true to his very individual style, but never developed beyond it.
The other major museum is the Museo de Oro, which houses an unbelievable treasure of pre-Hispanic artefacts, jewellery and ornaments made of gold. The museums shop is also recommendable and we spent much effort to return there on our last day to get the necklace for my stepmum.
That day, our soft spoken driver Rodrigo also took us to the cathedral high above Bogoto on Mount Monserrate, where we got by funicular, the café of his former university, another short tour around the Candelaria and Ucaquen. The last is a hip area of Bogota with inviting bars, shops and restaurants, the only place I liked in that city.
And then it was our last night together in Bogota. We looked up the best restaurant on trip advisor and found Matiz. The seven course tasting menu with matching wines was indeed the best meal we have had in Colombia. Dad and I toasted to our successful backpacking trip: We had done everything right after our motto ‘less is more’.
Paps, I really appreciate that you came out to see me in Colombia for a whole two week holiday! I don’t think we have had that much time together since 1989. I truly enjoyed our time together, very special, unvergesslich. Hopefully, it will not be another quarter century for us to go on a long holiday again. Vielen Dank für alles! Much love.
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lisaimwunderland.com 
Reisen kann uns lehren,die eigenen Verhältnisse u.Verhaltensweisen besser einzuordnen ,zu überdenken,eventuell sogar zu ändern
Wir waren gestern in einer sehr interessanten Botero-Ausstellung in einem elsässigen Museum. Sie ist noch bis Mai zu sehen.Solltest du wider Erwarten ( !! ) jemals zurückkommen,könntest du noch vorbeischauen.
Jetzt hast du ja noch – zusammen mit Mama – die jetzt vielleicht schon in BA gelandet ist,eine sicher beeindruckende Reise durch Patagonien vor dir. Viel Spaß für euch beide
Rudolf
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