A walk in the Colombian countryside

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Dan and I found that we only had limited time to spend in Colombia and after staying in Cartagena for a few days we only had time to visit one other location in the country, as the buses take a long time to travel through the mountainous regions south of Cartagena. We chose to stay in San Gil, where we were hoping to go rafting or horse riding, as well as to use as a base to visit Barichara and Guane, two small colonial style towns that have white washed buildings and cobbled roads.

To our surprise the bus to Barichara was a nice new coaster van and not a chicken bus, but then we hadn't seen many chicken buses in this part of Colombia. We walked around the main square of Barichara, when we first arrived, to have a good look at beautiful little town. We had lunch there and cringed at the expensive $7 that is cost us each for lunch. We had become accustomed to spending $3 for a 3 course meal including drink and so to get a meal with a bottle of water for that price was a blow out for our budget, but we had read that prices there were more expensive.

We walked all around to try to find the trailhead for our path to Guane, and finally found it after finding the lookout that was meant to be just south of the path. The Saurez Canyon runs along the edge of the town and the lookout offered a wonderful vista of the region. We were glad once we found the path and made our way along the 9km long track. It took us the 2.5 hours prescribed to walk to Guane and we enjoyed the countryside as we walked. We walked past an older woman with her dog and 2 goats along the way and greeted an old guy that was on his way into town from some farm that was situated along the track.

Guane is a village where the Guane indigenous people still live. It is a sleepy little place with not much action to be see when sitting in the main square. We wandered around the town, but that took no more than 5 minutes as it is so small. We weren't able to get any money out of the bank at Barichara and so only had enough to purchase our bus tickets back to San Gil. There is no bank or ATM in Guane, so we couldn't visit the local artesan stores to make any purchases. We did visit a little store that was giving away samples of the local liquor, Sabajon. I had read that it tastes similar to Baileys and so was keen to give it a try. I asked to try the original flavour, but that probably wasn't a great choice as it tasted like condensed goat's milk. Urgh!

The next and last bus of the day was at 6pm, so Dan and I had 2.5 hours to wait sitting in the park of the main square watching the people go by, which wasn't often, and by lying on the bench seats chatting to pass the time.

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Photos

Barichara
Spanish colonial town

Red dirt in Barichara
Reminds us of home in Aus

Eating tamales
Waiting for the bus in Guane