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Published: August 22nd 2006
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JARDIN
arequipe de cafe :) i bought this jar with 6.000 pesos and in Carrefour it is double! First-hand arequipe! Oh my God how can you not love Colombia? And when I say love I mean head over heels in love with this country!! Puente? You know what a
puente is? It s a long weekend, a three-day weekend, from Friday all the way to Tuesday. They celebrate....things...saints...God knows what !! They surely don't!! lol...You only know you get 3 days off and you get paid for it!! If you ask a Colombian what is the puente for, no idea! But who cares? Nobody gives a damn! The point is you have 3 days to partyyyyy and here they party hard!!!
Ok, I will tell you all about my 1st long weekend here. Some of my students ask me to translate that in English. Hell no, how could I translate something so latin, so...abnormal ?? ...😊 In Europe we don't have
puentes, as it is not our culture. Coz work is basically all we know back in Europe...well, that's not entirely true, but let's face it, Colombia is not like any other country in the world when it comes to the number of religious and national holidays per year!!I guess I could compare the PUENTE with the Bank Holiday they
JARDIN
jars of marmelade, jam, arequipe... delicious delicious 1000000 times delicious!! have in the Uk, although the content, the meaning of the holiday is obviously not the same, but the idea is that in both cases you get a longer weekend than the usual 😊
Another thing I've been meaning to mention...some of my students asked me to translate
Que pereza to them, which is not only a phrase, an idiom,it is an attitude, I would go as far as to call it a life style :P. It is like when you are bored to death and you don't feel like doing stuff, going to work, study or even going downstairs to the local store to get some bread. Que pereza is like I feel so lazy, I don't feel like doing anything, what a drag! ...
Que pereza is something I hear about a dozen times a day and unfortunately it is sort of contagious, so I myself say it sometimes just to sound more
paisa Random facts: I work every Saturday: On Saturday, as I've probably mentioned it to you before, I have classes from 8am to noon, which might seem a drag, but I actually love my Saturday classes as they are all so relaxed, my students
JARDIN
give me moooooooooooreeeeeeee know it is weekend so there is no pressure, they work with pleasure, they are not watching their watches...actually they do, but they start doing that at about 11.30am so it is understandable 😊
This last Sunday Carolina, a Colombian friend from the Language Center gave me a ring. She asked if I would be interested in going to a
finca for the weekend and if I could be ready in 15 minutes. If I could be ready in 15 minutes?!😊 Of course! I am in Colombia, I barely know anybody, any invitation at all is more than welcome! I have 15 minutes? I'll be ready in 10! 😊) and I was!
Note about this
finca ..I can't translate it to 'farm' though that is how my students and most dictionaries translate it, but for me a farm is a country house where they grow domestic animals, and with a finca, this isn't the case. A
finca is a sort of wooden chalet that upper and sometimes middle class Colombians have for the weekend, it is taken care of by a maid during the week and they go there sometimes at the weekend to relax. I wouldn't call
una fonda
BANDEJA PAISA, yummy-yummy it ranch either as it isn't that big, and most fincas have swimming-pools which make them look quite fancy.
The trip which supposedly had to take only 2 hours took actually 7, we got there quite late at night, the sun had already set and it was dark.It took so long because we had to make many stops along the way..the first one was for lunch. We stopped at a
fonda which is a traditional restaurant in open air where people have lunch and drink aguaardinete and chat...and just spend some quality time with their families and friends..I had
Bandeja Paisa which is a traditional dish made of beans cream in a bowl, white rice,pork meat, chicharron, chorizo, which are different kind of sausages, patacones de platano verde, which is a big green banana, fried egg, and of course round small arepas, which is sort of bread with corn.Ok... delicious, but too much for me! I had to share my plate with Santiago, one of Caro's friends because for me it was literally too much to handle. We eventually hit the road again heading towards
EL TEJADITO, this is the name of the finca.
The next pit
ANDES
the center of the town. Usually deserted, very crowded now on the weekend. stop was in
Jardin which is a small town where we went to a home-made sweet store, we got to taste all the sweets we wanted before deciding what to buy!!Isn't that amazing? 😊 I bought a jar of arequipe after testing strawberry marmalade, and a thousand other kinds of sweets. Awesome! And I paid only 6000 pesos on the jar, which is nothing at all! I recommend you if you get to Jardin, go and visit
Dulces de Jardin, it is absolutely amazing! They were so nice and also allowed me to shoot as many pictures I wanted!
We left Jardin pretty late and finally got to the finca where we wanted to have a barbecue but the rain started as soon as we set foot on the finca 😞. Just our luck! We had to settle for grilled meat on the kitchen oven and I must admit it was pretty delicious 😊. We listened to some Carlos Vives, had some drinks of Ron with Coke and called it a night! No mosquitoes, thank God! a nice quiet evening in the mountains, with a great view, wonderful landscape. Could one ask for more?
The next day breakfast
ANDES
local church.nice adornments. was ready, waiting for us, of course
arepa, but sweet, the one you eat with butter and cheese and it isn't crunchy, but quite smooth and of course yummy, with chocolate drink and orange juice. I remember one odd think ,Claus, the Norwegian guy drinking tinto, that is coffee with literally everything he could find- ron, aguaardiente, beer, juice..for breakfast, lunch and dinner.Ok, on Sunday we just went for a swim and sunbathed and we took a trip to another farm, but this one in the true meaning of the word, with cows, chicken, hens,etc. The farm belonged to an old lady who was living there on her own.She actually told us that she had been living there for about 60 years. She had traveled the world, had been to the States , to Europe 5 times and eventually decided to settle down for good in Andes. A very nice lady, served us arequipe with dry plumps and told us a few stories, showed us around and was quite happy to have some guests.
I love travelling and getting some first-hand insight into the Colombian culture which is unbelievable and amazing!Unfortunately I spend most of my time in EAFIT,
ANDES
miniature chiva for kids :) if I don't teach, I plan, if I don't plan, I go to my Spanish classes or do the homework. Thanks God for
el puente festivo! That's what gives me the chance to travel a bit and really get to know this lovely, amazing Latin culture and the wonderful people that live in Colombia!!!
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Sarah Stafford
non-member comment
ahhh, the beauty of puentes. they really are an amazing idea. I love the picture of the baby chiva! how adorable :)