Travelling Shoes and Coffee in Colombia - Eagles and Frogs

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Travelling Shoes and Coffee in Colombia - Eagles and Frogs.

For those of you that know me well, you will know I love nothing better than enjoying a wine in the sun with a book. Ideally something that exercises my brain, like a National Geographic - as Beth will vouch for. So get your sombrero and poncho out, pour yourself a beverage of choice and then read on. I’ll start out with one of my favourite subjects and then move onto a tale about eagles- Aguilas, and frogs - Ranas.

Before I start though, a quick thanks to my Garret Lane family that gave us some extra funds for use in case of kidnapping. This has not yet happened and we have arrived safely, despite getting a little sunburnt in Santiago.

As I mentioned on my front page, Colombia is not your usual choice for a holiday destination, but since meeting Moka, my husband, who is a Colombian, it is a place I have been looking forward to meeting and learning about. Is it really the cocaine, kidnapping, dodgy country of reputation or is that just a perception?
I am really excited about what I will see and do in my six weeks here, I know I will only skim the surface but I have my learning hat on and want to absorb as much as I can. Hopefully it also makes for some interesting reading. (Helen I understand that you are unlikely to get past the section on Malaria and Iceland’s voting system, but will forgive you in advance as long as you subscribe.)

Oh and when I figure out how to put in links I will, but for now I will put things in bold that you can check out on you tube or google images. OK, off we go!

The day starts with some home made juice. There is such an abundance of fruits here that when we got home after a morning at the markets I had to get my note book out and write the names down. There are some familiar ones like mango and passionfruit and papaya, but then there is the hedgehog monster of a guanabana that I have head about but never seen, along with maracuya, curuba and lulo. Todays juice was maracuya, yesterdays was pina, (pineapple) and banana.
After a juice my new friend Olleta (Oh - Jet - ah) is put on the gas, filled with water and a few tablespoons of coffee (Café). The trick is to get it hot but not to boil, otherwise it takes on quite a bitter taste. The fragrant black water is then strained through a cotton sieve into a small pot for serving. I like my coffee black with sugar (café negro con azucar). But yesterday after a quick stop at a Juan Valdez café (The national chain a bit like Starbucks but supplied solely by Colombian coffee growers.) I have converted.
Sugar is out the window and panella is in! Panella is sugar cane that is pressed into blocks and then chipped off into teaspoon sized pieces - you can buy a 4 kilo block for about one British pound. I hate to think how much they will charge back in London for it!
The other popular option is hot chocolate with cheese - I know, just the sound cheese and chocolate makes my nose wrinkle. Again you use the Olleta, for four people you will need two cups of water, two cups of milk and three bars of drinking chocolate. Now comes the fun yet slightly dangerous part for the inexperienced. A molinillo - a wooden spoon shaped like a whisk - is used to mix the drink and create as much foam as possible before serving with a cube or three of cheese dropped into the mug. I have to admit that I haven’t yet had a hot chocolate (chocolate calliente) with cheese.

The most common breakfast in Colombia is eggs. Generally scrambled with onions and tomatoes. That said bread (Pan) is equally enjoyed with your coffee or hot chocolate. Most traditional breads are made from corn (maiz - pronounced mah-eze) flour. The most typical is Arepas. The type of Arepa you eat will depend on what region of the county you are in. The name Arepa comes from the fact that it is round. It is basically a dough, made from maiz flour, a little bit milk and salt. Isabel, my new mother-in-law, puts a bit of grated cheese (queso) in also. A fist full of dough is patted into a round in your hands, it helps if your hands a little wet to start with, and we put n optional cube of cheese in the middle then placed them in a frying pan. It is important not to turn them until the first side is completely cooked as they have a habit of sticking, you do not use any oil or butter.
Ruscon is another favourite bread. It is a soft topped bread with sugar sprinkled on top with pieces of Guava sweet inside. Guava sweet is basically a jam made from Guava but reduced down to square blocks that you can cut into cubes.
This morning however, we had some Envueltos that Isabel and I made last night. It is a bit like stuffed potatoes in the sense that you take out the inside and stuff it back. The corn kernals are taken off the cob and ground into a paste, (this is done with a special grinder that the vendors at the market can do for you) all you do now is add some sugar, (about a tablespoon per cob) and a little grated cheese if you like. Your hands get nice and messy when you mix the dough and scoop fist sized lumps back into the corn skin. Cubes of guava sweet and cheese along with a couple of giant rasins are pressed into the dough before folding the corn skins and placing into a pressure cooker to steam. The naked cobs are placed at the bottom of the pot to ensure the envueltos do not get wet. They need to be steamed for at least an hour, and the result is a delicious and filling meal whether it is for breakfast lunch, dinner or a snack in between.

So now that we have had a good breakfast it is time to venture out find some lunch. Like a lot of people I use the lonely planet a bit like a bible. (I did have a look at a new brand out called footprints that is essentially ‘same same but different’. I was disappointed though as the list of hostels had names and addresses but no price. Given that we are on a £15 a day budget, this is not at all helpful.) So with my lonely planet in hand we head to the centre city. By bus! Fancy a rollercoaster ride? If so just get on a bus in Bogota. To start with there are no bus stops, I didn’t believe it either, but it is true. You just stand at the side of the road and wait for the right bus or Buseta, (a little bus) to come along and you wave it down. The bus has a turn-style as you reach the top step that you pass through to count the amount of passengers, essentially so at the end of the day the driver will find it hard to keep some fares for himself - unless he only opens the back door! A ride to the centre of the city from Modelia - where Moka’s parents live - is $1,200 and with an exchange rate of £1 = $3,400 it’s not a stretch on the budget. So now that you are on the bus and have paid the ride begins. At my towering 5ft 6 m the seats lacked leg room, but the view and excitement made up for it. The traffic is comparable to Bangkok, there are 3 - 4 lanes on each side of the road depending on who wants to go where - only some sections have road markings. There are also lots of pot /crater holes which can come up unexpectantly that require drastic evasive swerving action or a dramatic decrease in speed. And then there is a passenger who wants to get off. To get of you just ring the bell and the driver stops as soon as he is able. We miraculasley made it safely to the city centre.

Once you start to explore Bogota you find so many amazing places and treasures.
The streets are quite dusty and in need of repair as are most of the buildings, but their rough exterior is contrasted with a vibrant and welcoming interior, a lot like the people I guess.

Highlights include the extremely famous Museo de la Oro and the Botero Gallery.

Both have recently undergone refurbishment and are absoulute delights to visit. The last section at the museum of Gold is a complete mind blower. You are led into a dark room where Sharman music is played and lights begin to appear in various parts of the room tantilisingly revealing hundreds of gold nose rings, breast plates and earings that are displayed over the entire surface of the rooms walls. It gives you a real impression of the insane volumes of gold that was used in the country from 500 bc until the conquest by the Spanish in the 1500’s.

The colonial house where Botero’s works are displayed is simply charming, with its lush green garden, white walls and terracotta roof and water fountain it is a lovely place to linger while looking through the rooms, each with various sculptures, paintings and drawings by one of Colombia’s most famous artists. Everything he does is fat, from people to horses and still life, it’s a bit of a giggle, but it doesn’t take a critic to see that he is very talented.

There are several more touristy main stream things to do, but the current priority is lunch. We find a hole in the wall restaurant called Casa Botero in an area called Candaleria near the main square, (Plaza de Bolivar) it is full of people and has a set menu at $6,500 - I am sold. Moka is quite tough and makes me order for both of us in Spanish, I feel like a robot with a stutter, but manage to be understood, and lunch arrives. It is a lot like the feast that Moka’s parents made for us last Wednesday when we arrived, rice, potatoes, salad, meat and platano - a large green banana, preceded by a soup and followed by a small dessert, on this occasion a postre, a kind of custard, and accompanied by a juice - Jugo de mango. The walls are crumbling a bit and the paint is peeling but it is clean, vibrant and the toilet is clean and works.

With a happy tummy my brain is better able to function. Moka is the perfect tour guide as we head towards Bolivar Plaza. He points out plaques dedicated to men who shaped and positivley influenced the country. The notion of heroes is an interesting one and I am going to go out on a limb and say that they are necessary. History shows us that great changes where made by those with character, charisma and passion. Lets ignore those that channelled these qualities in a negative way like Hitler. You have to admire Simon Bolivar going on a on a liberty campaign from Venezuela to Peru and Antonio Narino for bringing the definitions of human rights to South America. Unfortunately opinions of today’s Colombian political leaders are pretty negative. The country has recently experienced the colapse of a pyrimad scheme that had been running for the last eight years, leaving many people in a position where they are unable to afford basic necessities, resorting to selling their homes in some cases. Where has all the money gone? Most likely to over seas bank accounts. The opinions that are respected belong to musicians. People like Carlos Vives who sing about the beauty of life but also the struggles within it for Colombian and South American people. Check out one of his songs ‘La Mona’ on you tube, it is really catchy, (although there is no footage). I will ramble on about the various types of music in Colombia like Vallenato next week.

All this learning and absorbing is hard work, I feel more like travelling sponge than travelling shoes these days, and an afternoon beer is next on the menu. It is pretty much impossible not to realise that the main beer here is a yellow and blue branded larger called Aguila. Entire bar walls are painted in the colours along with fridges and bill boards. We found ourselves at a balcony bar not too far from the last stop of tranz mileneo bus - big red bus that has a road to it’s self through the centre city and is NOT a rollercoaster ride, but a posh way get around the centre of a city whose population count is around 8 million - twice the size of the whole New Zealand population. Agila costs around $1,200, so at roughly 30p a bottle the first few disappeared quite quickly. Hernan, Carlos Mendoza, Carlos / Pocho and his girlfriend Jessica, joined us at this stage and Moka had a chance to have a good catch up and I got to practice my Spanish, which is slowly coming along. For most of the night I found myself with at least two bottles of Aguila in hand as we were buying by the round. One of the cheapest rounds I have bought in my life. But of course this means you tend to loose count of how many you are drinking. It was at about, oh I dunno, ten bottles, that we started to play with three frogs. It is a very popular pass time in bars and restaurants and I have seen it at almost every other place we have been to since. I guess you can compare it to darts but it is much more fun as you are trying to get 6 metal pretzels into one of the three frogs mouths. Imagine 3 beer crates stacked on top of each other with three silver frogs sitting on top. There are also 14 holes around the frogs, which were very handy, as if you did not get any ‘pretzels / keys’ in you had to buy a round. So a fun night was had with frogs - Ranas and eagles - Aguilas, followed by a ‘5 adults in the back’ cab ride to a gourmet sandwich place that served a beer and chilli potatoes with your order.

At any given moment taxis will make up at least half of the road traffic in Bogota, they are bright yellow little things that are reasonably priced, about $10,000 for a ten minute ride. Although I have been told to be cautious when waving them down on the street as they may not be genuine.

The last few days have been spent meeting Moka’s uncles, aunts, and cousins, and looking at a national library sized collection of photos of his life in Colombia. We also went to the worlds largest salt mine were they have made a massive underground cathedral in the old sections and looked around the local neighbourhood - December 8th is the day of the Virgin Mary, and the night before Catholic homes lit candles outside their houses and sat outside chatting until the wee hours.

Last night I practiced my Spanish by telling Isabel and Hernando, (Moka’s parents) Dila and Victor, (Moka’s Aunt and Uncle) about what I had been doing for the last few days. So extremely embarrassing, but a good way to force me to improve my speaking and pronounciation.

We are heading to the coffee zone, (zona café) tomorrow which is the smallest region, (called departments here in Colombia) named Quindio which is about a 7 hour drive west of Bogota. We will be away for any where between 3 and 5 days depending on the roads. There have been several slips in one of the valleys we have to go through so that will be the main influencing factor.

My aim is to write once a week. So if you want to learn about Colombian coffee, music and jungles, feel free to subscribe and you will get a notification next week when we have returned, (assuming of course that we return and the kidnapping fund was sufficient).

On the other hand you may think my blog is a bit lame - if so be a friend and tell me.
However, Mum: even if it is crap you have to tell me you enjoyed it, ok! xx

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Comments

[mike richardson]

blogg
hi i like your blogg

[Travelling Shoes]

Thanks
Hay Mike, thanks for taking the time to take a look. Just got back from the coffee region so get ready for chapter 2!

[tracy freeman]

No wonder you were good at taking minutes!! What a great read.. im a bit confused on the frog story though.. please tell me they werent real frogs?