Colombia food, dance, and life

This week was very different from the last, the rooster must be gone and the goat too! The school must have taken it back to the farm because there was no animal noise at all to wake you up early only the trucks below for the bakery that is in the midsts of the town houses! So it was a little bit more restful in that respect!  What you are looking at there is a big pile of cheese that they fry with little sausages at the open market on weekends.  Every weekend the Central Park area is filled with vendors, each week seems different people set up with a few of the same vendors filling the park for people to enjoy. The food is different and interesting, the cost is extremely reasonable if not      unbelievable to the average American,European or Canadian. 

  

The people stood in line waiting on there crispy fried glob of cheese topped with an arepa and sausage, I have not tried this yet, but I may take a risk at clogging my arteries to see what all the hub bub was about!

        

Each stand has there own authenticity and is proud of the culture they bring to the community, there is a real sense of commmunity I could see, as I sat and watched families, friends old and young enjoy the sights sounds and tastes of Colombia. The church is always the center of a  plaza, a plaza is usually in the center of a small Pueblo it is the meeting place for everyone, so the culture is built around that church. 

        

I have noticed that Rionegro Antioquia San Antonio is a local weekend fun place to be, filled with people every weekend and some sort of celebration is going on most weekends! Horse rides for children, bouncy houses, food stands, musica blaring, and the church with its doors wide open broadcasting the word for the week. 

I found a place that was off the beaten path the food looked extremely fresh and good and its interior was a complete reflection of the furniture and style of Costa Rica, or maybe what I am seeing is a form of old world furnishings by using what is near by or what is the cheapest way to suit a restaurant, I can say that creativity is alive here in many forms here. When you have few resources you become creative in the manor of your living. 

Using logs and branches crudely to create a service stand for all their lemons,  limes,avocados and fruit. This was the restaurant I was referring to that reminded me so much of the places in Costa Rica The music in this place was cool, it was traditional and loud and the people even though there was no guests at the time I entered they were happy and singing the songs. 

As you can see they use real wood and fire in the stands in the plaza,raw salchichons, hanging so all can see, with no refrigeration what so ever, they cook and sell all their products with out issues.I want to say this guy makes his own salchichons, as I only saw containers and no boxes, so he must be the maker and cooker of this delicacy in pork! I have had these, I will admit I am woman that loves sausage any kind,Italians love sausage and this is very tasty and inexpensive for one with arepa, which is how they sell everything! The cost in dollars was $1.85.  I am trying to like Arepas there are many different forms or styles but as of a month being here I am not a fan yet. My own opinion Is pretty accurate in food criticism, as some of you know I am an extremely good cook and do it professionally for people, I really like lots of different styles and I have tried so many things that most wont dare to try! So in saying this my taste for areapa is probably  something you have to acquire 

The texture first of all gets me, its grainy, gritty, not smooth like a tortilla, its pasty some times, and sometimes greesy, as they fry them too. I mean I have had some with butter that I could eat, but its mostly served as a bread replacement, even though they eat all sorts of breads, its served as a side plain. It has very little taste, no salt very bland. Not a fan yet! 

This is a pastry the seve with sugar an cinnamon and I noticed the pour this cream over I think it was sour cream , now those looked good to me but did not try it maybe this week I will! 

So as for the dance, I am a Zumba instructor for those who don't know I am my age but loved to dance and Colombia is a dancing country. 

I advertised on Tuesday on a local Facebook page and asked if anyone in the area teaches and if so I would love to join or if not I would love to teach a few classes.Well to my shock the response on that commented created a buz and over 100 people commenting , and were interested, so on Weds Am I went early and talk to the new gym that is less than a block away and asked and they said yes! So I continued to post and got over 56 people to attend my first Zumba dance class here in Rionegro. Of course it was free, but I gotta say these are some of the best dancers I have ever experienced in class! I can not wait to dance again with them or in a real place that dances on the weekends!  The owners of the gym were thrilled that I brought so many people to there brand new location, and the people were happy smiling laughing and dancing hard with me!

I hope to continue during the time I am visiting here and teach a few classes build new relations and help others with my love and passion for dance and music. That was fun but exhausting yesterday the energy was so high in there I pushed my self to the absolute maximum, I felt it the rest of the day lol! 

Oh I forgot there are artist too in the plaza each week one or two guys dress up in costumes and pretend to be statues, just like I saw in Portland, Oregon , so its not just a USA thing they do it here too. More to come this week I plan on visiting the national chocolate factory, and find out where the cacao is grown and how they process. And more photos of the amazing trees and plants here wow! 

Life is simple, wash by hand, sweep the floors, use very little water, lucky if you have hot showers,  food is cheap, bottle of wine $3.50 rose, or merlot Chilean but good, fruits and vegetable no chemicals home grown ,huge and taste different, strange fruits I have yet to try. Walking is a common thing. Fun is sitting at a cafeteria watching people eating pan and drinking fresh coffee. Laundry mat is a luxury I experienced this week I forgot how wonderful it is to have your clothes washed dried and smell so good! A whole load coast me $3.75 cents she folded them too, and served me Coffee, I was in heaven smelling the freshly washed clothes!( been there done that hand wash clothes for years in Costa Rica NO THANKS)

Oro de Cortez,  

Gypsy on a Shoe String, Travel and living: A Goat a Rooster, church, the sounds of South Amer...

Gypsy on a Shoe String, Travel and living: A Goat a Rooster, church, the sounds of South Amer...: Mornings are usually the most pleasant time of day for most people, I have a couple of times of day that are my favorite. Let me describe t...

A Goat a Rooster, church, the sounds of South America

Mornings are usually the most pleasant time of day for most people, I have a couple of times of day that are my favorite. Let me describe to you my space, I rent a room that is actually quite large in my friends Hostel, called Pura Vida in Colombia, located in Rionegro San Antonio. This is the old part of Rionegro that is now developing into an attraction for weekend fun. This room is on the second story of a three story house with 7 bedrooms, I have a private bath a small sofa,a balcony now with two chairs and plants.  The room has a glass wall of French doors, it looks out to a very small triangular green space they call it, a crudely planted.  Area of bamboo, with shrubs inclosing it, one or two large hybiscus,a wheel barrow planted with flowers. And a few small other plants. In the morning I love to just open the doors, hear the birds,sip my coffee and really not do much, just meditate, write emails, look at facebook and chat. At first, it was trucks and motorcycles, below us in one of the condos is a manufacturing of baked goods of all things, someone has turned two condos into a business in a small strip street with no way out, and no cultisack for the trucks or motors who deliver the stuff  to turn around. So as I was saying at first it was them, the sounds of them early on in the morning, the garbage trucks at 4 am, motorcycles peeping for others. Literally so much noise in the morning you can not sleep past five. Then all of sudden this past week I heard a small naaaaa in the background!         Beyond the living bamboo wall is an academy for children, a school for elementary children, in this school they have animals. Now a new goat, I heard it naaaaing and crying early in the morning, and then a day or two later chickens and roosters. BOY Colby my grandson would be scared to death, he use to hate the sound of a rooster! All this week was the sounds of these animals waking me up, finally got one of the motorcycle guys to stop honking his horn at five am in front of our house, that was a challenge. But yes he stopped! Here we are in an urban surrounding, a new 10 story building           butted up next to this house with construction going on daily, the sounds of dogs, animals, children singing karaoke at the school and best of all Sunday Morning praise and worship across the road at the entrance to our place. YES the first Sunday was not so bad, the second sunday killed me so many off key singers, I just wanting to shut my door and blast music up! The last Sunday seemed it would never end, I was praying they would just stop!!  Sound, SOUNDS, lots of different sounds in Latin        America.                            
     

   

       

        When I mention sounds my frien d  Helen gets a bit offended in fact told me wow you sure have a sensitive ear. I don't think its sensitive, what it is, is. Unfamiliar sounds and noises, plus I have this kind of hearing that I am able to hear something and actually recreate the sounds especially animals.                  . I am the type of person that notices everything, I am a detailed person very detailed.  She hears nothing and is affected by very little, where as I hear everything and different things affect me in many ways.

        

Today is fairly quiet, only birds the goat and the rooster are chanting, no church as of yet. This past week was just nearly cleaning up this house, and doing what I can to help her get this place in a better shape. I planted out front, bought bird of paradise, some purple sweet potato vines and lime green sweet potato vines, its a tiny space. It was filled with cigarette butts, bottle caps and rocks. Then I helped clean up the side area, thats another story another day wow! Then I am working on her furniture, I painted an old cabinet and all her chairs separately different colors to add some life to the small dark eating area and kitchen. We walked a lot this week, miles and miles actually. I got to see the other part of Rionegro, Its separated in parts, the downtown area with all commercial. Shopping and plazas old world style, and the colonial area here where we are, with tile rooves, old style buildings, horses still allowed in the streets, and people mostly walking all over. Its quite interesting and noisy. 

We did walk to a huge store much like Home Depot called Home Center, actually its better than Home Depot has everything you can think of and its a huge warehouse over two blocks of products. I loved it, she hates it says its over priced but when I calculated out the pricing its about half if not less than half of USA pricing. I bought the two patio chairs for 11 dollars each that was pretty cheap!

When walking you see things you normally don't see when driving or riding, I dont mind walking at all. Walking is what most people do here.

Then the weekend came, we got up and went to the local pulpuria, that is a small grocery everything store on a corner or next to normal houses, this is where the weekend older guys hang out and have drinks together. Very instesteing, I just sat and watch Helen knew them all because she has lived here for years and years.  I just sat and watched and listen to the funny old Colombian men. Then we walked to yet another little area and had a coffee.    

The plaza is preparing for the weekend, everyone setting up food stands and merchandise to sell Sunday is an interesting day around here,people come from all over to eat and enjoy coffee, and drinks. 

ALCON FLOWERS RIONEGRO COLOMBIA

                 Alcon Flowers Rionegro Colombia

Saturday am made coffee and warmed up this orange bread I bought near the hostel, making coffee is a feat, my friend didnt even have a coffee maker, in this place. I walked all over trying to find a simple coffee maker, but only found this plastic old time percolator so I bought for 12 dollars and this is what I use to make coffee in my room. Its loud so I just make it upstairs in my room and then bring her down a cup.  Saying this I wanted you to get a picture of what I do each morning. I open the French doors to my room balcony and listen to the birds if there is any, look at my pretty hanging plant I made and enjoy the morning air with a cup of coffee in my bed. My room is simple a old love seat, brick walls,a bed a round table nothing more.

              

So back to the morning, I showered the hot water was not working so took a cold shower fast and got ready to be picked up by two gentlemen that I met the day before thru one of the guests here in the hostel. 

Carlos, a tall handsome blue eyed salt and pepper hair  beautiful smile, and one other man picked up Helen and I to take us on a tour of the Hydrengea company located near by. We came to. What looked like an old apartment, they walked us in to this make shift office, two ladies one with a face mask one young complexion not so good. Both just stared at Helen and I as we greeted them. At first I was timid, not knowing where they were taking us leading us thru this narrow room, very tight quarters, back thru a storage into a garage like setting where there were about 15 people all dresssed in beige with shoe coverings, and masks. Stacks of boxes on a shelve contained hundreds of stems of white hydrangea, the owner or manager named Cesar, began to explain what they were doing. I walked over to two young men standing,plucking on petals on the bottom of each stem, and asked what? He told me that it was immature flowers that cause the big main flower to wilt more rapidly.  Another had her hands in a bucket of water all day wrapping stems and putting plastic bags on the bottoms with rubber bands. Three others were cleaning and putting sleeves one was packing boxes, then a supervisor was checking everything and taking them to a small walk in they had.
 
We talked and he explained the product the type of packing they use to ship all over the world. They are a small family owned company but the product was perfect, and if you are reading this and are in the industry contact me and I will send you the information on how to obtain there flowers.

All four of us Helen,Carlos Cesar,and myself piled into a nice four by four pickup and took a ride to the country. We laughed and joked and talked about food, they told us about this place on the mountain top that had these fried Cheese sticks with jelly sauces of  pineapple, uchuva and berry, and that you have never tasted anything so good in your life. We drove for about. 20 minutes, traveled up a steep mountain road, where the views were just spectacular. I saw a house modern looking on top of a mountain and pointed it out, then Cesar said that was his vacation house on the farm. The cars and buses that past us as we drover were hilarious, little tiny taxis like you see in Nicaragua or in the Philippines,  big crazy open busses all painted with serious designs.  We entered a pretty rough terrain dirt road and continued on this for about two miles. Very pretty country and pretty primative settings for houses and living. Typical campo style houses with tin or terracotta rooves.

Finally we came to the entrance of the farm  a really rough steep road to the top of the mountain. We got down  then walked the rugged stairs made of mud in the farm, saw the process of planting training and growing the big tall beautiful hydrangea. Cesar explained the whole farm, I shared with him something I saw to help maintain the weeds in another farm and he was very interested, we discussed the idea of possibly me using his product and doing a tour to his farm ending in the beautiful simple modern structure at the top for a reception and for the tourists to see this spectacular view! We had a great time they were super nice people and I learned more about the production of commercial flowers. I don’t know where this is taking me but I am very interested and love the idea of sharing my knowledge with the world or others who are in this industry.  Standing at the top on his balcony looking over that valley was impressive. Seeing the world from a completely different perspective was eye opening, and to think this was free to me, my shoe string was tied and I adventured to a place I never imagined last week.Today Standing on top of the Andes Mountains overlooking all the flower, cofeee, and sugar cane farms in the area.  

The Hydrengea they grow in various colors and sizes grow about 5 feet tall under the covers they have over the whole farm to see an endless sea of flowers is a rare site, the normal designer never knows where our product comes from, so this was a real cool experience. Alcon Flowers grow Hydrengea, Solidago, and rucus  really beautiful. 

      We took off down the mountain and stopped at the nursery with the cheese stick stand in the side of the road, we had Ricisimo cheese sticks a local beer called AGULA the eagle, and sauces of Pineapple, uhcuva this is a tiny yellow fruit with lots of soft seeds in it the flavor is tart and sweet like a sour gummy bear, they make drinks and sauces out of this! And finally berry sauce. As we sat a truck full of cows pulled up, and many colorful painted buses that are all open transporting people all over the mountain side.  I hope to get a photo of these buses wow they are crazy!  Better than the buses in Panama. For more information and details on how to travel light and see the most interesting things in Colombia contact me! I would love to share.

Medellin Colombia Botanical Garden

                                Medellin Botainical Garden

    

          

Helen my friend from Colombia is putting together a small coffee shop in Medellin, her parents live in an area called, Estrella this is where she is putting the coffee shop up in a new mall. The area is old colonial and very busy, very noisy, dogs, horns, motorcycles, trucks unloading under the window of the small apartment early hours of the morning making it very difficult to sleep. I am not one to live in a big city or near lots of noise, I love peace quiet and nature, so for me this was not easy. I stayed four days with her elderly parents while she ran around doing things. I am still suffered greatly with big blisters on the backs of my heels and now on my toes? I don’t know what is causing this but wow its painful, so I pretty much just hung out with Helens mom and dad and dog and cat. I did get out a little and see the steep hilled bario, not something I would ever want to live in or around, surely different loud and bustling with life.

The final day we got up early and went to the Medellin Botanical Garden, its located very far from Estrella, so we took the transit which is like a train or subway.   Its travels all over this        enormous city. The City sits in a very large valley with a gigantic river that runs thru the center of the city,walled by concrete with no natural banks. Very strange like a freeway of water gushing thru the center of a town. As far as you can see is houses up the steep hills of the Andes all made out of the same material, bricks. So a sea of rust color houses all of bricks all over the whole area, tall short no spaces, just bricks.

We sped thru areas on the transit with short stops filling the train with tons of commuters going to work, shopping and visiting. We stopped and got off near the garden, carrying all our crap from our stay over. We walked cross two busy streets and entered, it was kinda cloudy that day, not cold just cool out. The Garden is free to view, although I found it in sort of ill repair. I am such a gardener and I really know when things are lacking or not in good shape.  It was fun though to get out, I enjoyed seeing the massive trees and some of the varieties of plants that I have not seen in four years.

We walker around slowly to enjoy the nature and peace and quiet it was nice to just relax with out barking dogs and honking horns or car alarms.

We strolled and came upon some sculptures hiding in the garden, I love things like this like art work in the garden that you least expected 

Colombian gold museum adventure

                              Colombian Gold Museum

        

          

 We went on a Thursday afternoon to the Colombian gold museum only after we had a grand breakfast at our hotel in the middle of Bogotá. This museum is located on the eastern side of the town which is really hard to get to. Bogotá is in my opinion a very dirty unorganized and unkept capital. The taxis seem to change their fares depending on how you look. It seemed as if I spend a lot of money on taxes they change their minds every hour on how much they’re going to charge you. This was the only problem I see that came up during the time in Bogotá that and one another incident that I will describe at the end of this blog. We took the bus this time and it was quite a deal of transfer and walking for blocks and blocks I had very comfortable shoes on but the walking in the pro florist show cause me to get these giant blisters on the back of my heels and so walking with any kind of shoe,Made me feel like I had cement blocks on my feet and the pain was really intense aside from that I was enjoying the craziness of the buses. The entrance fee to the museum was very inexpensive it was roughly 2 dollars per person to get in and well worth the two dollars. There were a lot of people in the museum mostly visitors and tourists but it was pleasant there was lots of security it was beautifully done and really clean. The artifacts in some cases were a bit overwhelming to think that these indigenous Indians in those days the pre-Columbian’s prior to the Spaniards invasion and raping of the villages of all the gold, and supplies they had from growing cotton, sugarcane, corn, mining for emeralds, and so much more.It was impressionable to stand there in a room with all this ancient art and gold and to think that thousands of years back they knew how to process the gold in such a way to create beautiful artifacts.     

The first thing we saw was a beautiful conch shell made of gold, crude,roughly done but it was evident the intent of the art of recreating nature.

As you walk thru the museum , there is a succession of years and that they proceeded to develop their skills in creating gold pieces each level of the museum represents a different year or time frame and a lot of the pieces are very crude in the beginning but as you go to the next level you can see the progression there were so many pieces that were so intricate and tiny I mean really really tiny. it’s fascinating to think they had the capacity to do this without magnifying glasses without equipment and I’m talking tiny less than an inch ,the birds,  the gods the animals The  nature they recreated in such detail is beautiful.

I we stopped half way thru the tour to have a good cup of Colombian  Coffee and rested our feet. They had a nice gift shop with artifacts. Displayed and lots. Of items from Colombia. What a great way to spend the afternoon.

After we walked out to th plaza and found numerous shops and stands selling everything you can imagine, great gifts and Souvenirs. I had to change my money to pesos so we found this hidden place on a second story of a building close by, with. Private entrance and locks and exchanged my money. We found a cute restaurant on the corner and ate a wrap with a glass of wine the total cost for us both was 12 dollars.  I am finding Colombia is very reasonable, great food, and happy people. Then the worst! Helen decided that we should take the bus back to the hotel since it cost so much for taxi, i was totally against it at that hour of traffic and so many people. The. Truth be it Bogata is so over crowded and is  dirty and to me disturbing that there are so many in one area. Entonces! And so!! We go! Walking to the nearest platform asking at every corner. Where is the bus for calle 115, well this was the worst senearo ever! So we walk about ten blocks, find the correct platform. We get in the crowd no line, only a huge group of people waiting to mash together in this enormous bus of four lengths.  We proceed to follow the crowd. Mine you  I am experiencing the worst pain in my feet, blisters in the back bleeding,  people in front on side ,peopling standing on my feet. Smashing me into other people taller than me pony tails in my face . While guarding my purse. And trying to not fall when the bus takes off and stops! OMG never take the bus In BOGATA!! Unless you like being a sardine! Then it hit me I was like going nuts with all those people on top of me the next stop I told Helen in Spanish YO NO PUEDO MÁS!!! I could not take any more I leaped out of the bus  pusihing people so i could thru the door way before it closed and took off again 

Helen was stuck and could not get thru, finally she pushed too and the people were yelling at us both. I was so  infuriated I just walked ahead to clear my.  Mind wow! That was crazy.   Well it started getting dark and were were a long way from the hotel, we tried to flag a taxi ,standing on the street corner yelling and waving but everyone passed in a speed you can not even believe! Leaving us on the corner for more than an hour. Finally I walked and walk and got a space in the road where the car could actually pull over for us, and waved one down.  Helen nor I spoke for more than an hour after that, we got the hotel I took a hot shower. Immediately!followed by Helen. Then we laughed our heads off adding this to our crazy adventures! Honestly it was if were packed in like sardines, it was so weird! I just do not know how people do it every day.  We had a great  breakfast the next moring and left for  Medellin,a 9 hour  Bus ride over bumpy mountainous roads,but so  Beautiful.