Rionegro Antioquia San Atonio,Colombia

      

                                            Rionegro Antioquia San Antonio, Colombia.
This is the center of the little town,the houses and some of the buildings still reflect the Spanish influence in old colonial style.   But then there is a flux of modern midcentury architecture, mixed with modern Euro and what I call Colombian Style structures made mostly of brick.  Most construction is in brick and concrete, no painting needed as all look pretty much the same,one or two may have some sort of unique ornamentation, but pretty much the structures are basically the same.
This week not much adventure only discovering the ways of the life in Colombia Rionegro.
                                                      

                                           

            

                     

 

Simple things in life are needed for us to get by, living simple here is the essence of existence.Sweeping the floor, cleaning the floor,  washing your clothing, eating,people working, but   not like in USA, where you live to work, instead of work to live.  Not a slow life, but a different life.  For example of finding what you need, you just have to go looking for it, people tell you but its best  to find things on your own.  We have a washer in the house but it's broke,instead of fixing it my   friend rents a washer all night and  washes everything in one night, the results are a house full of wet clothes in rainy   weather that do not dry, so I went and found a laundry mat and washed mine in a matter of two hours, in fact I didn't even do it I just dropped it off they washed it, dried it folded it and served me coffee and charged me $3.85 cents, I walked around looking for new things, trying to discover possibilities to exist, such as fruiteras, or verdueras, where they only sell fruits and vegetables I found interesting if not strange items I have never tried in other Latin countries.    
                                                               

                

                  

                   

       Those stripped bananas I believe are platanos, and the yellow I am not sure, the green is  Guanabana one of my favorite amazing tasting fruit the essence of life! You can eat it or normally it is made into a shake, with mile or water, and sugar, the flavor is so delicious!
Did you know that potato's origin came from Peru and Bolivia in the base of the Andes mountains,  spread thru the indigenous Indians that's were here when the Spaniards entered the new world, here.  In central and South America, they return with the tubers and introduced them to Europe, eventually  ending up in all countries. Here the potato of favorite are small not large, like in USA they are tiny in  fact and tender and sweet, mostly yellow the color of the meat. They use potato's  to the extreme simplicity, only baked or boiled with salt! Oh what I could do with these potatoes and already did one day, I made fried potatoes with these tinygems and added the best of young onion to them with olive oil ,(which is something no one here uses but I discovered it in a discount store!)
                                                   
                                                         

          

            

 You can see the red potatoes here they are a bit larger but the preferred potato is the tiny gems the yellow, sweet buttery,  the texture is good, wow they would make incredible mashed potatoes

         

The tomato's are mostly pear or Italian style they also have a tree tomato that is used to cook with sugar and served hot like a dessert, very strange I will have to photograph those and show you the before and after I had them it was well,  lets put it this way very interesting, maybe an acquired taste for some. It was fine for me but shocking not what I expected. 

         

The avocados are enormous if not giagantic and buttery too 

         

Most lemons and oranges and limes look similar, there are no genetic lemons or limes that are bright yellow and shaped as such and or bright green, most are speckled, I know the difference since this is all I ate in Latin America, in reality the flavor is so strong and so good, I adore the lemons here, the pineapple are sweet like candy they believe in hanging them up to derive the best flavor, it works! 

I just had a dish of pineapple just like candy,  they run about. .75 cents ea.

They also sell these enormous squash but not whole they hang them in pieces and you can decide how much you want and they just hack it off with a machete, and they sell large pieces or whole plants of aloe Vera, I been drinking aloe almost daily,  seems to calm my alergies to the big dog that lives with us!

        

Wandering around I found some interesting things,  I found a cool jungle trail that is all paved and walkways for dogs and people that ends up in a valley with rolling hills in the distance with scarce palm trees and pine trees combined, I sat on a public bench in a very classy neighborhood and just gazed at the scenery , well isn't this lovely, I plan on making a lunch and going on the trail and checking out every inch of that nature that is out there, its mostly city around here so that was a great pleasant surprise, the houses in that area were very upscale and different .

     

 This is  bromeliads, that are growing in the trees along with orchids, they made a big sculpture in there front of the house,  the neighbors copied them but this one took the cake! Creative out of what you have. Below is a saqorow cactus huge massive in fact in front of a colonial style house with a split log fence. You can click on all the photos and enlarge to see them better.

      

You really never know what you are going to find, I saw these amazing doors in some of the buildings that are not restored and its a shame because I would love to have one as a giant table or use it as a feature in a room wow!    
                                       

  

  

                                                         
I am serious about you never know what you are going to find? I was going to the grocery store. And walking that same day, I stopped to sit down and rest a bit and looked to my left and there was a random cow in the street, yep it happens here, horse or cows.