Author Glynn Pogue first visited South America as a backpacker, pondering she’d by no means return. However an Intrepid group journey modified her perspective.
The final time I used to be in Colombia I used to be a broke current graduate backpacking alongside the Caribbean coast with my greatest good friend. We hitched rides and took buses, sleeping in hostels and hammocks, till we arrived in La Guajira – an otherworldly place that kinds a pure full cease on the very finish of the nation the place the desert meets the ocean.
After ten days of lush rainforests, energetic seaside cities and desert, in my thoughts I’d ‘carried out’ Colombia. Subsequent, I wished new passport stamps, new experiences… In spite of everything, what extra may one nation give me?
Loads, it seems.
Treading new floor in Colombia
I return practically seven years later as an entire new girl, lured again as a mentor on Intrepid’s annual BIPOC mentorship journey – which inspires numerous voices in journey writing.
This time, I’m not simply travelling: I’m sharing what I’ve realized in regards to the street and storytelling, and seeing how far more certain of myself I’ve turn into; lastly gainfully employed, a bit of extra settled, rather less directionless – however possibly additionally rather less idealistic than I used to be again then, when what lay forward felt so unknown.
This time round my journey begins in Salento – a sleepy, storybook city ensconced within the Cocora Valley, west of Bogota, that’s house to the tallest palm bushes on this planet.
Able to expertise the Better of Colombia journey, my group and I arrive at our vibrant guesthouse simply after sundown. At practically 6200 ft above sea degree, excessive up within the Andes, we’re within the clouds, each floor, each plant, blanketed in a lightweight dew – the softest haze cloaking my arms.
There’s a magic to Salento – it’s quiet and quaint, each constructing painted in vibrant hues of purple, pink, orange and blue.
The primary distinction I expertise is the meals. In Salento’s espresso area, it’s wholly totally different from what I’d sampled on the coast, and what I related Colombian delicacies with after my first journey. As an alternative of coconut rice and fried crimson snapper, we dig into trucha al ajillo – garlic trout, a regional speciality due to the world’s rivers – with a facet of recent avocado. One factor stays unchanged, nevertheless: the Aguila lager I wash it down with is as acquainted as an outdated good friend.
Driving via the land of dinosaurs
An atmospheric early morning downpour greets us via the shutters of our guesthouse earlier than we head out to spend the day standing in an open-air Jeep zipping via the Cocora Valley. After the rainfall, clouds dangle low like stretched cotton above our heads and cows amble freely on the street beside us.
The Cocora Valley is a part of Los Nevados Nationwide Pure Park and residential to Colombia’s nationwide tree – the wax palm – which may develop as much as 200 ft tall. My group and I joke that we might be in Jurassic Park – that at any second a pterodactyl may simply swoop down. That’s how large and dramatic the valley is, with its rolling hills, towering bushes and the greenest of greens all over the place.
It’s the type of view that rearranges you: reminding you the way small you’re and the way massive the world stays. We study, although, that deforestation is repeatedly threatening these delicate ecosystems. The identical towering palms which have stood for hundreds of years may vanish – regardless of the efforts of these making an attempt to guard them.
Later that afternoon, we play rounds of tejo, the nation’s nationwide recreation, tossing heavy steel discs at small targets laced with gunpowder. It’s loud and rowdy and appears like a sport made for catharsis. Nobody hits the goal for nearly all the time, however when somebody lastly does, we lose our minds.
Waking as much as scent the espresso
From Salento, we journey additional into the centre to Chinchiná, a small city within the coronary heart of Colombia’s espresso area. At a household run espresso finca, we sleep via thunderstorms, get up to the scent of damp earth and recent brews and watch hummingbirds flit previous.
The mild rhythm of early mornings and sluggish dinners – breaking bread with my group over candlelight, speaking about love, about religion, about change – makes me realise how far more current I’ve turn into. At 22, I might have missed the prospect to essentially cease and hear; now, I sit with all of it – the laughter, the tales, the silences…
Due to its tropical altitude and fertile volcanic soil, Colombia is among the world’s largest espresso producers. On the finca, we find out about all of the nuances rising the crop and I discover myself touched by the care and tenderness with which the farmers deal with the land, talking in regards to the brews like they’re uncommon wine vintages.
Learn extra: Trekking to Colombia’s historic Ciudad Perdida
An advanced crossroads in Medellin
After a number of days in nature, my metropolis lady sensibilities sit back in after we arrive in Medellin. I welcome the quicker tempo, the brilliant lights and the crush of visitors jams. However Medellin can also be an advanced metropolis. One in every of innovation and inequality. We speak overtly about all of it with our information Daniela, who shares the methods the town is reworking within the post-Escobar period and the way the folks right here communicate with a type of melodic sweetness, like they’re all the time half-singing.
Our first afternoon is spent in Moravia, as soon as Medellin’s largest trash dump, the place folks construct houses on prime of mountains of waste. Nonetheless, through the years, the group has turned Moravia into one thing else fully – a spot with gardens, murals and inexperienced areas rising out of what was landfill.
We take a sequence of cable automobiles to get there – awed by Medellin’s vastness, as we float above the town’s rooftops. After we arrive in Moravia, we stroll up mural-painted stairways, previous distributors de-scaling fish and bikes weaving their manner via slim streets.
Music bumps within the backdrop as our native hosts, Angela and her twin sister, Cielo, welcome us into their house with such sincerity, it appears like we’re being invited into one thing, not simply observing it. They introduce us to native youngsters within the barrio who lead us to their group backyard, the place every factors proudly at a plant and proclaims its title in English.
Our time in Medellin reveals me a metropolis reinventing itself and makes me take into consideration the methods I’d been reinventing myself too.
The primary time I’d visited Colombia I’d been searching for which means, simply as I proceed to do on my travels at present. However again then, I didn’t but have the phrases for it. On that first journey, which means was to be present in bumpy bus rides to succeed in the unknown and within the thrill of doing one thing for the primary time. We have been chasing magnificence and freedom, however beneath that was one thing deeper – a longing to know the world and our place in it.
A blossoming custom in Santa Elena
The following day we meet Nacho in Santa Elena, whose household has been a part of the ‘silletero’ flower-carrying custom for generations. The custom started within the nineteenth century, when porters would carry folks and their belongings on wood chairs strapped to their backs, trekking lengthy, gruelling distances via the Andean mountains.
Over time, what started as bodily labour developed into an artform rooted in storytelling and cultural pleasure. At the moment, silleteros use that very same physique power to hold elaborate floral shows throughout Medellin’s Feria de las Flores.
As Nacho walks us via his yard, he reveals us his household’s successful silletas which have taken house prime honours on the competition. Each tells a narrative of their intricate wood frames layered with lilies, carnations, sunflowers and chrysanthemums, organized into shapes, phrases and symbols. I ask him what the custom means to him. He says merely: ‘That is who we’re.’
Learn extra: The aid of travelling phone-free in Colombia
Full circle for reflection
Our last cease brings us to Santa Marta – a becoming return for me to Caribbean coast and a spot my good friend and I visited all these years again. Santa Marta is a kind of locations that has an airport proper subsequent to the seaside, so you’ll be able to see everybody frolicking as you land and you understand instantly you’re in the best place. The humidity hits me once more the second I step off the airplane, a well-recognized sensation that makes me really feel proper at house.
Santa Marta is house to not solely seaside but additionally jungle within the type of Tayrona Nationwide Park, which our information explains is ‘the heartbeat of the world’. The indigenous Kogi individuals who reside right here shut the park a number of instances annually to spiritually cleanse it of the power introduced by a whole bunch of hundreds of vacationers.
It feels ceremonious to be again in Santa Marta once more. I stand on the balcony of my room, looking past the treetops, watching the waves break and really feel a type of peace I hadn’t recognized I used to be craving for.
I’d returned to Colombia nonetheless craving journey, however I used to be drawn to it otherwise this time. I seen extra. I lingered longer. I requested higher questions. There was which means within the stillness I’d discovered – within the meals shared, the traditions handed down and the enjoyment of returning to a spot to grasp it’s modified – and so have you ever.
Glynn Pogue travelled to Colombia on Intrepid’s Better of Colombia journey. For an opportunity to affix the following BIPOC mentorship journey, regulate Intrepid’s social channels.
