Buses in Latin America

All Latin American buses are not like the old Mexican chicken buses.  Actually, in our visit to Ecuador and Colombia, we haven't seen a single bus like that.

But we have seen various other kinds of buses.  For example, there is the large "executive" style bus with adequate leg room, seats wide enough for the average fanny, video screens on the back of every seat with various movies or music available for free (including headsets).  The actual seats are ergonomically designed and recline more than airline seats. These buses are air conditioned with windows that don't open and a bathroom in the back - to be used ONLY for urinating (which the conductor strongly emphasizes to each user).

Not made for foreigners

Then the next level bus is more . . . common.  Often the seats are not wide enough for a thin person's width, making it necessary for a normal sized person to flow over into their neighbor's seat or into the aisle.  Especially in Ecuador, these buses are used to transport all manner of freight, from huge sacks of potatoes to large bins and boxes all over the Andes, twisting, jerking and jolting around the extremely windy roads.

The most, absolute most, irritating aspect of this most-common type of bus is the tradition for the bus to stop and allow vendors onto the bus.  Down the bus aisle they stream, each loudly yelling the names of the goods they're selling. One after another, after another, after another in a seemingly endless stream these vendors create a parade. Mandarins, strips of fresh mango, water, soda, homemade fruit juices, breads, pastries, traditional food items, jewelry.  And our journey has to pause for this raucaus circus to end - usually in the heat of the sun baking the bus.

Then there are the vans with seats enough for about 12 passengers.  In some ways this type of transport is better.  They leave more often which is convenient.  They don't have room for vendors to come on board.  All the vans I've boarded are fairly old and show their wear - but they're not rattle-traps. 

Just over the border from Ecuador in Southern Colombia we took a fairly long trip in one of these vans.  Jeff sat in the front passenger seat and I sat between him and the driver.  And this driver thought he was a race car driver - clearly the worst daredevil I've seen.  As he jerked us in and out of lines of vehicles for many, many miles of windy, hair-pin turns in the Andes, I tried (for dear life) to not bump into the driver who was sitting right next to me and be responsible for killing a whole van full of people. That was a stressful ride.  Normally it's much better, thank God!

Manizales to Bogota:
So we chose an executive bus to travel east from Manizales to Bogota.  It was nine hours of unending twists over the Andes, down to the Rio Magdalena (remember that from 5th grade social studies?), and back up to over 8000 feet as we neared Bogota and it's 7 million people. At least these bus seats were comfortable and they let me stand up whenever I wanted to. 

Everyone has warned us of the dangers of Bogota. To the point that we had NO desire to deal with the bedlam of such a huge disorganized and scary town where avoiding being robbed in a taxi has resulted in an elaborate system of taxi numerology.

I have to stress that we so, SO didn't want to ride another bus, but we still opted for the less distressing option, immediately hopping on yet another one to get the hell out of Bogota.  So after a short stop at the Bogota bus terminal we hit the road, northward bound for several more hours to the small town of Zipaquira, a dot on the map which we figured was the way to our current destination of Villa de Leyva.

Really, we'd heard Villa de Leyva was a lovely location however we just needed to pass a couple of more days until our departure date from Bogota.

Bus lunch: granadilla, pitahaya, mango, wheat bread, and water - YUM!!!

Ch - Ch - Ch - Changes

We'r'e continually amazed by how our travel plans emerge and evolve from minute to minute, based on advice, reading, and . . . sometimes, sheer whim. Gladly we're not too old to thrive on a sense of adventure, destiny, and flexibility.  Without these, we'd be stodgy and boring . . . to ourselves and to others.

Case in point: I was focused on our next stop being a revisit to the large city of Medellin 40 years after my first trip to Colombia. We had even met a Doctor in Salento who kindly offered his home as a place we could stay in Medellin.

Yet as we reviewed our final week in Colombia and all the areas we still wanted to see - Medellin was Northwest and we needed to end up in Bogota to the east. Too many windy, Andean bus kilometers by far!

Back to the drawing board (otherwise known as the Lonely Planet for Colombia book).  In reading about somewhat nearby Manizales, a city of 400,000 on the way to Bogota, it sounded attractive so we switched plans.

But when we arrived, we were immediately reminded that we don't like large, disorganized, crowded cities. We managed to navigate to the recommended hostel, met the somewhat hostile, cold desk clerk, took one look at the rain-stained, moldy ceilings and switched plans. We rebooted our plans again.  We walked off, suitcases in tow, with no idea of where to go from there.  Voila!  Just across the street we found the Kaymandu Hostel where we were greeted with a warm smile by the owner Juan, and offered a lovely room.

You all know we are not city-people. That secret is out. So it was "interesting" to visit Manizales, but there is no love affair to report here.  Just another case of having to plow through the overwhelming barrage of rushing people, buildings, sooty exhaust,  street dogs, and other endless obstacles.

The main boulevard traverses the top of a high ridge perhaps 3 miles long, and it includes modern high rise buildings, shopping centers, and traffic - loads of traffic. The more modest residential sections cling to the sides of the ridge. And a thousand feet below in the valley is the brand new bus terminal from which you travel up to the city center via taxi, bus, or ... the inexpensive Disney-style cable lift.

Our 2 days in Manizales were a little haphazard. We tried to visit some local towns and attractions. The botanical garden was disappointing- more a historical concept than a current reality.  The largest bamboo structure in Colombia closed 25 minutes before we  managed to get there on the city buses. Then the small towns of Palestina and Chinchina were unremarkable.

What are we doing here?

As usual, our interactions with the people were the true treasure.

One after another in separate conversations, our friends at the hostel Olga, Juan, and Lina all insisted we must visit Villa de Leyva before leaving Colombia.

Yes that fits perfectly! Thank you!!











Now we know why we needed to come to Manizales!


And now we have an energizing new travel plan that will carry us through our final days in Colombia.

We are on the road again.

Knock Knock

Who's there?
Filandia.
Filan ... Who?



The world is full of guides, often found in quite unexpected places.  Finding our way on this journey means being open and willing to listen. Along those lines many of our newly found Salento friends have pointed us towards the nearby town of Filandia.

Yep, we also thought they just left out the "n", but not so. The name means "daughter of the Andes".

It is not as touristy or as developed as Salento, but may well be its rival in the future.  The consensus is that land prices there have not yet risen like they have already in Salento. As a matter of fact, several expat restauranteurs in Salento wish they'd chosen Filandia to invest in.



So off we go on a little bus side trip down the twisty mountain road to the Panamerican highway. The bus driver made sure we understood how to catch the bus to Filandia; simply cross the highway and stand by the flower shop...easy.


As he drove off he swerved back to the side of the highway and again hung his head out the window,  (AND his assistant and a passenger at the same time) ALL pointing vigorously that we needed to cross the highway. OK already! We really did know what to do (this time) and were just waiting for oncoming traffic to slack off.

But no matter: we've grown accustomed to being baby-sat, and more often than not it has proved to be a blessing.  We waved back at them and ran for dear life across the PanAmerican Highway.

It was a bit of a wait, but we succeeded in catching the right bus (after flagging down a dozen or so of the wrong ones) which delivered us near the main plaza in Filandia.  We begin scouting the town.

Habitually now we say "Buenos dias" or "Buenos tardes" to everyone we pass. It's a common courtesy and a lovely habit to get into. After greeting one man in Filandia this way, he spun around and chased after us smiling from ear to ear and saying "Gooooda Morninga!" in his best English. He wasn't selling anything or being obnoxious, he just wanted to make sure we felt welcome in his town - and that we become aware that he knew some English words.

Well OK then. That's a real good start. These are not eyes-down city-folk. Cool.  And although they seemed fully aware that two "tall", white foreigners were in their midst, at least they didn't stare.



We sat down for a cup of "cafe tinto" near the plaza and surprise! It was not the usual instant coffee or some bottom of the barrel grade coffee. It was the real quality, full strength, expresso stuff.  Filandia, you're starting to look pretty good.  You serve the same coffee that you grow rather than exporting ALL of it.



We set off walking towards a large observation tower built as a tourist attraction right outside town. From the top we got a panoramaic 360 degree view of the Cafetera, Colombia's coffee-growing region; beautifully green with rolling hills and river valleys.

The land all around was dotted with tile roofed haciendas.  Being the fickle farts that we are, we turned our noses from Salento and began dreaming of living in a Filandia finca.  Surely there must be at least one old, tired coffee grower that would love to part with their treasure.

Eventually we got hungry from our day.  We stopped into the best restaurant we could find (that means clean and orderly) and shared a large plate of "Bandeja Paisa". Apparently this is the traditional meal of the country from back in the days when people ate only one cooked meal per day. My goodness the calories!

So this is what we were faced with trying to eat: large portions of potatoes, rice, and red beans accompanied by generous slices of avocado and fried plantain. Then for meat the plate included some grilled skirt steak, a large sausage, a type of ground, cooked meat and something that appeared to be a chunk of deep fried pork/bacon . Between us we ate the whole thing, didn't get sick, and we still felt well-fed far into the next morning..

Filandia, you are on our map.

A Touristy Kind of Place

In addition to being the prime jump-off point for wilderness hiking in the National Park alpine areas, Salento is, well, it's a party town for Colombians from the big cities.



Colombia has 54 festival days, so except for September you have loads of 3 and 4 day weekends.



That means that every weekend is a party weekend.

International tourism is still not common in Colombia because of all the years it was not a safe country. However Colombians are enthusiastic tourists within their own country. Almost every weekend, our friends tell us, you can expect Salento to roll out the party gear up in the plaza.  Salento is the Colombian equivalent to Julian or Leavenworth.

Food and craft booths, beer gardens, and salsa dance floors are set up. The people begin arriving Friday and by Saturday night things are rocking. That means wall to wall cars and people in the main plaza.  Really there is not a lot of drinking, mostly families walking around and enjoying the cool mountain air, having lunch, and just hanging out together. Pretty sweet - but loud nonetheless.


At the Monte Verde restaurant you could even have lunch and get a tooth filled, because the owner is a dentist with all his very modern dental equipment set up in a back room of the restaurant.  Cute.



Up by the plaza an old dance master enthralls a sidewalk crowd with his act, backed by a 4 piece band. A dessert tamale vendor walks the streets with his wares. The Brunch restaurant serves up excellent American comfort food to the backpackers and a few brave Colombian families who want to eat "ethnic" American food.

        Festival!     

Yet another interesting aspect of our favorite Colombian town!

Finca de Cafe

Coffee does not come from Starbucks. Mention Starbucks here and nobody even knows the name.




We all know this, but when we visited the beautiful Finca Ocaso near Salento we really gained an appreciation for all the work that it takes to produce quality ORGANIC coffee.

Almost everything seems to be done by hand because the land is very steep and tractors simply would not work.

The work begins with the planting of the coffee beans in seed beds filled with river sand. Four months later the best seedlings are transplanted into pots filled with the rich local soil. After eight months in a greenhouse they are transplanted out into the finca.



At the age of 33 months the little bush begins producing fruit, and produces continuously. Every 2 weeks for the next 4 years the coffee must be harvested - only the red cherries, not the green, and all by hand. OUr tour guide Marcos shows pictures of how coffee is mechanically harvested in Brazil and explains that is why their coffee is so inferior for drinking.

After 4 years of production the plants can be cut back for resprouting. This process requires 18 months to 3 years depending on how it's done, and then coffee can be harvested from that plant again for another 3 years.

This finca uses only one chemical input and that is a small amount of phosphate fertilizer that is added to a kilogram of organic compost during the planting process.

During the harvest 20 to 30 pickers each pick about 200 Kg of coffee berries per day, for which they are paid about 400 pesos per Kg. So a good picker can make 40 to 50 dollars per day in US dollars.

All of the coffee processing, including separation of the bean from the cherry, removal of the "mucilage" from the bean, and solar drying of the beans.

There are so many types of coffee defects that are removed by hand, and amazingly at the end there is about a ton of coffee harvested per hectare (2.45 acres).

Marcos served a cup of his best proudly at the end of our tour. And offered to help us buy and operate the finca next door.

Thoughts of living in a small hacienda out in this stunningly beautiful part of Colombia have spun in our heads ever since. The wildlife and birds are plentiful here (fox, coyote, ocelot, parrots). The water comes directly out of the high mountains east of here and is absolutely pure.

What a pleasant dream.

We Are in Coffee Country

This is very nice.

We are in the scenic mountain town of Salento which is at an altitude of about 6500 feet. The folks here tell us that it's 75 degrees every day, and while I'm not sure I believe that, I am sure it is what we like.

The only reason we are here is that a German couple said it was the place for us. This happened long ago down in Southern Ecuador.

  

We have met so many warm and friendly people here. Some expats from the US, UK, Spain, Switzerland, and some native Colombians. Everyone has gone out of their way to help us make connections, look at properties, and just simply be delightfully fun to be around.

 

There is actually good coffee to drink here. Today we took a tour of a coffee "finca" of 25 hectares. We now know how to grow the plants from seed, transplant, tend, and harvest the coffee. We also saw the machinery used to remove the "cherry" and begin the drying process.

What a commitment to quality!
Colombia is #4 in volume, #1 in quality.