Greetings from Bogotá, on a day on which water rationing is allegedly in force.
The two reservoirs that supply the city with water have been greatly depleted by the El Niño weather anomaly and the city council has instituted rolling restrictions. The city of some 9,000,000 people has been divided into 9 zones and each zone has its own day of no water lasting 24 hours, and repeating every 10 days. At least that is the plan until the rains come again. President Petro actually advised citizens of Bogotá to go away for this weekend and use other department’s water resources. As it happened, as if by magic, we have now had three days of significant rainfall so maybe the rationing will be suspended, however both Adriano and I think that learning to respect and value water, and taking more trouble not to waste it, is a useful habit to adopt.
It was a reasonably quick return to Bogotá from the bush for me.
Adriano and I had just enjoyed a relaxing and refreshing Easter sojourn in Bogotá. Easter is a two-week holiday highlight here and it seems everyone in our neighbourhood heads off to their farms, the coasts, the traditional towns, the tourist traps and nearby foreign destinations leaving us with two weeks of calm delight. Almost every shop and store was closed and the roads around us were almost empty.
Apart from eating well at home we took advantage of the lack of traffic to do a little exploration, visiting Sopó, in the neighbouring department of Cundinamarca, which is at the heart of the Colombian dairy industry and home to huge dairy goods company Alpina. Our visit included an exhausting hike to the Cerro El Pionono, a mountain lookout and ecological park far above Sopó.
In Bogotá we visited Adriano’s last two remaining aunts on his father’s side. They are Amparo, aged 87, and Elisa aged 95. They have their own small house and are in surprisingly good shape, both physically and mentally. They, and their sisters, were uneducated country girls and at a young age came to Bogotá to work as live-in nannies and household help for wealthy families.
I had met Amparo a number of times many years ago, when she was working for a young assistant to the Italian consul. She told us how he was unmarried, lived by himself, cooked very well and decorated his apartment beautifully. “He is a modern boy,” she said. When she and another sister, visited us for dinner, she was just as impressed with Adriano’s cooking and artistic skills and flower arrangements, declaring us approvingly as thoroughly ‘modern boys’.
I had never met Elisa, as the family that employed her then did not encourage members of her family to visit her at the home in which she worked. On this past Good Friday, when we visited Amparo and Elisa, we learned that Elisa had worked for, and lived with that one family, for 70 years. During that time she had visited Mexico a number of times with them. They had a house there. Since she retired they have provided her with a pension, kept an eye on her well being, and visit regularly. After 70 years of continual presence, unbroken service and constant support to several generations I am not in the least surprised.
We drove back to Mykanos, taking our new preferred route, which is via volcano country and the Parque Nacional Natural Los Nevados.
Previously the road was more of a dirt rack and not suitable for normal cars but since the country became more peaceful there has been a lot of investment in infrastructure and that includes a modern road between smoking mountains, over solidified lava flows and fields, and past hot waterfalls smelling of sulphur.
The way into the park is via Murillo, the last town after the city of Libano (Lebanon) in the department of Tolima. Murillo is a small, quiet, colourful town where the main business is growing cattle and potatoes. It is colourful due to its distinctive architecture known as Tabla Parada … Painted Vertical Wood Panelling … which uses local building materials, both for convenience and flexibility.
Originally, when founded in 1872, the settlers built in the Spanish style with stone but very soon after, a strong earthquake destroyed all the houses except that of a poor man who had built using bamboo and vertical wood panels. The technique and style was set. Coping with shake, rattle and roll really means something in Murillo.
We partook of some Murillo delicacies at a kiosk in the main plaza, homemade arequipe (thick set caramelized milk) combined with local fruits. We had delicious coffee sweetened with arequipe and a dessert of uchuvas (physalis/Cape Gooseberry/ lantern fruit) and arequipe.
While talking with Carlos, the proprietor, whose wife makes the delicacies, I could not help but be distracted by the strange looking soft toys hanging from the ceiling. They had arms, legs, four eyes and vegetation where they should have had hair. Carlos explained that they are Frailejonés (Big Monks) and are the only major plant that flourishes between 3,000 and 4,800m above sea level in this part of the world. We were to see a great many of them as we progressed through volcano country. They are protected but inevitably some tourists fancy having one at home and dig one up, unaware of how successfully and copiously they multiply at the right altitude. Often the Frailejonés (known as Espelitia in English) take over the gardens completely and the new owners try to limit them by digging them up or even burning them, which Carlos said leads to disaster as fire is exactly what activates Frailejonés’ reproduction accelerator pedal. After all, they live on the sides of volcanoes. It reminded me of some Australian native plants that only reproduce when they have been burnt in a bush fire.
The road meanders across hillsides covered in them amidst low shrubs, all in shades of brown. It is one part of Colombia that is uncharacteristically noticeable for its lack of green.
It is a leisurely drive as the road is not very wide, there is not much traffic but what there is tends to stop a lot to take photos, and there are quite a few points where workmen are attending to problems with the road or endeavouring to stabilise it in an ever shifting landscape. There were steaming springs, desolate landscapes coming back from being paved with lava, and an ever-changing cloud profile and presence. Eye catching, breath taking and mind boggling, all apply.
And at 4,000m one really does appreciate a seat warmer.
We don’t need such things at our altitude but we certainly could do with a lot more rain, which has been sadly missing for too long. The culprit is El Niño again, which is hopefully winding down at last.
What is winding up is the appreciation and distribution of ‘Better Than Cocaine: Learning to grow coffee, and live, in Colombia’.
My publisher Richard is getting it into more bookshops here and with distributors elsewhere. Friends in many countries tell me their copy of the paperback has arrived, or will soon arrive, via Amazon. Some do reviews, which are so much appreciated. And we are seeing reviews from complete strangers who like what they encounter when they take the risk of buying my book.
One very big and wonderful surprise was an unheralded review by Gavin O’Toole in the Latin American Review of Books, entitled Paradise Found.
I quote one passage that might show you why I was so touched, and flattered, and delighted, and truly humbled by his review
‘But Better Than Cocaine is also the story of modern Colombia, which Wills has chronicled during an historic transition from a generation of civil conflict to the more hopeful, if messy, peace that prevails today. This has allowed its society to begin flourishing in ways that Wills has captured with the skill of an ethnographer.
One of his most laudable missions has been to puncture the negative stereotypes that persist in painting false images of a country racked by violent conflict, drug-trafficking and corruption.
Those things clearly remain shadows in the background of this story—insecurity is a prevailing theme—but as the author writes, today Colombia is attracting international attention for the right reasons: its beauty, passion and hospitality.
The negative baggage accumulated by outsiders very much reflects the exception rather than the norm, he says, quoting a British expat who told him: “Everything bad that you hear about Colombia is true. But so is everything good that you never hear.”
Indeed, the title of the book is a play on this, with Wills noting that “Colombia was much more famous for cocaine, guerrilla wars, kidnapping, random violence, murder and mayhem than for holiday homes, health and happy endings.”
For this stereotype-bashing reason alone, I would recommend that visitors to Colombia read this on the plane or pick it up at El Dorado International Airport upon their arrival—one hopes it is already on sale there. Better Than Cocaine is probably the best real introduction to the country and its people, written with both humility and humour, you are likely to find.’
Sorry to go on but it really made my morning, my day, my week and my month … and still we have only just begun. Richard is working on getting it into the bookshops at the airport as you read this, as well as organising a UK distributor.
Onward and upward … I look forward to signing as many of your books as possible, but more than that I look forward hopefully to hearing that you found it an enjoyable read.
One always lives in hope.
Love from him and me
Barry
