Greetings from Mykanos.
Those of you who were worried about more cat stories can rest easy. The purring object of affection here at the moment is a barely tame beast of burden on which we rely everyday … our Golden Jeep, which has just turned 40.
Officially it is a model J6 and dates from 1975, although it is powered these days by a turbo charged diesel engine and has modern steering. We have retained the original equipment however for the day when some collector of rugged antiquity wants to buy a piece of history made the way Jeep originally intended it and which technology then allowed.
Of course our jeep is not a boy toy or badge of military machismo like the ones I have seen in Bogotá, London and Sydney. Jeeps are part of the patrimony of the Efe Cafetero (coffee region) and few if any television advertisements for coffee, or the wonders of the region, pass up the opportunity to show a jeep heavily laden with people or plantain or coffee powering along roads lined with coffee trees and stands of guada (the towering bamboo particular to coffee country).
Looking down from La Granja on the road bordered by guadua bamboo
I remember seeing bearded boys barrelling up Brewer Street in London’s Soho in a highly polished jeep, thinking what wankers they looked as they revelled in their metrosexuality. And then there was a recent travel article on Colombia in which the writer remarked on jeeps in Filandia, describing them as the preferred vehicle of estate managers and giving the inference that they were style accessories rather than essential kit.
Jeeps are how we get around. Most ‘sombrerones’ (‘big hatted men’ … coffee estate patrons) have an SUV of some sort to drive in town, but also a battered jeep to, in the words of the Carlsberg beer ads, reach the parts that other cars cannot. And in our area that encompasses quite a bit of territory. Public transport to everywhere except between the main towns is by jeep, usually packed to the gills inside with people, its roof crammed with bags of shopping and sacks of supplies, and with a host of ‘parilleros’ (grille hangers), hanging off the back.
When we drive down the valley, usually with only three of four of us inside, we are constantly waved and shouted at by people mistaking us for public transport and perplexed that such spacious accommodation is passing by.
I have however also been in our jeep when it was carrying 18 people … me and the driver, eight workers in the back, six on the roof, and Adriano and Horacio standing on the grille at the rear talking coffee. Luckily the workers are mostly indigenous and three of them can fit in the space I usually occupy.
By the way, as I am sure you all know, jeeps originated with the U.S. army where their official classification was ‘Vehicle, General Purpose’ or G.P. This is commonly thought to provide the origin of the name jeep. Some dispute it but I can just imagine some GI asking … “Hey Sarge, got a spare GP I can use?”. Sounds right to me.
On Saturdays in Anserma the area around the ‘galeria’ (covered market) is jammed with jeeps ready to take people back to their farms and villages with their weekly shop. As each jeep is filled to capacity, and beyond, it sets off to be replaced by another and another. Klaxon horns blast, exhausts belch, and of course, every jeep is equipped with a sound system delivering varying quality but non-varying volume. Even though many of these jeeps penetrate the depths and far reaches of the cordillera, for many passengers their journey home will only be over following a trek via foot, horse or donkey from the roadside drop-off point to their farms.
Saturday in Anserma
Condition and splendour of the jeeps vary as much as their owners. Some are ragtag collections of nuts, bolts, springs and rusted panels, whereas other positively gleam with chrome accoutrements and dazzle the eye with multicoloured stripes. Ours was the first golden jeep in town but now there is another, obviously inspired by our glamour, although it doesn’t match up to our yellow and black interior.
Perhaps the most distinctive however is the pink and white Barbie jeep, named after its owner’s nickname or ‘apodo’. The fact that he is known as ‘Barbie’ is no reflection on his manlihood, just as the ex-policeman and serial womanising neighbour of Adriano’s father Don Narciso is no less macho for being universally known as ‘Maria Bonita’ or ‘Beautiful Mary’.
Barbie…
Colombian nicknames are many and various; a local contractor is known as ‘Trompechucha’ or ‘Possum Mouth’, and Umberto, who works for us is known as ‘Gallinavieja’ or ‘Old Hen’. Even our 40 year old jeep has an ‘apodo’. Originally little brother Libaniel tried to have it branded ‘Golden Boy’, but as is usually the case, a nickname has to be grown into, and as I mentioned some time ago, our workers started calling it ‘El Turpial’ after a yellow and black bird that graces our region.
The turpial is famous for its beautiful song and country people would catch them and keep them in cages as captive songbirds. We disapprove of cages and prefer to hear their song emanating from the palms and bougainvillea, from where it sounds twice as sweet.
As for our jeep? To misquote Col. Kilgore in Apocalypse now … “I love the smell of diesel in the morning”.
Well, nobody is perfect.
Love from him and me,
Barry
