Barichara

Saturday, February 5

We hit the road early, still slightly rainy outside. Again, Stephan talked the whole way sharing his wealth of knowledge about the region. We admired the scenery change as we dropped in elevation from high desert to an agricultural area where they grow coffee, sugarcane, and other fruits and vegetables. The traffic was made worse by the donkeys (burros) carrying the sugarcane up the hill to the plants where they burn off the water to get pure sugar.

We stopped at a local shop to get some bocadillos- square sugary candies made from guava fruit. I recognized these guava squares wrapped in banana leaves because my colleague Manny (whose wife is from Colombia) used to feed them to me to keep my spirits up in the afternoon when we worked in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. We tried the bocadillos the local way, with a piece of cow cheese that had ripened within a banana leaf (queso de oja). It was ¡DELICIOSA! We bought a sampler pack of candies with different flavors- many of which we didn’t recognize what they even were.

The next stop was at a café which Stephan said had great coffee. We all ordered Flat Whites. It was a little surprising to find good coffee on the side of the road. The view from the back porch of the café was also phenomenal. The area reminded me of Santa Barbara, CA, but more extreme and without the snoody rich people.
We finally made it to our destination- Barichara- and Stephan drove us through the town square before taking us to where we were staying for the night- Finca San Pedro. We stopped by a roadside cafe and got some fried potatoes balls with a hard boiled egg inside. It was like a Colombian samosa. They offered spicy sauce to go with it and we loved it.

Finca means country house and the place was like a bed and breakfast out in the middle of nowhere. We were the only guests and Kathia and Jorge treated us so well. The place was so beautifully decorated that it needs to be featured in Sunset magazine. Kathia is German and got to speak with Stephan before we said goodbye to him and then Jorge, native to Medellin, showed us around.

Shortly after arrival the hosts called a Tuk Tuk to take us into town. We went to the paper workshop/ factory where local artisans still make paper the old fashioned way. We also stopped by the cemetery which has many unique sculptures carved by a local. Many of the carved tombstones were religious but some were unique to the person like a guitar or a baseball hat.

Afterwards we walked up the hill to a viewpoint and ordered a couple of cocktails from the restaurant on the top of the mountain. We watched birds soar and clouds move while the sun slowly set.

Kathia recommended a small, local, woman owned restaurant for dinner. We shared an arepa burger which basically just took an arepa and put a burger in it – it had two flat corn buns, cheese, and many vegetables. We got the same Tuk Tuk driver home and he almost made it up the steepest hill to the house but did have to concede and let us out to walk up the rest of the way.

Sunday, February 6

We woke up early and Kathia and Jorge fed us good coffee, juice, fruit, and homemade yogurt and homemade muesli with dried fruit and cocoa nibs.

We set out to hike the Camino Real- a local walk that connects to a nearby town, Guane. Our hosts advised us to leave as early as posible to avoid the heat so by 7am we were on the trail. It was a nicely maintained trail with a stone path almost the whole way.

We made it to Guanes at 8:30am. Kathia had recommended a restaurant and a place to get drinks, but it felt too early to do either. We did ask the local bodega about the local drink, Mosato, a fermented rice drink, and sampled a cup of it for about .50 cents US. Before leaving the town we also tried an arepa with egg in it that was one of the best roadside foods we’ve had.

The hike back up the hill was steep and we worked up quite a thirst. We decided to stop at the local bar to get a cold beer and try playing the local game, Bollo Criollo. Carl was pretty good at it actually and I was terrible. There was a local barfly hanging out who was kind enough to try to explain the game to us, and paid for our beers. When we tried to buy him a beer before leaving, he bought us another so then we had to go before it got too hot to walk the rest of the way.

We left and walked the rest of the way back to our Finca, getting home before noon. Surprisingly the outdoor shower was warm and there was a cool breeze. We spent the next few hours lounging in the hammocks and enjoying the view.

For dinner we went to Elvia, a fancy restaurant in town. Kathia called us a Tuk Tuk driver who looked at his phone the whole way but did stop by an Instagram famous spot, The Abyss, before taking us into town.

For dinner we tried all the weird things. One appetizer was like boiled corn cobb (just the cobb) with a creamy sauce and fried ants on the outside. It was by far the weirdest thing I’ve ever gotten at a fancy restaurant but it was tasty. We also got smoked cróquets and for our main some very herby thick bacon, like pork belly. We’ve become foodies since living in NYC and this restaurant met our standards for weirdness + deliciousness.

After we tried to find a Tuk Tuk back to the house but none were to be found. It was Sunday, and rainy, and Colombians don’t usually stay out so late (it was about 9pm when we finished dinner). We asked the restaurant and a bar nearby but it seemed the only Tuk Tuk parked in the square was driven by a man who didn’t want to take us (either too many beers or he didn’t feel like driving up some windy, dirt roads. Perhaps both). We texted our hosts but decide to try to walk it. Google maps said it would take one hour to walk. Usually a one hour walk after dinner wouldn’t phase us. And it wasn’t raining too hard when we left the town. For the record, EVERYONE said it wasn’t going to rain each day when the weather forecast predicted it, and to this point they had been right, no rain. So we hadn’t brought rain jackets and I was wearing flip flops. It seemed the second that we thought to ourselves “this isn’t bad” the rain picked up and was coming down pretty hard for a while. After about half an hour the paved road gave away to steep, dirt road. Again, normally we wouldn’t be phased but in my flip flops I kept slipping in the mud. Finally Carl saw a text from Kathia that she was coming to get us. Kathia and Jorge drove down in their Jeep Cherokee and rescued us. We examined the rest of the walk from the car and I don’t think I would’ve made it haha. We felt bad for not calling Kathia in the first place but when we got home we weren’t actually that wet and my flip flops were still intact. We slept really well after that.