Fabulous day

It’s been another full-on 10 hour day. But such an interesting and enjoyable one. After scrambled eggs and blackberry juice for breakfast we left at 8 for the hour’s drive to Solento where we boarded restored Willy’s jeeps. Colombia bought these WW2 vehicles from the US in 1946. We were heading for the Cocora Valley. It being Sunday the road up was busy with cyclists and joggers. I don’t know how they managed as we were in the foothills of the Andes at around 2800 metres. At least with the altitude it wasn’t too hot for our step uphill hike amid the very tall wax palms. They only grow 5cm a year yet The Cocora Valley palms (“las palmas de cera” in Spanish) are the tallest in the world. They can grow to a height of 45 metres (148 feet) and a few have even reached 60 metres (200 feet). Their trunks are covered with wax and local people used to make candles from it in the past.Unfortunately the national park was more like a theme park with thousands of families having a day out to enjoy the food stalls and weird statues.

Our local guide Jorge gave us some history of the area and other information.
The Guadua, a type of bamboo that we saw in the gardens yesterday, has many purposes from being used for house-building to making bags. Colombia is the second most bio-diverse country in world after Brazil with 19,500 different species. They even have a spectacled bear. He told us the burnt out house we passex had belonged to Carlos Ledher, the drug baron. Allegedly he had a gold statue of John Lennon in the garden.

We plodded uphill for 600m following a steep but twisting earth path till we reached the mirador. There Andres provided coffee with rum which we drank, watching a soaring condor.

Unfortunately he chose to take us back a more direct way which was so steep it was all steps - tough on the knees. At the bottom the bus met us and took us for a tasty and very filling traditional lunch. I had Bandejas Paisa. This was rice, a barlotti bean stew with fried plantain, corn bread, avocado and 2 fried eggs. Obviously I couldn’t eat it all. And won’t eat tonight.

Then the bus drove down to Somento where we just made it in to the Tejo place. We were going to play the national game. Apparently it’s best played with a beer in hand so we had one called Poker. The interior of the building was brightly coloured. The floor was concrete and music blared. The din was even worse when the storm hit and rain crashed down on the roof. We had 2 courts so 8 played in each. We chose our heavy stone - they were of different weights. At the other end of the court was a solid board placed at a 45 degree angle. It held clay. The aim was to throw your stone to reach the middle of the iron ring placed in the centre of the clay. However it was surrounded by bits of folded plastic which contained gunpowder.
If you just missed you got a fright when it exploded. This was exacerbated by the thunder overhead. It was good fun. I managed to hit the centre right at the start when everyone was still milling about and of course I never repeated it. The Irish woman Mary said I managed it because I tossed the caber in my spare time.

We stayed till the rain stopped then drove into town to have a walk round. The streets had 2 storey houses made of Guadua and painted in a mixture of very bright colours. It’s a very popular town for young back packers to visit though they were in the minority as most walking round were Colombian families. There was a statue of Bolivar with his sword raised which means he visited the town. If his sword is down he didn’t. A service was going on in the church. The priest had a very efficient loudspeaker and appeared to be giving his congregants good telling off. When they stood up while he spoke more quietly done held up their right hand to shoulder level. The Catholics in the group didn’t know what that meant.

We are really tired now so won’t be having dinner. Despite climbing 200m to 3000m and doing 13,000 steps 5.5 miles my phone says I have climbed 1 floor!

Thank you for the kind words about Nathaniel. He’s ok about getting his hair cut for the part in Goodnight Mr Tom as he thinks he’ll can send it off to be made into a wig for a child with cancer.