Jaime's Farm

My cousin Jaime, mentioned in last post, is an incredibly colorful character, as well as a very warm and friendly person.  He is the oldes of a family of 6 siblings, and inherited and has significantly enhanced his family farm.  Speaking of "enhanced", one of the tools of his trade is his jeep, shown above.  Custom transmission, who knows how many horsepower, 200watt speakers, fire engine siren - it's a sight to behold and the ride of a lifetime.

Jaime took us on a tour of his farm, which has 8000 plaintain trees and 180,000 coffee plants.  It was an amazing experience.

Complete album here:  http://picasaweb.google.com/oscardario/JaimesFarm

Bolivar

Bolivar is a beautiful old town in a coffee farming region of Colombia. My mom and dad were raised there, before getting married and moving to Medellin. My gradmother's house was a beautiful classic colonial home in the center of town, across the street from the church and the plaza.

It's an incredibly verdant landscape, with every shade of green imaginable on the hillsides, including the dark rich green of coffee plants.

Most of our family and friends that still live there are involved in the coffee industry in one way or another, including my cousin Jaime who owns a huge coffee farm (next post).

It used to be the case that the only place to get good coffee in Colombia was to go to the airport and buy the "export quality" stuff that they generally sold to the United States, but I noticed that the quality of the coffee in general had improved quite a bit. Here are the boys drinking basically frapuccinos at a little coffee shop (much more charming than a starbucks) in Bolivar.

As in many farming areas, in Bolivar you have the extremes of wealth and poverty, so you see both beautiful colonial architecture and third-world shantys. The boys didn't seem fazed by any of it, but it was definitely a good experience to expose them to it all.

You can view the complete photo album here: http://picasaweb.google.com/oscardario/Bolivar

Bolivar

Bolivar is a beautiful old town in a coffee farming region of Colombia.  My mom and dad were raised there, before getting married and moving to Medellin.  My gradmother's house was a beautiful classic colonial home in the center of town, across the street from the church and the plaza.

It's an incredibly verdant landscape, with every shade of green imaginable on the hillsides, including the dark rich green of coffee plants.

Most of our family and friends that still live there are involved in the coffee industry in one way or another, including my cousin Jaime who owns a huge coffee farm (next post).

It used to be the case that the only place to get good coffee in Colombia was to go to the airport and buy the "export quality" stuff that they generally sold to the United States, but I noticed that the quality of the coffee in general had improved quite a bit.  Here are the boys drinking basically frapuccinos at a little coffee shop (much more charming than a starbucks) in Bolivar.

As in many farming areas, in Bolivar you have the extremes of wealth and poverty, so you see both beautiful colonial architecture and third-world shantys.  The boys didn't seem fazed by any of it, but it was definitely a good experience to expose them to it all.

You can view the complete photo album here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/oscardario/Bolivar

Jaime's Farm

My cousin Jaime, mentioned in last post, is an incredibly colorful character, as well as a very warm and friendly person.  He is the oldest of a family of 6 siblings, and inherited and has significantly expanded and enhanced his family farm.  Speaking of "enhanced", one of the tools of his trade is his jeep, shown below.  Nimble as a mountain goat, but with 200 watt speakers and a fire engine siren, this thing can climb out of anything.

Jaime took us on a tour of his farm, which has 8000 plantain trees and 180,000 coffee plants.  It was an amazing experience.

more pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/oscardario/JaimesFarm

Tierragrata (The Grateful Earth)

Tierragrata is the name of the farm thatt we stayed at for 3 days. Nobody is quite sure when it was built, but our friends purchased it about 40 years ago.


It has 6 bedrooms, and can probably sleep about 25 people if you include the hammocks. Currently it has horses, mules, chickens, ducks, and dogs (including a gentle German Shephard called 'Kaiser'), but I remember seeing monkeys and and peacocks there as a child.

It's a smallish coffee farm on the outskirts from the town of Bolivar where my parents were born and raised. More on that in the next post.

The boys loved Tierragrata -- all of them. Adrian loved running around, swinging on the hammocks, riding horses with his cousin (2nd cousin, actually, but you don't really make that distinction in Colombia, and as a result you end up with a lot of "cousins"). Nicolas loved the hammocks, horse-riding with his dad, and practicing his "Kung Fu Panda" staff techniques with the various riding crops hanging on the walls. Joaquin loved unfettered crawling around the many halls and outdoor patios, and trying to find Kaiser. Oscar and Betsy did a bit of horse riding as well, but after 2 days we were pretty sore.


One of Betsy's favorite parts of the house was the kitchen. It's about the size of our first apartment, with the greatest combination of farm-rustic original materials (wood burning stove, old tile and wood floor), and gourmet accoutrements (2 refrigerators, nice wine, Williams Sonoma-esque kitchen gadgets, etc.)

complete album at http://picasaweb.google.com/oscardario/Tierragrata

Alcides

Earlier, I promised a post about Alcides, the neighborhood grocer.

Colombia in general, and Medellin in particular, is very entrepreneurial. Everyone has an angle, everyone has a small business. Alcides, who lives 4 doors down from my parents, sells groceries and sundries from his garage. Nicolas and Adrian have gone there every day to get candy. My parents get their milk and eggs there instead of driving to the supermarket. Incredibly eco-friendly.

If I had more time I would write an entire post titled "What the U.S. could learn from the Developing World about efficiency and being green" Examples:
- milk, mayonnaise, ketchup, laundry detergent, etc. -- all liquid consumables come in plastic bags (for milk, you have little reusable plastic pitchers you put the plastic bags in.) Drastic reduction in packaging waste.
- roundabouts instead of traffic lights or stop signs at intersections -- this is my favorite. Incredibly efficient. No needless sitting and idling and burning gas waiting for the light to turn green.
- smaller cars. 'Nuff said.

More pix of my parent's neighborhood (including Alcide's store) at http://picasaweb.google.com/oscardario/Medellin

The Road to Medellin, Continued

Back to 3 posts ago...the ride was made even more exciting by the fact that recent heavy rains had produced some road-covering mudslides. One was so large that for now, instead of clearing it, the best they could do was bulldoze a single lane over it -- resulting in a nice little traffic jam as they allow cars to only pass in one direction at a time, as well as a very exciting crossing, with about a 1500 foot drop down one side...