Orchids

January 31, 2018  Orchids

We left Salento for Manizales, and the road was good.  They have a fun way of identifying rest stops—they do so with giant coffee mugs:

We stopped at one for a cappuccino:

We began our learning today with a visit to a completely demolished hacienda.  One of the most important drug lords and a founder of the Medellin cartel, Carlos Lehder Rivas, had a huge compound with multiple buildings on a hilltop in the countryside.  We stopped there and heard, on site, the story of his remarkable reign, with a huge home, multiple outbuildings, lavish parties (Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones played there for private parties twice) and his ultimate capture and extradition to the USA where he was convicted and is currently in prison.  The buildings are all in ruin because there had been giant stores of cash hidden in the walls of the buildings, and the buildings have been torn apart looking for money.

From there we drove to Finca Romelia, a hacienda devoted to orchids and birds.  On the walk down to the main house, we passed a virtual forest of what looked like bamboo but was identified by our guide as guadua, a relative of bamboo, indigenous to this part of Colombia, and as useful as bamboo in so many ways:

  

We arrived at the main house:

We were taken on a tour by the daughter of the owner; she expects to take over the orchid farm when her father cannot do it any more.  The variety of orchids was astonishing, and they were so amazingly beautiful.  Here are four:

On the edge of a beautiful deck was a veritable curtain of orchids:

 There were also a few Bonsai, and even those had volunteer orchids on them:

The hacienda has a huge number of birds, and the birders among us were having a field day;  Here’s one of the hummingbirds:

  

And this was identified to me as a Blue-grey Tanager:

I don’t know what this bird is, but I liked it:

The place is a photographer’s paradise!  We had lunch on a patio at the hacienda, and then left to drive to the city of Manizales, We’re still high in the Andes at 6900 feet elevation.  After checking into the hotel, we visited a clinic sponsored by Road Scholar and run by a pediatrician.  The clinic focuses on poor children with surgically correctible heart disease, and pays for the entire workup and surgical procedure in Bogota.  We had a powerful presentation from the pediatrician who runs the operation.

Tomorrow we drive to Medellin.  We found out tonight that the road from Manizales to Medellin is closed, as a bridge on the road requires replacement.  Our guide is working on alternative routes, but in the Andes that’s not easy.  To be continued.