Guatapé
Saturday, February 3,
2018 Guatapé
This morning we drove about
50 miles from Medellin to the beautiful town of Guatapé. The road, on a weekend
morning, had an amazing number of cyclists; we are told cycling is the second
national sport, with only soccer being more popular. This hilly, winding mountain route seemed extraordinarily
dangerous for bicyclists, but we saw no accidents. We stopped on the way at a very popular café for
their signature hot chocolate and freshly cooked cheese bread. Here’s a short video of the baker and a photo of the finished product:
Some of our group climbed
the 650 feet up; we did not. From the
base of El Peñón there is a wonderful view of the large lake created by an
enormous hydroelectric dam, built in 1977, which produces a substantial part of
Colombia’s electricity.
Colombia produces the
great majority of its electricity with hydro, and exports electricity to neighboring
countries. We drove into town and
stopped for lunch. I had the local
tilapia, which turned out to be a whole bony fish:
A trademark of the town is
the zokolos, or Guatapé “sockets.” From the Colombia tourism web site, “…those
lower parts of the facades of the houses, have often painted in colors in the
town of Guatapé since the
early twentieth century. Some of the designs that visitors see there are
related to the history of the town, while in others sunflowers, landscapes and
daily life objects are represented.”
They are lovely and interesting:
This panel reflects part
of the very difficult story of the abuse of the indigenous people by the
dominating Spanish after contact:
The three-wheeled taxis
resemble the tuk-tuks of SE Asia:
One of the streets is
shaded in a unique way:
Many of the commercial
buildings carry the town’s look:
Despite cloudy, threatening
weather, we had a nice hour on the lake, and saw the ruins of the estate of
Pablo Escobar, whose empire extended throughout this region:
The view of the monolith
from the lake is impressive:
Back in Medellin we had a
delightful dinner, and on Sunday it’s off to Cartagena. Avianca has done it again—they’ve cancelled
the non-stop flight from Medillin to Cartagena, and it looks like most of the day
will be spent traveling via Bogota.
Ugh. There’s also a fourth change
in our flight from Cartagena to Miami, and as it now stands, we’ll miss our
flight to Rochester on Tuesday evening and will have to overnight in Miami and
come home Wednesday. Double ugh.
More fascinating things! That house decoration showing a native Colombian hauling a Spaniard up the hill in a chair is based, I believe, on a famous illustration of the time that I have seen reproduced in books. (The Portuguese and Spanish colonizers were often portrayed as cruel in writings by English, Dutch, French, and Italian chroniclers and illustrators.) Interesting to see how that kind of a negative image can now sit comfortably (or uncomfortably) amidst all the other colorful images, most of them quite positive. What a cheerful look those decorations give a public street! I suppose some people in the US would object that the result is "garish"....
ReplyDelete--Good luck with the travel. I hope you're at least told what the new flight arrangements are, so you don't have to sit in airports for hours.
The trip sounds fascinating, but exhausting, with all these flight cancellations and additional driving. Good luck on the trip home. I always say if I get where I'm going or get home within one day of when I'm supposed to, it's a good trip.
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