So last Friday night I was feeling bored and kind of lonely
so I decided to walk around PR to see if I could find something interesting to
do. Now I know what many of you are
thinking: just go to a bar Matt, meet some townies and make like a
Colombian. Alas, while that is my
prerogative, it is not the means to which I would like to meet those ends. So I stumbled into the Casa de la Cultura to
use the wifi and check my email and such, when all of a sudden I heard guitar
music wafting down from the top floor of the casa. I went and checked it out and I found that a
classical guitar class was in session so I stayed and listened and the next
thing I knew I was trying to sight read some sheet music. Now I can read music like I can read a quantum
theory textbook. I recognize the
language, and I understand what the individual words may mean, but to put it
all together and I got nothing. That and
the fact that I never really learned what notes I’m mashing on when I play
guitar resulted in me being rather embarrassed by performance. However, this girl came over and decided to
help me suffer through the process, which was really nice of her and soon we
got to talking and such. Her name is
Angel and she lives pretty close to PR so we decided to meet up a couple of
days later and she would show me a cool river.
And I found out that the lessons are free so now I’m taking classical
guitar lessons here in PR, which is pretty cool. Perhaps I play you all a ditty the next time
our paths cross.
So I meet
up with Angel on Sunday afternoon and I hop on the back of her motorcycle and
we head for the river, which happens to be a bit off the map so to speak. I get to see the scenery as we’re zipping
along the mountain out of PR and my oh my this place just keeps getting better
and better. Its just mountains,
everywhere. Not really super tall or
imposing ones, except for Tatamá in the distance, but there’s just kind of tons
of medium small ones everywhere and everything seems to exist on a slope or
valley of some kind. I’m guessing that
this place kind of looks like a wavy green dune from space. Lots of texture is the way I guess I would
describe it. But anyways, we head off of
the main road up this dirt path, which I would never have known to turn down
and we wind our way up to Angel’s house.
I’ve used this description before, but I would best describe this path
as jungle. Just straight up tropical
forest. Maybe there’s a subtle
distinction between those two things, but I don’t know it sooooo yeah. Anyways.
We get up to her house and I meet her lovely mother and cousin and then
we depart again in search of the river.
Some 20 minutes later, averaging something like 5 km/h we made it to a
bridge and low and behold we were right outside of the Tatamá nature preserve. Instead of heading to the main gate we duck
under this bridge and start moving our way upstream. More indescribable beauty, yatta yatta yatta, it is pretty awesome. Before I know
it I have abandoned my flip flops for the bare foot approach to rock scrambling
and we continue forward for over an hour.
At a certain point we decided to do a 180 and made it back just as dusk
turned to true darkness and I had one of those my lord, I’m actually in
Colombia moments.
To paint
the scenery I was soaking wet and a little cold on a river bank in the kind of
darkness that only allows silhouettes in shades of grey to be perceived. As I look up I notice fire flies, not very
many, but enough to blip their green yellow bulbs into existence
for a just a moment at a time along the riverbank. Then I hear the water passing by just a few
meters from my feet, calm and constant, and then the lightning. The flashes in the sky were neither awe
neither inspiring nor accompanied by their boisterous cousin thunder. Just bright enough to lend depth and color to the low clouds
of the overcast skies and just often enough to make your heart beat just a
little bit faster. Then once again I
realized that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.
We left the
river and motored back to Angel’s house where we feasted on their homegrown
goodies. There I found out that they are
basically organic subsistence farmers, who grow cucumbers, tomatoes, plantains, mandarins, an assortment of beans, and I am sure a whole lot more on their 7 hectares of isolated mountainside farmland. We had all of those in some capacity during
our meal. And then for desert they had
homemade tofu smothered in homemade guyava jam.
Keep it in your pants you damn hippies.
I know you just had you dream commune described to you, but the best
part about it was that they harbored none of the preachy, smug, self-righteousness
culture that clings to American organic movement like a bad odor. So, it was cool or whatever, I guess.
Then I biked home and passed out with sore feet and a full belly and I lived happily ever after
for the rest of forever. Just kidding, I woke up the next morning with legs that were pretty sore, because apparently I ride motorcycles wrong or something. Anyways, that was like 5 days ago, I’m not sure what the deal is with the happily ever
after. Peace, Love, breathe deep, and
don’t forget where you’re at.
<3,
Mateo
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