Quebrada Valencia and Palomino

So this is Quebrada Valencia. The picture does it no justice, as usual. The waterfall itself continues up into the jungle and there are several pools to swim in. Of course there are next to no tourists. That´s because to get to Quebrada Valencia, you have to get off the bus at the correct bridge. Yep, no sign, no town except for the few houses far inside the jungle, but when you do get off the bus you enter into a completely different world. First you walk alongside a small

farm, already inside the jungle, and then you follow the dirt trail alongside all sorts of amazing plants, trees and flowers. The birds and bugs provide the soundtrack. The waterfall is about a half hour hike from the road and has 4 main pools to swim in. The few people who do arrive don´t know about the trail to the fourth waterfall/pool. It was obvious because of how overgrown it was. Right now is fruit harvest season. There are mangos, avocados, bananas, guanabanas, pineapples, etc. in abundance. I tried to do my part to not let very many go to waste. I estimate that if I would have eaten that quantity of organic fruit in the United States, it would have cost me approxiamately $40 a day, and probably wouldn´t have tasted nearly as good!

In Quebrada Valencia lives a man named Alex. He is from Bogota and would probably best be described as a hippie. He has been living there since the 70´s and now has created some projects that are using the land that was once overgrown with coca plantations and converting them to cacao plantations to produce organic chocolate to export. In addition, the people that are doing the labor are people who were displaced from their homes because of the war and violence. These people come down from the mountains because the paramilitary make threats against them. Once they come down from their communities to the civilized world, they are left without any form of survival, most of them having spent their entire lives without electricity, running water, money, or concepts such as theft. Their lives are turned upside down. At least now, 20 families will be taking part in this project and will be able to continue their lives in the mountains.

From Alex´s house it is a 20 minute walk to the beach, which was deserted for the most part. The waves were pretty big, but we walked for about 40 minutes to the west until we found a little fresh water lagoon that was really close to the ocean. There were a lot of palm trees, really pretty turqoise water and a really hot sun. Here in Colombia, I reapply sunblock about every hour.... and I still get a tan.

I also played a concert for my favorite tree. Hey... the jungle deserves a little Bach too, and if I drag a cello around all these countries, there has to be a good reason, no?

Anyways, from Quebrada Valencia, I travelled to Palomino, a fishing village up the coast. It has the river and the ocean and a lot of fishermen who apparently are very modern and all try to buy a louder soundsystem than their neighbor to blast horrible music all day long. Fortunately, where my friends live is way far in the back of the village, far from the noise. Early in the afternoon, we walked to the river. There were some girls washing clothes with their little siblings swimming and spear fishing. You know, the usual South American scene. The kids all wanted their picture taken, of course so they could see it afterwards.

Afterwards, we decided to go to the beach, but apparently we went down the wrong street because we ended up at the military base. Along the way, we walked down a really pretty road lined with big trees. We passed some girls who told us that we were going the right way, and they were obviously coming from the beach. We got to the base and asked if they would let us through to the beach, and they said okay. So they showed us the trail and we started walking. There were a bunch of camps (military guys with hammocks set up and big guns set up on the side of the trail) along the way. I hate guns and wasn´t too fond of the trail to the beach, but we continued anyway. We had to walk through a mangrove and then came out to where the river comes out to meet the ocean. It was beautiful, and worth the walk. Thankfully all the military guys were nice and said hi. Some even invited us to stay for dinner.

The best part of Palomino was later that night. A family of 8 Kogis (the indigenous group that lives above in the mountains) came to town to sell their products. They arrived to my friends house, saw that they had an indigenous style hut and walked right into the yard. When they looked in the hut, they saw a tv and all sat down in the doorway (the two wives and 5 children, while the husband went to town). They all sat there mesmorized, watching Chucky of all things. My friend stood up, in front of the tv and asked who understood spanish amongst them. They all stared at him blankly, annoyed that he was blocking their view. When the husband returned, he asked if they could stay the night at my friend´s house, in their living room. My friend said that they should go to the indigenous house (a place for the Kogis to stay if they come into town and it takes a whole day walking to return). The man refused, saying that they would just sleep in the yard. The whole scene was really comical because the husband hardly knew any Spanish, and my friend doesn´t know any Kogi. In the end, he took them all to the indigenous house.