Village Life in Viota

Getting to know a little village is best done on Sundays, when the people of the village are out and about in their markets, filling the street with colours, noises, smells and movement. For many locals it is also the pay day - the goods produced and/or grown are sold further.

Trapiche de panela
 

That Sunday was very informative also for us as it began by paying a visit to our host's own sugarcane mill. We got to see how a trapiche, a little sugarcane mill's production, works. Panela, or sugarcane in English, is a very sweet, fairly fast growing plant that resembles a bambu.

The sweet sugar cane is cut and the juicy sugar is taken out. I must admit, I didn't pay attention too well as I was concentrating on taking pretty pictures so some parts of the process I may have missed...

It is boiled in these tanks which eventually turns into sticky liquid as the water evaporates.

Bees smell the sweet sugar of the spades which are used for putting the mass into the wooden cast, where it cools down and dries. As Colombia doesn't have EU regulations there is still some room for improvement in the hygienic section. Apparently, this is about to change during this year and a special airtight room should be built for the molding process.

The end product is a big cube of sugar.

And these piles are brought to town to a store where they sell them to end customers.

Tienda de café
 

Coffee beans are waiting to be roasted.

Grind coffee beans.

The beans are brought in by a mule and sold to the store by the local farmers.

Beans being weighed.

This señor coffee maker told us about the process and showed where the beans are roasted.

Once I want to visit the Colombian coffee region known as Zona Cafetera, and then I can hopefully tell you more about the process. Meanwhile, the Sunday continued as did our tour in the village. We went to get lunch from the local meat market.

A man was selling bunny babies.


Plaza de mercado
 

I have to admit, at the meat market I saw a bit too much than I bargained for.

This cute toothless lady was 80 years old and in charge of killing the flies around the fish.

Fresher than this your lunch can't get.

Another man was taking a siesta in the market's fruit section.

Cabalgata de vaqueros
 
We were also lucky to see a little show done by the local cowboys. The beer sipping cowboys made their horses dance in a way I have never seen before! They called the special step of the horses trocha.

There is yet one part of our trip to Viota that I want to show you. To be followed...