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...

A Weekend Getaway

Whereas Finns have summer cottages and getaway cabins by a lake, the Colombians have fincas, weekend and vacation houses outside of Bogotá.

A Finnish friend of mine, Jukka, invited us to his parents-in-law's finca in Viota, 90 km south from Bogotá last weekend. We happily accepted the invitation as we haven't done yet many excursions here. Last Monday was a feriado, a public holiday so it customary to take advantage of the possibility to escape the city. Even if the distances in kilometers are not very long, one must calculate at least two hours of driving because of the combination of huge amount of fleeting Colombians and curvy serpentine roads.

On the way we passed a very stinky and polluted river, some other villages and many curves. The white stuff in the river is not water foam but pollution, unfortunately. All the dirt from Bogotá's industries ends up in this river.

Makes you want to recycle, right?

After breakfast and meeting another couple on the way that Jukka invited, we arrived at the finca!
 

Viota is a village in tierra caliente, meaning hot land. The temperature rises significantly as we are descending 2000 meters from the plain of Bogotá to this village. In Viota the weather is humid and warm, close to +30 degrees.

Jukka's wife Carolina and their daughter, Kataliina.

The view from the finca was spectacular.

The pool was just a fantastic refreshment. As there are no seasons in Colombia, the weather is always pretty much the same.

The houses are built differently because one doesn't have to worry about cold temperatures. So there is an open inner courtyard or patio in the house. The house is huge with six bedrooms, three bathrooms, a kitchen and dining / living area, which of course was not much in use because the most of the time is spent outside.

This kiosco offers shade and hammocks by the pool - total relaxation! Additionaly, at the finca there were numerous fruit trees - orange, papaya, mango, lulo, soursop (=guanabana), coconut, you name it! Paradise.

However, we didn't spend too much time in there as we were exploring the village on one day and the marvellous landscape by bike another day. More to follow...