After breaking our fast in Guatapé (yes, I read a lot of Robin Hobb recently, hence the middle age vocabulary…), we took the bus to Alejandria. There are only 2 buses a day, so we didn’t want to miss this one ! We’re going to work (and rest) with Daniel and Christina at the Tierra Dulce farm near Alejandria.
We were told the bus journey should take about one and a half hour for under 30km, so we expected a chaotic road. So we weren’t surprised to discover a steep and muddy road full of holes slowly ascending the hills near the lake. The bus, even though it has very big wheels, still needed to slow down to a walking pace in some parts. It rocked a lot, but at least we’ll be ready when we’ll need to take a boat !
We arrived in Alejandria under a pouring rain that luckily didn’t last. After walking over 1 km we met Christina. She was heading into town to do some grocery shopping and meet us, but had been delayed because the road had collapsed (so she had to come on foot instead of taking the bus).
We went back to the town with her to help her shop. We also visited Alejandria a bit (which didn’t last long, it’s really small). It’s much less touristy than Guatapé (well, it’s also much harder to get to…), but there are still some tourists in the week-end who come to enjoy the countryside (we’re under 3 hours bus from Medellin, the second largest city in Colombia).
To get to the farm, we took the bus (the road had been repaired in between), which was a much better solution than walking the 5 km with 20kg of groceries (and our bags !). Daniel met us at the bus drop-off and we talked along the way to their farm (including 2 small metal bridges very slippery when wet !). They are very often toads on the way !
At their farm they cooked us a pretty neat almuerzo, with the best pork meat we’ve had since the beginning of the trip ! In the afternoon, we went to feed the hens and chickens, pet the horses and scare off the piglets. We also tried not to stomp on the chicks constantly walking beneath our feet !
We also played cards and discovered two new card games, one which requires memorization skills and the other quite like rami. The evening meal was patacones, a sort of pancakes made of fried platanos on which you can put tomatoes, onions and cheese. Like pancakes, it’s the lazy solution for when you don’t want to cook much, but it’s delicious ! We talked a lot with Daniel and Christina after dinner and hence improved our Spanish 😊
That’s all for the first day at Tierra Dulce. To be continued in the next post !
P.S : As expected, we don’t have any connection here, so all articles from our days at the farm will be posted as soon as we’re online again.