| Colombia |
| Up In The
Mountains Above Cali |
| by Jacky Akelsberg |
| Known for
its coffee and beautiful women, Colombia is a country with access to
both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, an innumerable amount of fauna
and flora, and incredible peaceful landscapes. On the southwest of Colombia
we find Cali, one of its major cities.
Cali is
a party city, every night you will find a place to go clubbing with
the most beautiful women you have ever seen all dancing to salsa. Now,
don’t get me wrong I love partying as much as the next guy but you get
to a point where you want to put all the noise behind you and just relax.
Fortunately,
if you are already in Cali you won’t have to look far for such a place. |
|
|
|
|
|
| After a twenty
minute drive north of the city you will reach the beginning of the road
to Dapa, a mountain town on the western mountain ridge of Colombia; it
is one of the few places up in the mountains that you can visit worry free
of encountering any sort of military trouble. Before it was dangerous to
go up to Dapa, but it hasn’t been for over 3 years. On this trip I was
heading up there with my family and my dog to my house which is around
twenty to thirty minutes up the hill. On the foot of the mountain a stream
that comes down from the mountain and ends up in a natural pool where all
the locals bathe every Sunday while eating Arepas and Chorizos.
The weather
was great, it was incredibly sunny yet a cold breeze came down from the
mountain and as we got higher and higher it got cooler and cooler.
Before we actually
got to the entrance of Dapa, which is marked by the town church, we made
a couple of stops on the way up. There are little kiosks on the way up
selling a wide a variety of the local food and entertainment. Orejas, Obleas,
Leche de Cabra, Bofe, are just a few of the foods you can stop and snack
on before you make it to the amazing restaurants at the top of the mountain. |
|
|
| There is a
motocross track where many of the people from Cali ride and in virtually
every little hill of the mountain you will find at least thirty families
flying kites - you look up to the skies and it’s kite heaven! However,
the kite season goes down during the first months of the year when the
windy season ends. The church that marks the beginning of the town is also
the meeting point for “cabalgatas”; next to it are a couple of
“tienditas” (Variety Shops), and more food stops. A “cabalgata”
is when a bunch of people get together in horses and follow a certain trail
or path. “Cabalgatas” are organized all year round in Cali by different
farm owners; however the great ones are in the months of July thru August.
Here the town unites in what turns out to be a gathering of more than 150
people riding on more than 100 horses all drinking “Aguardiente”
(Licorish Alcohol) listening to “rancheras” (typical music) and
those who aren’t riding are walking along or driving along the ride. |
|
|
Offshore
Resources Gallery
|
|
|
| There is one
“cabalgata” every Saturday, each one going through a different path than
the one before. It usually takes around 5 hours for the whole trip, but
there have been some that last over eight hours. The “cabalgatas”
are one of the attractions that I enjoy the most about Dapa since you go
places unavailable to cars and pollution with beautiful scenery all around.
Once you
are in the town you see amazing restaurants that families from Cali visit
on Sundays, surrounded by the most peaceful, greenery and a beautiful
town. The people are amazing, and as you go up it just gets more spectacular.
After the paved road ends, around 15 minutes after you’ve passed the church,
you reach the entrance to my house. If we would’ve kept on going up the
mountain we would’ve run into a couple of more farms and then fields and
fields of coffee, followed by miles and miles of forest. In order to get
to my actual house we drive down into the mountain through a pine forest
that seems endless, until it finally clears into a view of the whole city
bounded by mountains, as if the mountains were the frame of a city that
once was so loud and lighted but from this distance seems calm and soothing;
it’s astonishing. Near my house you can find cabins for tourists with hot
tubs (which in this cold weather make for a perfect match) and steam baths. |
|
|
| Amongst the
many things that the locals do, I can include soccer games, riding “columpio
de vuelo”, and sliding down the side of the mountain in cardboard cutouts.
Out of the edges of the mountains you also see many hand gliders and canopy
riders that fill up the skies with colors with their immense kites and
multicolored canopies.
Within the
gap between houses, there are walking trails that go deep into the heart
of the mountains. The trails lead to creeks, rivers, mountain tops and
small lagoons where you can bathe, if you can handle the cold; if you can
they are very invigorating. Along the trails you can play Tarzan and swing
on long and strong “bejucos” (vines) that have been around for as
long as I can remember. If you get hungry, you can feast on a banquet of
diverse berries and edible plants and roots, which a guide can show you. |
|
|
Offshore
Resources Gallery
|
| Once you reach
the town of Dapa, you may ask anywhere for directions as people in the
town are extremely friendly. At night many of the people go back down to
Cali, but a place to relax up in the mountains is still found in many of
the restaurants which have excellent views and are serene at night: an
excellent place to have a couple of beers.
It is such
relaxing time in Dapa that you’ll let go of all your problems and the rest
of the world. The only problem is that time flies in Dapa, a
week seems like 3 days. Whether you’re riding horses through rivers
and mountain paths that lead to endless coffee fields or hiking under a
cool breeze to natural pools, you will never run out of things to do. |
|
Article
Index ~ Colombia
Index ~ |
Copyright 1996 -
EscapeArtist.com
Inc. All Rights Reserved