The Indigenous People of Colombia

When I first saw an Indian woman in Pereira, I was struck by the beauty of her clothes but most Indians I see in the street are begging and live in very poor conditions. But the Indians in the streets are not typical of the indigenous people of Colombia. These folk have been displaced from their villages for a number of reasons, including violence. The Indians suffered greatly during the war with Farc. But the majority live under protection of the Government in the land which they have occupied for hundreds of years and which they consider sacred. And, during my time here, I have learned much about them. It was part of the reason for my going to Santa Marta because many live in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, The Wayiu, for example. The Museo Nacional de Colombia has a special exhibition telling the story of the Indians in Colombia. There isn't space to write much here but maybe when I get back to Spain next week, I will write an essay and put it here. I had to ask, "What is La Minga?" because it does not appear in my dictionary. It means a meeting, a gathering together of people to form a common theme.

These are village where people have been displaced.

Then I revisited the art galleries in the museum. I liked this artist! I want to copy the style!

There are zones with the history of Colombia, people, culture, industry and politics. I am learning a lot about Colombia!

 Then I got rather depressed because I didn't know what to do with the rest of the day, it was cold and cloudy. I bought a sandwich from Subway, a small bottle of wine from the hotel restaurant and had lunch in my room. Later, it brightened up and, despite it still being rather hazy, I took a taxi to the Funicular de Montserat, La Santuario which overlooks the centre of Bogotá where I am staying. The height is a little over 3000m above sea level!

I love this photo!

The two following photos are out of sequence. This is outside the Boltero Museum which I visited earlier. I bought one of the necklaces and, of course, I asked for a photo! They look rather serious in the photo but I can promise, they were smiling a lot!

This is Caraterra 7, most of which is pedestrianised.

By the way, I am in good health after feeling less than wonderful during January. I get a bit lonely at times because I am on my own for much of the time, but I am seeing so many wonderful and interesting places.
Change of subject....One thing that has been upsetting me a lot is the sanctimonious campaign which The Times in the UK is running against charities, initially Oxfam but no organisation seems to be snow-white, so it is open-season. Maybe you feel that it is justified but having seen much poverty in the past few months, I am distraught at the additional suffering which will inevitably result from this campaign. Each day, the newspaper trumpets yet further scandals, it is having a field-day. And who is suffering?

I wrote this in the comments section of The Times online a week ago. If you disagree with me, then please leave your own comment at the end of this post. I respect all opinions even if I don't agree with them!

The headline was, Oxfam sex scandal: no more money for charity, say ministers

I am deeply saddened by this campaign by The Times against a great and noble organisation dedicated to helping people in need around the world. I am sure that the vulnerable women of Bangladesh and all the other parts of the world which depend on support from Oxfam will be totally bemused when the aid they receive dries up. Worse than bemused, hungry too.  From what I understand, the man at the focus of this campaign was dismissed and a press release issued. For The Times, this was not sufficient. But, if it is about that three-letter word, then let's have a field day, it is a witch-hunt. No one died, Mark Goldring is free to defend the organisation that he runs with whatever language he chooses.  Maybe in a month or two, perhaps The Times could publish pictures of people in poverty suffering on account of this campaign, when the money runs out. Is that a deal? You are hurting the wrong people, vulnerable people. The Times has a tendency to run campaigns to expose our human weaknesses. I hope for a little forgiveness but that seems in short supply. We are all human, we are not perfect, we make mistakes. This campaign in my opinion is totally out of proportion to what actually happened. This is simply my humble opinion as an English guy, living outside the UK. 

And I added this later...

May I add a second post? Many comments here (and in Government) talk as if the money is for Oxfam.... as if for their benefit or enjoyment.  "No more money for Oxfam," cries the headline, like it is an errant child who needs correction. But most of the money is passed on by Oxfam to benefit people in desperate need around the world. It is they who are being punished by this aggressive campaign.  

Botero

No wonder it is cold here, I knew Bogotá was at a high altitude but I just checked. It is 2640m above sea level. That is higher than many of the ski slopes in the Pyrenees. It's really warm when the sun is out but today it is grey and cloudy with rain. Rather like the UK in November. Tomorrow I descend to the balmy warmth of Pereria!
Anyway.. back to my blog.
Last year when I was in Medellin, I ran out of time and missed going to the museum there and seeing the paintings of Francisco Botero, a native of Medellin. Instead, I stayed for a while in the plaza where there are several sculptures of his. But I needn't have worried, there is a museum dedicated to his art here in Bogotá. When I was here a week ago, again I ran out of time but yesterday (Wednesday) I had loads of time.
Firstly I revisited the Museo de Oro.

Coca was used by chieftains and shamans in pre-hispanic Colombia

Death masks

After leaving the Museo de Oro, I went back to view the museum in Banco de la Republica showing the history of money in Colombia up to the present day. Next door is the Botero Museum.
The man and woman are Adam and Eve but I was a little shocked by the weird eroticism of the sculpture Leda y el Cisne, partly because it seemed totally out of character with all his other work. It refers to the Greek myth where Zeus descends from Olimpia as a swan to make love to Leda. Dalí painted Leda Atómica with the same theme, using Gala his wife as the model. The sculptures are in the most beautifully finished bronze.

 

I have show this again from my first visit

From Pereira to Bogotá

Tuesday 20th: I am in the departure lounge in Pereira Airport waiting for my Avianca flight to Bogotá. I just moved to a different seat but I can still hear a woman ranting angrily into her phone, I wish she would shut up. In the UK, someone would go up to her and tell her to shut up but the Colombians, like the Spanish, seem to be very tolerant.
Next week, I will also be taking an Avianca plane to Bogotá (in one of the big seats at the front!) but this time with my suitcase and bike in the hold, on my way back to Europe. I am sure I will feel very sad but not sure how much of that will be about my affection for Nini and how much because I love Colombia. And Pereira has a little bit of magic about it despite not being particularly beautiful. Cuba is plain ugly!
I planned to go directly from home to the airport but there were some items of clothing which I forgot to buy yesterday in the centre of Pereira. I am tending to buy a lot of female clothes these days. Obviously not very feminine things but women's clothes are much more beautiful and the colours more attractive (I love Stradivarius). The shop assistants are so nice about it and are interested in me. One even came to the changing room with me to give advice! So I tell friends now that I am a little bit trans, I love my female side. These days, I can be more open about it but I hope I don't shock my friends in the UK who have known me for many years! By the way, trans doesn't mean gay! I still hope for a gf one day.
So, Monday afternoon I went to visit an estate agent to view a flat but it was not suitable and I've more or less decided not to buy or rent a house here. And then at 3pm, I had arranged to meet Nini's husband Alex in order to pay their last rental, after which I stop helping them. I had asked that he met me alone because I fell out with his beautiful volcanic wife last Thursday and I really don't want to see her again. She was there but we didn't speak, apart from my saying that I wasn't expecting to see her. We went to their landlord's bank and I paid the bill which was about €100. While we waited in the queue, Alex gave me my phone back, removing his SIM. His phone screen was broken and useless, so I had lent him my Samsung J1 pro-tem for the past few weeks.
When we came out of the bank, he said that he had arranged to call Nini to meet her but of course he no longer had a phone. So he had to use mine! We then parted company and I spent the rest of the afternoon in the centre before returning home.

Dateline, Wednesday 21st Feb
This is the view from my hotel room at 8.30am in Bogotá and I will now go out and find some breakfast, I don't like the Ibis breakfast so I may go back to a waffle and crêpe shop where I stopped off yesterday afternoon for tea. As you may be able to see, it is bright and sunny but, as I have said before, Bogotá is much cooler than Pereira. But it warms up when the sun is out. I plan to go back to the museum at Banco de la Republica because I ran out of time last time. The journey yesterday was very easy. When I arrived at Bogotá Airport, I knew which bus I needed and I had a plastic card from last time. So, in no time at all, I was having tea and a delicious pancake near to the hotel, I hadn't even bothered to check in.

In a previous version of this post, I explained the final falling out with Nini (cooking a supper for seven) but I decided that you were tired hearing about her. I will never stop having great affection for her because obviously there is a cause inside her for the way she is. Sometimes she is quite charming! I worry what will happen to them because her sister and her two young children are also living with them and there is very little money coming in. Alex had to go back for another operation on his shoulder yesterday which is obviously rather worrying. I warned him when he was hacking up a pig carcass just before the New Year that he risked damaging his shoulder before the ligaments were fully repaired. These things need total rest. Of course, I am not saying that is the reason for the second operation but I'm sure it didn't exactly help the recovery process!
Now for some brekkers!

A bike ride across Pereira!

How long have I been here? Almost two months and I have just discovered that, on Sunday mornings, one carriageway of Avenida de 30 Agosto is closed to traffic and reserved for bikes! Ciclo Ruta, it is called. And I have my lovely friend Mayerlin to thank for that. The road runs right across Pereira, starting by the Stadium in the west, past the airport on its plateau, past Cuba on to the centre of Pereria by Plaza Victoria. The cycle route then crosses the Viaducto into Dosquebradas which is considered to be outside the city limits of Pereira. I thought about putting a map here, but if you are interested, you can easily look up Pereira in Google Maps. Here is a link to AllTheRooms which has published a piece about the city as part of their accomodation website.
 
AllTheRooms   8 Awesome things to do in Pereira.

We met in the centre of Cuba at a small fast-food kiosk called La Locura at 9am - Mayerlin very kindly came from the centre of Pereira where she lives. After chatting, we then meandered across Cuba to the Stadium where there were many people and lots of bikes! It was truly wonderful! Next to the Stadium is the Olympic Swimming Pool where I have been several times.
The photos speak for themselves, you can see where we crossed into Dosquebradas by the Viaduct. Instead of returning directly to Pereira, we visited Lago de Pradera where we took loads of photos. Mayerlin is wearing the colours of Colombia and I want to buy a cycling top like hers when I visit her in her home town next weekend. Or she even said that I could have hers!
We returned across the Viaducto to the centre of Pereira where Mayerlin headed off back home and I continued on back to Cuba. I stopped off at La Locura again for some lunch and then came back home. It was very hot at about 2pm but then it clouded over as is usual in the afternoon. The photo at the bottom of the page was taken at 6.15pm at sunset, but looking east. More or less east! 6.15? Hey, how about a beer!
 

This is normally buzzing with traffic!

A dance class in the Parque Olaya Herrera

My hair looks white in the photos but it is darker than that. Not much!
I will get colour added when I return to Spain because they have the colour reference.

This is my regular beer here! Club Colombia Dorada.

Chevere

Chevere is unique to Latin American Spanish and it means "cool". So try using it in mainland Spain and you will get blank looks! I came here on a business class ticket which gave me some Life Miles. I spent some on my sector to Bogotá when I went to Santa Marta last week and I find that I have just enough left for another trip to Bogotá. So that is what I will do because I am rather bored in Pereira and I'm not seeing my friend Nini (don't ask!) I booked three nights in the Ibis Hotel by the National Museum as before. I go to the airport in Pereira on the Megabus using my Mega-card and I still have journeys left on the card for Bogotá. So this trip will just cost me three nights in the Ibis Hotel, about €160. I can see the airport on a plateau from my apartment, it is so cool. Jump on a plane and in less than an hour, I'm in Bogotá, for a $10 admin fee for my ticket.

 

Santa Marta

There are three towns close together along the Caribbean coast, from the west, Cartagena de Indias where I went last year, Baranquilla and Santa Marta. I went to Santa Marta because I was interested in the history of the place as well as wanting to enjoy the beaches.
The hotel was superb, 4 star but I felt like an honoured guest, I didn't see any other residents. It was a little way back from the sea front where there is a rather dubious looking beach. By that I mean that I don't think the sea was very clean and there were dark streaks on the beach. But the area around Plaza de Simón Bolivar (who else?) was full of life and, this being Colombia, vibrating with loud music. Each day, I took a bus (or if I was feeling lazy) a taxi to Taganga which is the nearest beach to the town. There are many other beaches further away but I was just interested in swimming, so this was fine for me.
The centre of the town comprises a grid of streets which cross each other with absolutely no indication of who has the right of way. And being built-up, the junctions are totally blind. The solution, beep your horn as you approach the junction. The taxi taking me back to the airport did this at great speed, at times cars appeared at the side, only to stop just short of the junction. I was fully expecting a collision, it was crazy.
And, because this beeping goes on through the night, the hotel kindly found me a room at the back of the building.
I visited two sites of interest. One was the house of Simón Bolivar, el Libertador of the south American countries in the early 19th Century. The other was the House of Aduana next to Plaza Simón Bolivar where he died. I don't have room here to describe the history of the countries around Colombia when they became independent from Spain but it makes for a very interesting story. They can thank Napoleon because his invading Spain in the early 18th Century caused instability in Madrid which in turn led to the freedom of Colombia, Venezuela, Panama (which was part of Colombia at one stage), Peru and Ecuador. Well.. it wasn't quite as simple as that, you will have to look it up online!
The hotel had a jacuzzi on the 5th floor and I used to go there with a beer before having lunch. Very hedonistic!

In the House of Aduana, there was an exhibition about the indigenous people of the Sierra Nevada and I bought two mochillas made by the indians, for me and Nini.

There isn't much more to tell you about Santa Marta, I went swimming, I visited a couple of nice restaurants. And then I came back to Pereira on 14th. Being St Valentine's Day, I exchanged heart emojis with one or two of my girl friends!

I would guess the sun is setting over Panama, more or less exactly west (an in-joke with Frisky Geezer, one of my faithful followers!!)

This is a monument which marked the 100th anniversary of the death of Simón Bolivar