Trip to the Sugar Plantation

We spent our second day in Colombia discovering the delights of the highways and byways of this region and learning a little about the history of sugar plantations.

We set off this morning with our new friends from Australia, and trusty driver Elduardo. After several attempts to get the minibus into reverse we began our journey. It was one of many bumps and lots of ohhs and ahhs and oh that was close... but we got there in one piece. The plantation museum was set in beautiful gardens,the owners very kindly lent us an English translation of the tour, so we could understand what we were seeing. It was fascinating to understand a little bit more about what is a major (legal!) crop growing industry in Colombia. Some of the buildings, tools and artifacts here date from as far back as the 17th century.

Thought for the day: If you see a tree, there´s almost certainly a strange and new fruit growing on it. In the yard alone we have an orange tree, a mandarine tree and a papaya tree (all in fruit!)

After a rather hot morning absorbing Colombian history, we set off for lunch. Of course the menu was all in Spanish, no one spoke any English, so we all blindly ordered what we could. I played it safe and went for the Caesar salad, Garath, well , we're still not sure what he ordered. It was, we think, bacon fat, with bits of bacon on, beans, rice and something else. He put on a brave face and ate what he could. Next time we won´t go without the phrasebook! This place is quite incredible, a real assault on all the senses. The air is quite polluted sadly and thick with diesel fumes, and people setting random fires as they see fit. We only get hazy glimpses of the imposing mountain backdrop due to the low cloud and thick smog in the air. It´s a real shame because the view would be breathtaking.

After a refreshing dip in the pool, we caught up on some reading and waited for our gourmet evening meal. Tonight, we really struck it lucky and got fish and chips, and rice(of course), and some lovely garlicky beans. We finished off the evening with an ice cream from Mimos, just on the corner of our street. Tomorrow is the BIG day, and we are obviously very excited, hoping to get some sleep tonight in preparation for no sleep for the next goodness knows how long!! Well, I will sign off now as I seem to have become the main course for the mosquitos!! We´re off to put out our best clothes for our trip to Chiquitines in the morning!

This is a picture of us with Elduardo at the Sugar Plantation (above), and a shot of our friends from Australia (right), David and Melanie, with their children Sebastian and lovely new daughter Valentina, who they collected from Chiquitines just last week.