Some Pretty Views in Barichara

This is part of the Cordillera Oriental of the Andes,
stretching from Bogota, on the equator south of us,
all the way north near the Caribbean Ocean.

After some intense posts, I thought it was time for something a little relaxing, a rest for your eyes and maybe other parts of you if you have been having a tough week. It is hard for me to believe it is the week-end again, as the days seem to be rushing by with increasing speed.

This is what the Andes look like around 9 a.m. These mountain ranges are relatively young, geologically speaking, and if you look closely you can see that although they reach upwards to 13 or 14,000 feet, the red, clay-based rocks are underneath the green growth. It is for this reason that preserving trees and other soil-holding plants is so important to Colombia. That muddy bit in the lower left corner is the Rio Suarez.

This balancing act of stone and wood and tile really
captured my eye on my morning walk.

I occasionally start out walking either in the morning or late afternoon (it's cooler at those times) and don't exactly know where I'm headed, but go looking for something interesting to take a picture of or to explore my neighborhood. There is a lot of construction going on here, but there are also a lot of very old walls, gates, paths, houses and lovely flowers just waiting to be noticed.

We are passing out of the rainy season so there are more and more mornings when the sun is shining brightly - and intensely - as soon as it clears the horizon to the east.

In a little less than three weeks, the second annual film festival will take place here: FICBA II. That will bring lots of new folks to see this quiet village, only for five days it will be anything but.

I don't quite understand the point of trying to make this into a mini-Cannes or Berlin or Los Angeles with an all-night dance hall, bright flashing lights everywhere and rivers of alcohol lubricating everyone so they can go and sit on uncomfortable folding chairs and pretend they connect with some weird filmmaker who thinks its cool or artistic to do a handi-cam film following some suicidal teenager around.

Last year I created a bit of a stir when I insisted that the people at the entrance to the various films be more diligent in assuring that the films were age-appropriate. This came about when I saw two pre-teens heading into see something I was pretty sure they were not ready to see. I hope they do a better job of that this year.

But some of the films did warrant a viewing so I'm looking forward to seeing the schedule.

Because vehicles are so very expensive here, older ones
are preserved very well. This is one of my personal local
favorites; totally NOT the original color but still cool!

My art classes are going well, and it helps me with my Spanish. Yesterday my art teacher asked me to use some words in English because he's decided he needs to have some basics. This is the trend in Colombia. There is an ad that runs on the TV showing two guys talking in Spanish to each other. One is obviously the 'up and coming one' and the other is a sort of 'doofas' who wants to be more like his buddy. They are promoting an on-line English class. Personally if I was promoting the classes, I would show different classes of people, different circumstances where knowing English would be advantageous.

Thanks for stopping by and I will close with the sunset taken at the end of this day.

The same view of the Andes at sunset. You can see the Rio Suarez at
the lower left heading off to meet up with the mighty Magdelena.