A Visit to Guapotá

The view from Marylandia, a Catholic retreat in Guapota.

I first heard about Guapota (pronounced whoa-poh-tah) only a few days before the trip was taking place. A busload of people from Barichara were going to visit the priest who was formerly in Barichara, Fr. Leonardo.

Eglise of Guapota with park below.

According to Fr. Leonardo, Guapota was established about 200 years ago and the church was built about the same time. The front portion of the church needed replacement, so it is not the same age as the rest of it. Built with local stone and brick, what I noticed first is the arches throughout the church and the priest's residence. The church is high on the hill overlooking the village, with a park in front, and some lovely old trees preserved to give dense shade from the hot sun.

The beautiful arches inside the church
 are created with local
stone and brick. Simple but really lovely.

We were blessed with a lovely sunny day, at least until after 5, when the clouds began to look threatening, but it never rained. That was a good thing because the road to Guapota is under construction after serious water damage earlier and more rain would have meant some serious travel challenges for our bus. The workers are installing drainage ditches and eventually the road will be re-paved, but right now it is a mix of paved and unpaved roadway.

Coffee beans are spread out on the sidewalk
to dry and once dried are bagged up (see the
bags behind the metal fence) and sent off
to be roasted. Then shipped worldwide.

This is not just a 'one-horse' town, but this was one of
the several I saw; few mules even though this is Juan
Valdez coffee-raising country.

You can learn more about this village from their website if you want to visit Guapota.  (It is written in Spanish, but if you go on Google you can get it translated.) Located southwest of Socorro just off the road to Oiba (and Bogota) and about half an hour's drive in from that highway, the major industries here are the production of sugar cane, cacao (cocoa for chocolate), and coffee. We saw a lot of coffee beans drying in the sunshine.

As it was also the week before voting for various state and local candidates (voting takes place on Sunday, Oct. 30 in Colombia to avoid losing workers from their tasks, it seems) there was a lot of loud music from each of the candidate's offices or vehicles reverberating off the stone streets and walls.

Some of the research I did about the village shows a population of less than 1,000 people, but I am not sure of that information. There is a new hospital, a home for the grandmothers and grandfathers to be cared for, and there is transportation service between Socorro and Guapota several times during the morning and afternoon. Clearly with only one road in and out of Guapota and a strong police presence, outsiders are noticed immediately. But typical Colombian hospitality is still in evidence and it makes a nice day trip.

Another view toward the Andes in Guapota.

The rain finally came - after almost a month

We experienced our first rainfall since we've arrived here. (Couldn't believe it's been almost a month!) I could smell it coming and we sat in the hammocks and watched the clouds build to head towards us from over the mountains - quite a lovely sight! At first it was just a little light drizzle and then it came pouring down for about three hours. What is interesting about this area is that once the ground gets really wet, it also gets very slippery.

So, due to the remote and steep hills on the road to the finca, generally no one attempts to travel the drive until after the rain. Unfortunately, our campo director and his partner had to return from Barichari just as the rain started and had a challenging time getting back. "G" said she was never going to drive to town if it looked like rain again. We all laughed because when she left it wasn't that cloudy, so who knew?

The next morning the skies were clear and the air felt especially fresh, although it seems quite fresh all the time anyhow, so that wasn't really so different. But the plants were happy to have three weeks of dust washed away and all the birds were very vocal. I saw this little yellow and green 'sparrow-like' bird hopping around the garden and I have a personal objective to try and identify the many birds we have here. When we were in Bogota, I found a great book, "Birds of Colombia," which will be a big help.

The little casita for Senor C., father of our director's wife, is nearly done. It has been an interesting study of how a rammed earth house is constructed. I've been taking pictures and will share that progress in my next blog. If we can get some of the paperwork processed to stay here, we would like to build one, too. After the first of the year we will go to Bucaramanga to the visa office to get some questions answered and get our first extension.

On our return from Bogota, we saw several very large fires with lots of smoke. It looked a little disturbing until we realized it is time to burn the cane to harvest it for making into sugar. And alongside the road we saw loads of coffee plants - my future latte! I couldn't take pictures of everything I saw, but imagine seeing a horse and cart on the freeway! It's very common here. Driving through the little towns between Barichari and Bogota we often saw goats, cows, and horses grazing right next to the road, and even saw horses tied up to a hitching post while the riders went inside for a cerveza, a meal or to pick up groceries. There is still a lot of remote and harsh back country which is best accessed by a mule or horse and although the roads here are improving, according to our host, there are still lots more dirt roads than paved. This final shot is looking back toward the central part of the state of Santander, up the Rio Suarez valley. Pretty, huh?