I could travel forever – part 1

(Saturday, 6 June 2009; Friday-Monday, 12-15 June 2009)

Google map:
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=pt-PT&geocode=&q=el+cocuy+colombia&sll=6.948239,-75.311279&sspn=5.341858,11.206055&ie=UTF8&ll=6.719165,-74.542236&spn=5.344414,11.206055&z=7&iwloc=A

You often hear that interacting with the locals is one of the best aspects of travelling. You also have the guidebook for any country claiming that’s the place you’ll find the friendliest and most welcoming people on earth. Also often all that sounds as bullshit, or commonplace at least.

But not for Colombia, I’ve to say. And definitely not for El Cocuy.

El Cocuy is a very small village of around 5,000 inhabitants, and is the starting point for any hike up the beautiful mountains and glaciers of the El Cocuy National Park. And that’s it – at first sight, it has little else to offer.

But then you meet the people. And you don’t have to do much, just speak the language: they come, proactively, and welcome you. They ask where you’re from, and suddenly one of them starts talking of Mario Soares and the 1974 revolution (!). As any beer talk, it goes in circles and repeats itself over and over again. You talk about football, tell jokes about women and are asked to exhaustion what do you find of Colombia, and of Cocuy in particular. They’re all eager that you find it “chévere”, “bacano”, “una ‘A’”. In one word: “excellent”. And it is.

Cocuy is a bit remote, and climbing the snow-peaked mountains a bit tough, so tourists are still something sort of a rarity around here: less than 100 foreigners a year. In result, locals feel happy and honoured by your presence, going out of their way to make you feel at home. And they do.

======

You arrive on a Saturday morning not expecting much, with the only objective of quickly renting some camping gear (no easy task!) and buying food to leave the next morning to the mountain. That’s it.

But then at lunch time you enter a small “tienda”, just to make a quick phone call, and are suddenly surrounded by locals and beer bottles. They want to buy you a round – not expecting one in return – and get to know you. You can’t refuse. You stay for a few hours. You get out a bit tipsy and have to run next door to buy food for the mountain hike, before the store closes. Grocery shopping takes more than an hour, as it’s not easy to choose between chocolates and candies with more than a few beers under your belt…

You feel your head a bit clearer after such demanding mental effort and go around the village after the last grocery item missing: bread. It’s late in the afternoon and most doors are already closed. After some time looking you finally find a place that sells bread. Result: another group of… what should I say?... excited locals grab you in, buy you a few rounds and you stay for another few hours.

After lengthy excuses and thank you’s you manage to get out and go for dinner, hoping the food absorbs some of the beer. It does, and you go for just a short game of pool, so that you can go to bed early before what promises to be a several-day hard mountain hike. Wrong move: the people in the billiard place are at least as welcoming as the ones before. A random guy comes in, offers rounds of “aguardiente” and gets out. A few militaries come in, laugh with us, watch a few card tricks and go back to their lives. Those inside keep drinking and partying.

After the place closes, yet another group of locals come buy and chat with you for long, outside, in the cold night. Amongst the already heard-off jokes about women and homosexuality (seems to be an obsession in Cocuy!), you are told some advice: “As you’re going to the high mountain tomorrow don’t forget to sleep and hydrate well – drink a lot of water!”.

You know what? Too late!!

======

A week later you come back from the mountain. You’re exhausted, but a couple of local girls invite you for a salsa dance in the only night club in town. You can’t refuse…

The locals you didn’t find during the day, you meet them at the salsa place at night. The entire village seems to gather there – men and women, the young and the old. People are extremely happy you still remember them after a week – they embrace you, they dance with you, they sing with you.

You’re dancing with local girls, so you’d expect some antagonism – or at least antipathy – from the local men. At least you could expect that if you’d be in Portugal… But no: it happens exactly the opposite! What is wrong (or right?) with this place?

It starts raining. The dance floor is on an open terrace, but no one seems to care. Everyone parties like crazy, even after the joint gets closed. The night goes long and you miss the 4am bus you had bought tickets for. When I pass by the ticket booth the next day, to try and exchange the ticket for the following day, the old lady looks at me with a smile, says nothing, does the drinking signal with the hand, smiles again, and shakes her head. Small town, so I guess she must have heard something…

At night you go for one last pool play at the favourite place and the couple who runs it invites you to their house, and offers you food and drinks until late. They are taking the next day out – it’s a national holiday – and invite you for a swim in some hot springs close by, and then a pic-nic. You happily accept the invitation, and the departure date changes yet again. It ends up being another long day (and night) of eating, drinking, and partying.

The last day, when I finally get to the bus stop at 3.30am and need to change my ticket (yet again!) the same old woman smiles at me with the same maternal face of before. “Ah! You’re leaving! I was starting to think you’d stay here forever…”

======

I just hope this place stays the way it is now – welcoming, genuine and out of the tourist radar screen. El Cocuy – a small town with a very big place in my heart.

Cocuy on my Saturday arrival - it was still morning. This little village takes partying seriously...

All white buildings, consistently with an horizontal green stripe in the bottom. They look so... Portuguese?

I used to spend summer holidays in a small Portuguese village where this was the type of retail store you'd buy your food from. They aren't around these days anymore - but they still are all that you have in Cocuy...

We came in this place just to buy some bread, and ended up staying for a few hours. That day we drunk with Cocuy's police inspector and primary school teacher, apparently. Ah! And the man by my side works in the Town Hall - didn't get it if he was the mayor or not. Whenever another of the locals would start talking a bit louder, in the "heat" of the conversation, he would always tell us: "It's all right, they'll behave - I have a gun!". He did - we showed it to us later...

Later in the day, in the billiard place that would took as "hostages" most of the time. We nicknamed the old man reclining against the blue wall "Master Yoda" (only amongst ourselves - need to show some respect!). He came across as long-lived and wise - even if we couldn't understand much of what he said...

Pic-nic in Guican (another small village close by) with the couple who owns our favourite billiard joint, days after coming back from the mountain

Playing "tejo" later in the day, also in Guican. It's a more sophisticated version of the Portuguese "jogo da malha": you throw a metal disk at gunpowder packets to try and blow them up. The women were the best at it...

Here's a metal disk, right in the middle of the circle of gunpowder packets - that's worth 5 points. Hitting the gunpowder is worth 3 points. If nothing of that happens, the metal disk closer to the centre gets 1 point. But, who cares? - you can see in this picture what the main goal of the game is...

The "tejo" gang. Farther to the left, Micha (my German companion during the mountain hike) and Guy (an Australian staying for a few weeks in this enchanted place). To my right, Aura and Hugo, who own the billiard place. And three other folks from Bogotá who we met that day - as friendly as everyone else...

Back to Cocuy later that day. We just came in the store to buy a quick snack and ended up finding "good old friends" from the nights before. Another hour lost (or gained?), free beer, and genuinely happy faces from realising we remembered their names and who they were: "These are the Portuguese, German and Australian I told you about - nice folks!" Everyone partying like teenagers - who can understand this?

Dinner time. We had eaten - and loved - pork "rellenas" (something close to the Portuguese "morcelas") a couple of days before and were eager to try the chicken ones. We hadn't realised the food gets stuffed in the chicken's neck... Ah, and you are supposed to eat the chicken's head too! The most we managed to do was to have a go at the eyes and comb...

We didn't eat much of it - just couldn't - and I felt a bit sick most of the dinner, to be honest. We were lucky we had bought plenty of "pasteles" (tasty potatoes filled in with rice and meat)