Granja Vidar

Wow, Colombia!

It’s a bit early to declare, but Colombia is stealing the show with the most spectacular scenery.  It’s lucky that we love climbing because we’ve been doing that every day since we got here, but we are amply rewarded with the astounding views that greet us when we crest this hill, or turn into that valley.

One of the things that we’d decided to put a few days aside for on this trip was to spend some time on a farm.  Whilst this journey is about exploring our own resilience and some amazing places, it’s also very much about spending as much time outside as possible.  We enjoy the simplicity of being aligned with the rise and fall of the sun each day, of sleeping on the earth (well, 3 cms above it on our much loved camp beds) and observing (often relishing) the effect of water on our bodies, in particular our minds.  We also wanted to understand more about how people are living in and off the land.

Our hosts Alejandra and Cristian

Through a handy website we found Granja Vidar - a small holding in the province of Antioquia where Alejandra and Cristian are practicing permaculture (a philosophy of stimulating or directly using the features that exist in natural ecosystems - we didn’t know what it meant either). They are an inspiring couple; in their mid-twenties, university educated and full of articulate ideas about the world who have decided to live their ideals and committed to a way of life that speaks to their values regarding the relationship we, as humans, have with the land and with each other. They found this plot two years ago and have been developing it ever since.

We learnt some great facts like which animal dung can be used to fertilise what, skills like how to wield a machete for general destruction and rules of thumb like cutting bamboo should be done between the hours of 3 and 5 am on the night of a new moon as this is the point at which there is least water, and thus insects, in the wood, so that it is less likely to rot once cut (who knew!)

At work in the vegetable garden

Our wheels aren't ready to be hung up yet

The chickens kept us entertained in various ways, from their flapping as they inelegantly fell out the tree as they slept, to the insistence of one to nest in the large bag of wood shavings kept in the outdoor toilet for composting.  We also enjoyed noting the arrival of four new chicks one morning (to add to the list of newborns we’ve seen after Ali arrived on the scene of four calves freshly stumbling, trying to stand having been deposited out of their mother's uterus into a muddy field - Lizzie was steaming off up the hill at the time).

Chickens settling in for a night in the orange/lemon tree

The Granja was a beautiful and peaceful setting to spend a few days.  It probably says more about our work ethic than anything else, but we didn’t get quite as sweaty or as dirty (except perhaps under the fingernails) as on our bikes, however we did increase our spanish vocab around farm animals and their excrement, enjoyed cooking with produce straight from the earth, and soaked up some spectacular views.  We probably aren’t going to become permaculturalists(!?) any time soon, but there just might be space for a chicken coop in the garden…..

The farm was a great spot for sunrise viewing

We squeezed in an excursion to a strange and spectacular
man-made lake down the road at Guatapé