My First Cabalgata

Over Thanksgiving weekend, I ventured out on my first Colombian road trip. We had our car packed with our bags, food, arguadiente (the anis flavored typical alcohol of Colombia), and Risk…all ready for a weekend at the farm. We left the noisy, crowded city streets and headed to Salento. A small pueblo in the Coffee region of Colombia nestled in the Andes Mountains. It was one of my first looks into Colombia, along its breathtaking countryside. Unfortunately, I also got to see the damage from the heavy rains that Colombia experienced at the end of last year. As we twisted and turned through the hills and valleys up the mountains, I was listening to my friends Caleño dialect of Spanish with their “vos”, “maricas” y “guevon”. We also had their favorite music, The Beatles, playing in the background, not a bad soundtrack to accompany the lush green mountainside.

We finally arrived to the town center of Salento. It consists of one plaza with two “main” roads leading off of it. The center, of course, has its Spanish Colonial church as the focal point, and open area in the middle for people to rest and kids to play. The park area is surrounded by many little food stands, artisans selling their goods to locals and tourists, and jeeps waiting to take people through the mountainous roads. We walked up the colorful streets filled with tons of handmade crafts, restaurants, and coffee shops.

It was almost 11 am, the perfect time for a beer stop and then to head on our way to my friend, Camilo’s farm house. We walked into a bar, and I thought that I had gone back in time and the time had stopped for over fifty years. We even walked through western style swinging doors. Inside the bar, men were playing pool and enjoying their coffee as seemed the usual Saturday morning routine. We finished our drinks, and finished the rest of our journey to the farm house.

The short bit left of the trip seemed the perfect time to open the arguadiente. We were about to embark on a horseback riding trip through the mountains, normally called a Cabalgata in Colombia, which is more often than not includes the drinking of arguadiente straight from the bottle. This was my first time on a horse in about twenty years (the last experience wasn’t so positive…), so the arguadiente was the perfect anecdote to calm my nerves and help me remember that it is all apart of the adventure…

We mounted the horses just as the blue skies turned to gray and began to pour on us, a normal happening in Colombia during these past few months. We had ponchos, hats, and arguadiente so nothing was stopping us. Colombia’s national tree, La palma de cera (Wax palm), the tallest palm in Colombia, covers the misty mountainside making the view one of a kind. We adventured through the hills and trees, through herds of cows, up and down slopes. We had a coffee break at a secluded farm house. We drank arguadiente, we laughed and cried (Natalia), and had a photo shoot all on a rainy afternoon Cabalgata. There was a point on the trip where it was just me, my horse, and this incredible view, and I had to stop. I was in the Andes Mountains on a horse… never did I think that my life would take me here.
We passed the rest of the time on the farm playing Risk and dice games. Of course, the late night ended with Colombian ghost stories to make the night sleep on the farm more authentic. It was a journey in Colombia not to be forgotten.