Thewesternprovinceblog

Hola todos or should I say Bore da?!? Because this place is the most climatically similar to Wales I’ve been so far on this Journey. Both day and night the temperature ranges from low teens to low 20’s in degs C and this place has no shortage of rainfall either! In fact it gets the 2nd most rain annually in all of Colombia, only slightly less than Buenaventura on the Pacific rainforest coast. The weather if not raining is foggy and overcast most of the time. All in all very similar to the UK around the time I left back in September.

I get up and decide what to do today? I wanted to do a walking tour through the city but as feria and Sunday there was none going today so I take a look what else to do. There was this ecoparque up in the hills that was about an hour’s walk from my gaff and think yeah let’s walk up here need to get some exercise in anyway, so off I go.

It’s quite a pleasant walk down into the valley and I stop at a little cafe in this small town for a cuppa and a bun thing. Unfortunately Cafe con leche in Colombia no me gusta! It’s a very milky coffee with more milk than coffee and the warm milk forms a sticky layer at the top and bottom……😣 Ask for an americano with leche al lado and you get odd looks. The universal drama of ordering a decent feckin brew abroad!!

Anyways after this it’s a 20 minute walk up the hill to el ecoparque los yarumos. Get in free as it’s a sunday and when you get up there there’s quite a bit going on. Mostly different little carnival games for kids to play with family. It’s quite a sight to see but it also meant a lot of the proper park bits were not open because of the funfair so just had a look round watching the world go by. 

After about half hour of this I feel it. First a dribble then some patter and then the full flow of the Welsh tap 🌧️🚰!!! Yes a big downpour comes down and everyone is running for cover in the tents and cafe. After about 2 hours of sheltering there’s enough of a break in the weather to get out of there and walk back to my gaff as couldn’t get an Uber or taxi from there. I manage to get back in time to jump on a zoom catch up with my old man and Simon who has been following this journey quite closely since we parted ways back in Mexico City. Was a decent little chat then from there I went out for some lunch.

To skip over these details it turned into a right bogger of an afternoon with it chucking down for the next 8 hours. Basically one of those days where you end up sitting in a pub all afternoon because the weather is too crap to do anything else and that’s exactly what I did! Oh well at least the beer was cheap. Went back to the rock music bar but they were clicky and wouldn’t let me stay without paying when I could watch the band for free last night, so went for a wander and found a cute little salsa bar had a bit of a dance with a chica and had a good chat with the lad who run the gaff, gave me some recommendations for Ibague/Pereira when I loop back through this way heading down to Cali.

Longer read then planned but that wraps up the first day here. Tomorrow we explore the city centre and Colombia’s tallest cathedral!