My first stop on my journey to explore the north of Colombia, was Vélez in the district of Santander, where I was very fortunate to spend two wonderful days as a guest of Carmenza and her family. She grew up in Velez and her father and many relatives still live there. It is an interesting little town where people still ride their horses to the pub and cattle are traded in the centre of town. It is about 200km from Bogota but the bus trip took over 5 hours, despite the speed of the driver who definitely had a death wish! In Colombia buses will not depart until they are full. This can take a while and after giving up at the main terminal, the driver stopped at various strategic places in Bogota to try and fill the seats, before we finally headed off on a rather nerve wrecking drive through some amazing countryside.
We got off the bus in Berbosa and took a 30 minute taxi drive on a windy mountain road to Velez. On the way Carmenza insisted on stopping at a little roadside shop to buy me a box of Velez’s famous sweets: “bocadillo” made from guava pulp.
Vélez is 2150 m above sea level and has a population of about 20 000, (although no one seemed to know this – I had to look it up). The town is situated on a mountain side in the Cordillera Oriental, that looks over the valley of the Magdelena River, so the roads are steep. Carmenza’s father lives near the very top and it was a tough walk up on a road that no vehicle would be able to manage. He lives there with his second wife, 2 sons and a daughter in a cute little 2 bedroom wooden shack that he built himself. He also has a little shop that provides provisions and much needed drinks for those living even further up the mountain. On one visit I met a lady who had stopped for a drink before continuing on her 2 hour walk home, carrying a large, heavy sack of items.
Mary and Carmenza took me for a walk around the town, to the church and to the museum which was quite amusing. Amusing because many of the antique items I recognised as either having owned myself or by my family – eek! However there were some more genuinely older items, but I was still a little surprised that nothing was made of the fact that in 1853, Vélez became the first region in the entire world to give women the right to vote, which makes me doubt this piece of trivia that I picked up somewhere and cannot as yet verify (I will keep looking). Please click on the symbol in the bottom right hand corner to enlarge the view…..
As cute as it is, the museum also did not really feature much of the most important historical information about the founding of the town in 1539, the name given to the town in honor of Vélez-Malaga in Spain and that the town was the centre for Spanish troops in the region and an important centre for trade in colonial crafts. To be fair, although the guide spoke very slowly for my benefit, I am sure I missed a lot.
Today Vélez produces sugarcane, guava, coffee, beans, corn, cocoa, fruit, vegetables and livestock (beef). There is also some limestone mining. The people are still proud of their culture and everyone owns traditional dress and many young people learn to play traditional music from the region on traditional instruments. When I expressed an interest in hearing some live music, the family magically organised a live concert! I lost track of how many siblings Carmenza’s father has, but among the many nephews and nieces and cousins, a few are musicians. I felt very priveleged and was treated like a special guest. When I left, everyone wanted to know when I would return.
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