Beautiful Barichara

Barichara is a small 300 years old town at an elevation of about 1360 m. between Bucaramanga and Bogota. it is really beautiful, and not like other cities, only a beautiful historical center with ugly outskirts, the whole of Barichara is beautiful. It is better to show it than to describe it.

all the streets made of these beeautiful gib reddish stones

lovely little houses with crooked roofs

a very ydillic little town

As I walked around people were just garthering in front of a church for a wedding.

one little boy in a fancy white car was announcing the arrival of the bride. Didn't seem so happy about it!

guests were arriving in taxis (yes, these are the taxis of Baricharaa)

and finally the bride came.

all the women were wearing the highest heels I ever saw. Wonder how anyone can walk with this.

This pretty little girl also had fun watching the wedding and the guests.

Before the bride and the groom came out of the church, there came this little remote controlled little cadilac with the cutest pair inside.

I couldn't get a photo of the bride and groom coming out, as all the guests gathered around them and through rice on them. I just got zhe little girl in the cadillac. 

and the bride and groom from the back durring the wedding

and one more of these incredibly high heels

If you want a nice idea what to do with an old tire look at this, at the entrance of a house, hanging on the wall:

But look what they did to poor Santa Claus! Now I know why I did not get any christmas presents this year! 

In Barichara there is a very beautiful cathedral on the main square, which looks huge among all these small houses. The roof is made of Bambus and wood. 

In Barichara I stayed 2 nights at a lovely hotel with extremely nice owners, Yomara and Nelson are such lovely and open hearted persons and I so much enjoyed sitting in the evening in their lovely garden and listening to their stories about Barichara and Colombia in general.

Here Yomaira and Nelson

Every region has its food specialities. Baricharas food speciality is hormigas culonas which means - fat bottom ants. No, I didn't make any spelling mistake, it's really ants! The tradition dates back more than 500 years when indigenous Guane people cultivated and devoured ants for their supposed aphrodisiac and healing properties. The giant dark-brown colored ants are fried or roasted and eaten whole (not the whole ant, just their bottoms!) or ground into a powder. Containers of fried ant snacks are sold in just about any corner shop in Santander, but especially Barichara, San Gil and Bucaramanga.

Yomaira told me the ants are collected on one single day in the whole year, around Semana Santa (Eastern). It has to rain 2 consecutive days and then the sun must shine the next day. On this day millions of ants come out of their anthouses. At 7 in the morning the males and they fly up into the sky, 2 hours later millions of females to mate with them in the air. And on this same day thousands of people from Barichara and the surrounding country gather at the many antshouses and catch the female ants when they come out of their holes and collect them in big plastic bags. On one single day they collect enough ants for the whole year . The author of lonely planet writes: " They taste like, well, crunchy dirt mixed with old coffee grounds. " I refused to taste them although Nelson tried hard to convince me that they were delicious. And Yomaira said she likes them best raw. They tear their heads, feet and body off and eat the ass and it is supposed to be very tasty, she said there is a milky substance inside and it reminds of condense milk. 

Watch the following short moviee: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DvNvmhzSUJw

Close to Barichara there is another little cute old village called Guane. Just 4 photos to get an impression:

Have a good night