Canyon de Chicamocha

The beautiful canyon of Chicamocha lies between Bucaramanga and San Gil. The bus almost goes down to the bottom of the canyon on its way to San Gil from Bucaramanga and climbs all the way up again in hundreds of curves, so it takes about 3 - 3,5 hours for about 100 km.

There is a national park you can visit to see the canyon better, you can also take a cable car from one rim of the canyon down to the river and up to the other rim.

I finally found out how to make panorama pictures with my new camera, but it did not come out so well. It was very hazy. 

liked the vegetation on the way down to the canyon

This is the view from one rim.

On the top there is a very impressive monument. Over a tobacco leaf 57 m. long and 35 m. wide this work of art commemorates the popular revolt known as the "Revolución de los Comuneros". It is an enormous leaf with 35 sculptures on top, the main one being independence heroine Manuela Beltrán. The artist was Master Guillermo Vallejo.

may be you can get an idea of the size in this picture. It is huge.

 

as it is very warm there, on the way up they put here and there a shower on the path so you can cool off. Great idea!

I love to hotograph portraits. There are many beautiful women in Colombia . I liked this girl and she allowed me to photograph her, we were travelling together in the cable car. 

So far I have seen only 2 handsome men here. I couldn't stop portrying this guy

Isn't he adorable?

this one looks a bit haughty

I went on photographing until he shouted at me: cut it out!

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

Giron

From my paradise in Palomino I returned to Santa Marta and flew from there to Bucaramanga. I would have loved to go by bus to see tzhe scenery alhough it takes 9 hours but I heard that biisses sometimes get attacked by robbers on this route so I decided to fly. Bucaramanga is a larger city, so I spent the night in a cute small town called Giron 7 km. from Buca. The old part of Giron is pretty, wizh cobble stone streets, low houses, lots of little bridges and pretty small piazzas. Here a few impressions of Giron:

Did you notice these fantastic electric installations? Here a close up. I love them. You just have to be careful when you walk on the street because sometimes the cables hang down so low you could run into them. 

I stayed at such a beautiful hotel that I want to show you some pictures of it.

At the reception they had a wall with such beautiful imitations of antique pre incan ceramics

and how do you like this bird made out of a pumpkin?

In the diningroom I found the following real cute:

and how about this mirror with 2 branches as a frame? 

Have a good night!