Monday, April 12, 2010

Colombia, part II

At one point in our journey we were feeling quite a big urge to do something physical and also something that would bring some positive and actual results... We were longing for work! We said out loud to the universe that we want to rest from the road and find a farm somewhere in the mountains where the climate is nice and COLD! Within a week our desire materialized and we were on our way to an ecological community ¨Atlantis¨, high up in the mountains.
We spent two weeks there, doing farm work, looking after goats and rabbits, cutting firewood, doing carpentry, cooking over a wood fire and thoroughly resting from the travelling and camping routine.
The community is nearly self-sustaining, producing most of what they eat, including sugar and goat cheese. They have a huge garden, lots of banana trees and a vast sugar cane field.
Strangely, we did not feel like taking a single photo on the farm, neither of the beautiful landscapes nor of the folks. Our camera is dying anyway...
During our stay, we met many neighbours, mostly native people. They came and chatted with us, all of them asking similiar questions. We also encountered a group of fully armed soldiers looking for the guerrillas in the region. They travelled in a big group and every soldier interrogated us, asking the same questions as the friendly locals, except that the locals did not have huge guns slung across their chests and big granades stashed in their front pockets. We guess they were all just bored out of their minds. Two days later, we met the guerrillas themselves, them being very armoured and very friendly with us. They shook our hands and asked how we liked Colombia. When the revolutionaries found out we were from Russia, they started smiling and telling us that they were ¨Marxista-Leninistas¨, too. We smilied in return and nodded our heads.

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