Beginning in Barichara

It’s hot this morning. I’m sat at the top of the bioparque having just dropped Zia off to catch the bus to school for her last couple of days. Yesterday was the first day that it’s been overcast throughout and with it there were spells of rainfall. Today the heat from the sun this close to the equator is evaporating huge quantities of that water which you can feel as you walk through the humid morning air.

As I sit down to write this we have 4 days left here in Barichara and I’m just about to begin writing about our first week here. Sat under this huge tree at the summit of the bioparque the views are breathtaking. It’s a good place to write: to think and reflect. It feels like you’re at the top of the world watching clouds swoop in across the landscape. It’s a place where you can see whole weather patterns on the move, hear the buzz of insects and the chatter of birds. It’s supremely peaceful. Sometimes I’m frustrated that the blog still lags behind the present leaving me to straddle two moments in time. Other times I think it’s a blessing to be able to look back and see past events from a distance, perhaps to be better placed to put them in context. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I came up here to write this morning on an impulse but on reflection probably knew that it would be a spot to stir deep emotions. I’m definitely sad to leave this place, which can only be a sign that we’ve had a good time here.

Our departure from Bogotá went as smoothly as it could. It was a domestic flight from Bogotá to Bucaramanga and so there were fewer hoops and security measures for us to pass through. Before we knew it we were settled on the plane and as the flight was only one hour it felt as if we’d only just got into the air before we began our descent. Landing in Bucaramanga there was little to do but collect our bags which incredibly were again the first off the plane doing circuits on the conveyor belt when we got to them.

Our friend Joe had put us in touch with friends of his in Barichara who would collect us from the airport and drive us to our destination. It would take around 3 ½ hours. Mario collected us and off we went. We had soon left Bucaramanga and began to take in the surrounding landscape. It is huge and dramatic. Looking out of the window the girls commented that the mountains in the distance ‘looked unreal’ because of their huge size. It made me think of studying the notion of ‘the sublime’ back at university: one useful definition was when something is simply too immense to comprehend. The landscape here has that effect and it feels good to lose yourself in it.

Because it was the tail end of Semana Santa the roads were busy but fortunately nearly all of the traffic was heading in the opposite direction to us. We had been very fortunate that Bogotá had been all but evacuated in our second week there and we had the luxury of having a huge city almost to ourselves. It seemed now that everyone from Bogotá had been visiting Barichara. Lucky again for us that we were following in their wake to arrive just as the town had emptied. We had a stop about halfway along the journey where we had to navigate getting something to eat and drink. Service stations don’t change much it seems across the world and we ended up with some sandwiches and a few bottles of pop. The service station was busy with lots of people who seemed to be enjoying the last few hours of Semana Santa or maybe it was just a popular spot on a Sunday afternoon. Along the way our driver Mario told me about the buildings in Barichara as it came up in conversation that his son was studying architecture and that I worked in construction and had used lots of natural materials and traditional techniques. I was looking forward to seeing the buildings.

We arrived a little after sunset and as we pulled up at the house our host Alvaro was there to meet us and show us around. The house was absolutely gorgeous. This was going to be our longest stay in one place since leaving home and we had been careful to try and find a good balance between price and comfort. We didn’t want to spend 5 weeks somewhere for the first time and not be happy with where we were staying. Our house had been recently renovated and it had been really well done. In the coming weeks we would find out more about the construction and the style of the houses in Barichara but it wouldn’t change the fact that we had a very beautiful house for the coming 5 weeks. I might get around to writing in more detail about the houses but for now I’ll just touch on some brief but universal characteristics. The walls of the houses are made from rammed earth which is known locally as tapia pisada; this results in thick walls of between 50-70cm which gives them a huge amount of thermal mass. Basically this means that they are perfect for buffering heat as they act like a huge heat battery, absorbing it through the day and slowly releasing it if the temperature drops. The result is a very comfortable indoor temperature even when it’s very hot outside. Worked into this earthen structure is a timber-frame element which makes use of local tree species and uses them in the round (the wood retains its natural form rather than being square-cut timber). This creates a stunning aesthetic of timber in its natural form most of which is left exposed. On the ceilings the timber frame is overlaid with a type of cane that doesn’t produce sugar and this is sometimes left exposed but usually plastered over in the same way that we traditionally used lath and plaster in the UK. The use of the earthen plasters is also pleasantly familiar with working on historic buildings made using daub. In essence, this is all made from mud, sticks and stone.

As I’ve mentioned the visual appeal of these buildings is very high but they are also extraordinarily functional. This is often the case with vernacular architecture. The thick walls buffer the heat. The breathable materials buffer the changing moisture levels. There are special ventilation holes in the walls which passively vent hot air and bring in cooler air. From a modern perspective it’s easy to overlook the value of vernacular building styles. But what we overlook is that they are the result of a huge multi-generational, collaborative design process. Using the materials that were readily available (and thus already adapted to the local conditions) people across the world carried out what were essentially large scale trial and error experiments and through this process developed something appropriate to their needs. These days we have divided these processes into ‘design’ and ‘construction’ and sadly as a result we have lots of ‘innovative’ buildings which are actually just early experiments lacking the benefits that come from having stood the test of time. All too often they are the brainchild of one person who has carried out the ‘design process’ and for me this will always be inferior to the result of multi-processing which we find in the traditional approach.

Our first night in Barichara ended up being a small ordeal. We had of course arrived without food but we had also been assured that there were plenty of good restaurants from which to choose and so we entered into that first night without another thought for feeding ourselves. I had checked on the map and there appeared to be a pizzeria just around the corner from our place so we had decided we’d get an easy takeaway from there. The first hiccup was that the pizzeria was closed. Turns out it only opens on Fridays and Saturdays. So I carried on down the hill following google maps to the next pizzeria. This one was open thankfully so I ordered a couple of pizzas and grabbed a beer while I waited. The next issue was when it came to pay. They were having internet issues making it hard for the card machine to connect. Unfortunately I hadn’t withdrawn any cash at the airport and when I’d tried the cash machine in the square in Barichara it had been empty. Eventually they managed to connect using a mobile phone and I was able to head back home with some pizza for dinner.

The following morning I was up early with the intention of getting something in for breakfast. I made my way down to the main square which was busy with people cleaning up what must have been the aftermath of a busy Semana Santa. It turned out that cash is king in Barichara so I went to the cash machine to try again. No luck. I tried the next cash machine which again was out of cash. I tried the third and final machine with the same result. This turned out to be the downside to arriving just after everyone else had left from Semana Santa: the cash machines had all been emptied by what, by all accounts, had been one of the busiest weeks ever. Interesting to note but not very helpful in getting us some breakfast! I went back home empty handed still. By this point everyone was up and so we all made our way down into the town. It wasn’t a very good start. We were all hungry and tired from the travel the previous day and we seemed to have a bit of an impossible situation to deal with; no food, no money, no cash in the machines in a place where everyone uses cash. I went around the machines again and thankfully this time the last machine must have been restocked and so we were at least able to get some drinks and some pastries in the bakery.

When we first arrived in Barichara, Joe was away in Colorado but another member of our network on Earth Regenerators, Rachel was at the end of her stay here. She had been here for a total of 10 weeks and so knew her way around the town and the community. We arranged to meet up so that she could show us around and introduce us to some people. Over the many months that I had been taking part in various zoom calls and later hosting weekly campfires I had spoken with Rachel a number of times. It was great to finally get to meet up in person. First of all we met her at Margarita’s house who Joe had described to us as ‘our gateway into the community’. Margarita does wonderful work here in the community. She makes a fantastic granola under the name of ‘Frutos Consciencia’ using a wide variety of local ingredients such as dried fruits, oats and grated avocado stones. Over the following weeks we would learn more about how this product and the work that goes with it acts as a kind of social tool to weave together connections with the producers in the region. Margarita’s house has a number of rooms which she rents out and is currently filled with other members of the Earth Regenerator’s community. They had prepared lunch for us and we took time getting to know each other: learning about their work here and describing to them our respective backgrounds.

I was initially drawn to learning more about their process for drying the fruits. We had arrived here without a specific agenda for what we had come here to do but it’s always possible to see opportunities for where you might be able to make a contribution. In my work foraging we had dedicated a lot of time to various methods of preservation: fermenting, pickling and of course drying. Over the years we had developed and modified a very effective system for drying produce which used very little energy and preserved a lot of the nutritional content and flavour of the food by doing this at very low temperatures. Margarita and her husband Donny showed me their system which used old fridges that had been modified into small scale, replicable drying units which they could then supply to growers in the area so that they were able to dry their own produce. It grabbed my attention as a project that I could get my teeth into and over the following weeks we would spend more time working on this but that story has to wait for another post.

After lunch we set off for a walk around the town with Rachel. This kind of connection into a place is invaluable and is something which Rachael (note the difference in spelling) and I have talked about frequently during these months that we have been travelling. When you go somewhere new you are dependent upon things like guide books, websites, google maps and so on but all too often these various mediums are well-known and guide everyone to the same places. There is really no substitute for having a human connection to a place: someone who can walk you around and show you places to buy your food, good places to eat and also introduce you to people so that you are less of a stranger. It’s also infinitely more enjoyable to walk around with a friend who can plug you into both the infrastructure and the social fabric of a place rather than spending your time looking at a screen or a page and trying to extract that information. Of course it goes without saying that the second part of this – connecting you to the people in a community – simply cannot be achieved any other way.

Sadly, our respective stays in Barichara had a very short crossover period. The following day was to be one of Rachel’s last days here but we managed to meet up for lunch. She took us to what would become one of our favourite spots, La Peñita. Here we had the most delicious (and the first of many) Caldo de Costilla while Zia had a tamal and Rosa sat down to a bowl of fruit. It was another happy memory in the making and perhaps a more common story post-pandemic of people who had spent time getting to know one another through zoom calls finally getting to meet in real life. After lunch our final trip was to head up to the Bioparque Moncora. For me it would be the first of many trips and for Rachel the last of many happy weeks spent getting to know this place.

It was all around a great introduction and an interesting experience. This week as I begin to write up our time here I also get to reflect back on those different perspectives: of being familiar with a place and of finding yourself somewhere new. Rachel showed us lots of parts of Barichara and although we absorbed a lot there were also many that we struggled to recall just a few days after. These past couple of days I have had the privilege of being on the other side of that experience; showing newly arrived friend and members of our group around places that have become familiar to me now. I can see as I do it that they have a lot more information to take in than I do and that similarly there will be a lot that gets lost in the process. We have had a wonderful time here in Barichara and as we get ready to leave in the next few days I am a little consoled and looking forward to reliving our time here as I write it all up over the coming weeks.