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March 27, 2005
Five hours in paradise
Waking up at 6 a.m. on a Saturday for a five-hour hike through the woods how I usually start the weekend, but Marta wouls likely not have waited for me if I showed up late for our scheduled trip. We boarded a TransMilenio to Portal de la 80, the westernmost stop for the accordeon-type red buses that transport 12 million riders a day, and waited for Juanita Leon, her boyfriend, Miguel, and friend, Mateo, to pick us up on their beat-up silver van and drive us an hour away to Soacha, a city that, in pre-Columbian times, was part of the Zipas' Kingdom and whose name means "City of the Male God."
Soacha is home to Chicaque National Park, a piece of paradise high up the Andes. The entry fee for foreigners is three times that of locals, so Marta ordered me to keep quiet so I could get away with paying the $3 charged to Colombians. Sad but true, friends: Four weeks in Bogota has not been enough to wipe away my Brazilian accent.
We set off on our hike at 8:30 a.m., literally walking through a thick of clouds as we entered the woods. We went up and down, across two mountains and over the rocky formation that unites them, then headed down a trail once used by indians, toward Santandercito, a pueblo of cobblestone streets and colorful houses that draws its subsistence from the growth and sale of flowers. We wet our dry throats with a cold Aguila beer and hopped on back on the van for a lunch of arroz con pollo at Miguel's farm.
My legs hurt so much today I can barely walk. But the effort was worth it, for I feel like the hike brought me closer to heaven.
Posted by Fernanda Santos at March 27, 2005 04:29 PM