The "Farm" and Medellin

Well, funny story, the farm we thought we were going to for a couple of weeks did not actually exist. We were in contact with the supposed farmer through wwoof and had a description of the farm:

"This is a small farm located in Cucunuba, a small and pretty town one hour and a half from Bogota. We plant vegetables, make compost, suckle chickens, sheeps. We live like peasants, simple, shy and as cheaper is possible. The life of this town is like in the old times, many people still use the donkey for carrying products and staff from town to home, people is friendly and kind. we like met friends make fire and play music in our free time. Live in the Positive timing!!!!"

OK, it is an odd descirption, we have no idea how you suckle a chicken or a sheep, but we figured parts of it are just difficulty with English. What we did not expect is for the farm to not even exist. The farmer is actually a 27 year old guy who lives with his parents in a very nice colonial home without even a yard or flower pot. He did have some wealthy relatives with land nearby and so we spent some of our time weeding flower gardens in their yards. As you can imagine, this was a bit frustrating. We will admit that the town is a friendly place and it was nice being in such a nice place. We eventually got to laughing pretty hard about living with some guys parents and weeding rich people´s flower gardens and tried our best to live in the positive timing. After his mom dropped a few hints about not being all that excited about her son bringing strangers to the house for her to feed, we decided we should continue on our journey and get out of their way. We dont think there were any bad itentions of misleading us, but maybe just some really strong wishful thinking and not really thinking things all the way through.
We are in contact with another project using sustainable agriculture to address the needs of a village discplaced by the war. No idea if it will work out, but we plan to meet with them and see if we might be of some use there.

We are now in Medellin, Colombia. Former home of Pablo Escobar and stronghold of Colombian drug cartels. Nowadays, Medellin prides itself in its modernity, and instead of drugs, the big money maker in the city is cut flowers. Having the best Metro (kind of a subway but above ground) system we have encountered, we are enjoying seeing the sights. The Metro system is tied into a couple of lines that are not rail, but are sky trams, carrying one over the mountains and over pieces of the city built up the sides of the steep mountains surrounding the city. The city is also home to a large, very nice museum filled with works of Fernando Botero. Google him as his works are lots of fun. A few of the parks also have large scultures by him.

Tomorrow, hopefully, we will head to Cartagena on the northern coast. Supposedly the most beautiful city in Colombia and possibly in all of South America, we are anxious to see what the hype is all about.

Live in the positive timing!