Colombia – Travel Diary #2 : Breakfast, Witchcraft & Shopping !

 

Hey !

Here’s the sequel of my Colombia Travel Diary series !
If you want you can check out here my Travel Diary #1.

 

Two days after we arrived to Popayán, we had to come back to Cali for one day only. But on our way, stopped to Silvia, a small city, where my cousin needed to drop some paperwork.

 

 

 

Starting the Day With Breakfast :

In Colombia, there’s always a particular thing I crave for breakfast : it’s called Pan de Bono.
Pan de Bono (translated “Bono Bread”) is a kind of bread made of corn or manioc flour, cheese, milk, and eggs. Their shape is typically round, often with a donut-like hole in the middle.

Here’s a picture of a typical breakfast I have in Colombia :

 

 

This day we departed at 6:30 am because of the long road ahead (there are 3-4 hours to go to Cali), and on the way we had the best pan de bono ever ! We stopped at a teeny tiny shop to eat them on the spot. They were coming right out of the oven, crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, delicious !

 

 

We had also some Aguapanela with them, a hot panela flavored water (panela Is a kind of “sugar”… it’s a bit like a mix between honey and cinnamon, that comes in hard blocks)

 

 

 

Stopping by Silvia :

After our hunger was relieved, we continued our way to Silvia.
Silvia is a cold city, it’s higher in the mountains than Popayán (I think), and even more than Cali which is the hottest place we’ve been to right now.

 

This city is known to be the home of the Guambianos, they’re a specific group of native Americans who are known for their particular “uniforms”. They don’t usually like foreigners or strangers very much, and most of them will ask you to pay 10 $ if they see you taking a picture of them (it’s usual in Colombia that people ask for dollars, most of them assume foreigners are from the United States). I guess they might be sick of seeing people taking pictures of them, which honestly, is understandable.

That’s why I chose to only take pictures from behind, without them noticing to not bother them.

 

 

 

 

Here’s what we saw in Silvia, first the church :

 

 

And a market, again (my mother has a market fetish and always seeks them wherever we go), where we saw some typical hats and jewelry :

 

 

We also saw some actual Colombian witchcraft, called Santeria. Here are protection bracelets, and herbs to use in some wicked rituals, who knows !

 

 

 

A lot of Colombian people believe in witchcraft, spirits, mother nature (called Pachamamá), and other superstitions that persisted and evolved through the Spanish colonization.

For example, when my mother spills some salt on the ground, she immediately adds some sugar on top of it, to “counterspell” the salt. Weird huh ? But hey, I don’t mind a little magic, even if I don’t believe in it.

 

We also saw some Chivas, a chiva is a typically decorated bus that you can find through all Latin America, they’re mostly overpacked with people and merchandise. Some of those offer booze during the trip !

 

 

We went on the road again, and stopped another time at a small shop on the side of the “highway” (it’s just a big road but you still pay like a normal highway) to get some Guarapo. Guarapo is basically sugar cane juice, with lemon. To me it tastes like childhood :

 

 

 

Also, there were gooses around for some reason :

 

 

 

Back to Cali :

On the way to Cali, we were stopped by a police control. We were in two separate cars because we were many, (there was my uncle and his family and my mother and my family, a total of 9 people)y. It turned out my uncle hadn’t done the complete car checkup you have to do every 3 years since 2011 ! The policeman gave him a fine for it, and he had to go to the nearest garage to get the car checked. The thing is, we had only one car left, for 9 people. I kid you not, we did manage to fit 9 people in a single car !

 

Here’s a picture, I’m at the very end of the picture with my cousin’s girlfriend, both in the trunk :

 

 

Also, we went to Cali because my mother and sister have had health issues for some time now. For my mother : gluten and lactose intolerance but also stomach and back pain, and for my sister : her arm is hurting from her hand to her neck. So, they decided to run some tests then in a good clinic in Cali. They already got tested in France, but since the doctors didn’t find anything or didn’t propose good solutions, they wanted to try the Colombian ones (my mother says that since they’re from her country, she trusts them more).

 

In the meantime, I went with my cousin’s girlfriend and my brother, and we shopped almost all afternoon ! Here’s inside of the mall, it looked like a garden :

 

 

 

And here’s a glimpse of the items I got, I’ll be doing a Colombia shopping haul to show you all of it, don’t you worry :

 

 

 

Dinner and Flood :

 

When they finished their tests, some of us regrouped in the same mall where we were shopping. We first had a drink at a juice shop called Cosechas. I had a strawberry and apple collagen drink, it’s nice to find such healthy options here in Colombia, country of the fried foods !

 

 

After some time the last persons we were waiting for arrived, and we went to have dinner at a sushi restaurant. It was a north American styled one, with fried sushi and cream cheese. But it was really good !

 

 

When we wanted to go back to Popayán we had a big issue : we got caught by an enormous flood. The rain in south America is never a normal rainy rain. It’s either not raining at all, or pouring more than a shower (I’m not even exaggerating really, yesterday it was literally thicker than my shower). There was also lightning, which in addition to the rivers falling from the sky, made it very dangerous to consider driving on the damaged and curvy Colombian roads.

 

 

In the end, the rain finally got a little less torrent-like, and we arrive exhausted at my grandparents’ home in Popayán at 01:00 am.

This sure was an exhausting day !

 

 

Read The Next One Here :

COLOMBIA – TRAVEL DIARY #3 : CHEESE EMPANADAS, NATIONAL DAY, & FINCA