06 December 2019 | For our last weekend in Antioquia before the holidays, we went to Jardín, a village south of Medellin and supposedly close. The place is merely 140 km away from us, but don’t let the distance fool you; it took us 5 hours to get there by bus due to ongoing highway construction.
Still, we’re not demanding and the bus trip with an average speed of what felt like 20 km/hour was filled with beautiful views. Plus we got to stop for a pee and snack break in Bolombolo (“even the name is ugly,” as put by a fellow passenger when he found out about the name).
Anyway, Jardín is a small and cute countryside village with a big square for a center and an impressive church named Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. Like the rest of Colombia, it lights up by night!
We were lucky to experience el Dia de las velitas (Little candles day), the unofficial start of the Colombian christmas season on the eve of inmaculate conception. It started with a caravan composed of the biggest trucks of town followed the Virgin making as much sound as possible going around the town. Imagine a mix of horses, busses, pickup trucks, and giant commercial trucks squeezing into the narrow streets of the village center.
The event continued by night with a street food market and horse parades. There is a big horse tradition in Jardín. Groups of horseriders showing dressage parading from one side of the square to the other, stopping in bars for shots. All horsemen and horsewomen wore their finest Colombian cowboy gear with a scarf. We watch the spectacle from the cafe terraces of the square while drinking our fresh and watery Agulia beers and eating street food.
Jardín is also known for its arequipe (Colombian dulce de leche) tradition. Dulces de Jardín has allegedly done excellent sweets for generations. However, we experienced none of these rumors. At the entrance, we encountered a big old (about 30 years old) picture of a smiley family; the owners of the cafe. Still, after our visit to the place, we couldn’t help but feeling like the arequipe had eaten the owner’s smile over the years. No matter how friendly we were, the grumpy lady ( friendliness 1 out of 5 ) just killed our desire to eat our weight in Arequipe. We left with a mediocre arequipe-filled biscuit called alfajor and stated a small walk toward la Cascada del Amor and the surroundings of Jardin.
On the way we stopped to have a coffee next to a river where adults were jumping in the river like kids, and even a grown man screaming for his mom’s attention to watch him jump into the water. Lots of fun to watch and we wished that we could have joined, but unfortunately we had not brought our swimming gear.
By the way, we also thought that, being so close to coffee farms, you’d get amazing coffee everywhere. This place was the first to show us that good coffee is (for many reasons) not a common drink amongst Colombians. We had to enjoy the amazing cafe-view with instant coffee (probably from one of the international coffee giants).
All warmed up form this small walk, we started our Saturday with an early 8 am hike together with Manuel, our guide for the day. After picking two other tourists, we reach our starting point by Jeep. Our guide was super friendly and shared his life philosophy of how to energize your body and soul and the powers of Pachamama (mother nature). He’d been living with indigenous tribes for long periods and found a new approach to life.
Manuel showed us the way through the pine and eucalyptus forest in the mountains around Jardin to find jungle and 3 impressive waterfalls in the national park Salto del Angel.
We also decided to experience one of the main attractions in Jardín, which is bird watching. At least focusing on one type of bird: the Roca. Finding the natural reserve spot for these birds was not an easy task and we almost gave up after a couple of attempts. Each time we followed Google maps, we felt like we were entering someone’s private property. In fact, we eventually found out that the spot indeed belonged to a nice older couple that takes care of these birds (and other types as well).
The Roca birds are these strange-looking hump-backed creatures with a red head. These are at least the characteristics of the males, who come to this area to show off and scream. It’s a great feeling to spend half an hour surrounded by these curious birds that almost seem to want to approach and communicate with you.
Before leaving on Sunday we found Jesus who has a nice view over the city.
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