Eagle’s Nest

Day 180 – The Eagle’s Nest

Omar swung by to collect Sally, Ricardo and us at 9am and on the way out of town we stopped for a Colombian staple, Arepa, cheese stuffed corn bread. From Salento we drove out of town up a windy road that threaded its way in and out of the clouds. At times we were exposed to impressive views over Salento, Cocora and the surrounding valleys. After a bit under an hour we arrived at Omar’s farmhouse, the ‘Eagle’s Nest’ perched on a saddle at about 3,000m above sea level.

At the door of the house we were introduced to Omar’s wife Lorena, his teenage son Niko, and his sister-in-law and her friend, Ally and Amanda, who lived in San Francisco but were visiting for three months. Also around the house were a variety of other friends and family, workers, dogs, cows and horses. Most notable was Kaya, tiny runt of a Yorkshire Terrier, who Amanda had brought with her from San Francisco in her carry-on hand luggage (yes that’s allowed for such tiny dogs, she’s even exempt from customs restrictions when she returns to the USA because she weighs less than 10lbs).

After a quick stop at the house for some Aguapanela, a hot sugarcane tea drank with white cheese to dip, we were back in the jeep and on our way over the divide to visit one of the world’s largest collections of wax palms.

A wax palm, to give you an idea of their size, that’s Omar standing at the bottom of the right hand one.

Unlike Cocora, here there are entire forests of wax palms.

On top of the ridge there is a small football field. Once a year they play a tournament here with eight teams from the surrounding area. Due to the altitude they only play 20 minutes halves. The also have to play with five balls and employ three people on horseback to retrieve the balls as they fall off the edge!

Ricardo, Sally, Erin and I admiring the view from the pitch.

From the wax palm forest we headed a couple of minutes down the road to visit a friend of Omar’s who keeps a few birdfeeders out to attract the local hummingbirds. At one stage he had six feeders and went through almost 5lbs of sugar a day, he now only keeps two feeders, but still goes through nearly 2lbs a day.

No bird book this time, so I’m afraid all I can tell you is that they are hummingbirds!

You’d think a tail that long would be a hindrance, but not when you’re trying to impress lady hummingbirds maybe.

Bearing in mind that part of this fella’s beak is in the feeder, he has a very impressive beak (and tongue too apparently!).

I’m no bird expert, but I’m guessing that this is a ‘Puffleg’ of some description,

When we got back to Eagle’s Nest the farm workers were playing Tejo in the court down the side of the house. Sunday afternoons are their only time off, and they spend it playing Tejo, understandably they take it quite seriously! I took a few videos of them playing, but it seems I was putting the moccas on them because they never managed to hit the explosives while I was filming. The moment I turned the camera off of course the firecrackers were going off like Chinese New Year.

After lunch we all had a bit of a nap, interrupted every now and again by crackers going off outside the window, and then headed out for a walk around the property. Omar explained how the old walkway through his property was a route originally used by the indigenous people of the area, later the conquistadores pass through whilst expelling the Spanish Empire and in the early 20th century it was an important route between Bogotá and Cali.

On the way around we accidentally spooked a Royal Eagle and its mate who took flight.

Eagle’s Nest on the ridge amongst the clouds.

On the way back to the house we stopped in a patch of forest perched on a knoll to look for the sloths that lived there. Unfortunately these lazy creatures evaded us yet again (despite their relative abundance we’ve only caught the slightest glimpse months ago in Bolivia).

Back at the house Erin abducted Kaya for a bit of warmth sharing while we got stuck into the red wine and waited for dinner.

Our dinner began with the most delicious mushroom soup I’ve had since Grandma used to make it from fresh field mushrooms at the farm. Main course was equally scrumptious and beautifully complemented by a lightning storm over the lights of the towns below.

There’s no electricity at Eagle’s Nest, so after dinner we sat around the fire chatting by candlelight. Ally had bought some marshmallows, Snickers and biscuits from town to make something called Smores, basically roasted marshmallow chocolate sandwiches! Yum.

Day 181 – Fresh Milk

We lazy people got up around 6:30am just in time for the last couple of cows to be milked. We, along with all the kids, were equipped with a big cup of milo powder and sent out to the milking shed. Whilst the kids had their cups filled for them straight from the udder, we took it in turn to try and fill our own cups.

The kids queued up for their milk.

Erin slowly filling her cup. We managed to get about half a cup each before we tired and let the expert take over.

‘Don Omar’, a two year old bull who’s never grown bigger than a calf (except in certain departments considered important for bulls!). There’s a miniature cow belonging to a neighbouring farm who has been slated as a potential mate, so a new breed of miniature cows might be on the way.

After breakfast Lorena drove us back into Salento where we hopped on the minibus to Armenia. With it being the last day of a long weekend the bus terminal was a bit hectic and we had to wait around an hour or two before we made it onto a bus. The traffic was heavy on the way into Bogotá, but it was slightly alleviated by the fact that the police had closed the major highways to outbound traffic, giving us the entire road inbound! Nonetheless we still arrived at our hostel quite late, but not too late to order some pizza and make a dint in the bottle of wine we had with us.