Yellow Flagged in an Andean Paradise

Due to the virus, the world lockdown and cancelled flights we have been quarantined near a 6500-foot mountain town in Antioquia, Colombia since mid-March. It’s 74 degrees, sunny, solitary and silent.

After searching for days through empty streets and among the masked residents I have finally accepted the sorry fact that grocery stores in the small village of Jardin, Colombia do not offer Twinkies or Ding Dongs. I can deal with the blatant, almost arrogant absence of kosher pickles, ahi tuna steaks, frozen pizza, champagne and caviar but now this?

Today we bought rice, beans, mangoes, eggs, zucchini, maple syrup, chicken, garlic, peppers, yucca, potatoes, shrimp, salmon, beer, rum, granola, cheese, ham, chorizo, cream, milk, ginger, peanut butter, pasta, peanuts, potato chips, tomatoes, papaya, mineral water, paper products, soda crackers, Oreos, yogurt, toothpaste, tilapia, canned peaches, coffee, butter, basil, salsa, thyme, oregano, capers, cooking wine, olives, spaghetti sauce, pancake mix, chocolate, cilantro and cucumbers.

Our view of Jardin from the farm on the river down below

It was all delivered (eggs on the handlebars) to our finca house one kilometer from town at no extra charge. Servicio domicilio ala motorcycle. Even the beer was still cold. Survival alamode can be high impact entertainment.

Tonight we will feast on ajiaco or sancocho or maybe fritanga. Recipes for these fine Paisa dishes are easily cornered in a variety of sources for the curious gourmet.

Sitting in my al aire libre office looking at banana and mandarin trees I get the idea that I am only an intruder into this magnificent landscape of overwhelming green and breezes. My neighbor, Fabio, harvests coffee beans to sell while I marvel at the diversity of birds, monitor the same old news, write harebrained stories and read novels. You can never be bored when there are books.

I have read Tolstoy backwards. Yeats in a hammock, Marquez by candlelight and Joyce on the horizontal lien and on the lam. Yes, I am technically an illegal alien due to the virus-driven closure of immigration machine in Medellin. My partner’s passport is expired and we no longer possess valid plane tickets back to the US. We could rent recreational vehicle and make a mad dash through the Darien but there are an assortment of armed groups running the show there, and RVs are all but nonexistent in South America.

The neighbor’s dogs are paying a visit this morning while the two very friendly resident cows stare us down from flimsy fence line, waiting for us to deliver lunch from the sweet grass just out of out reach. The horses whinny and twitch in dusk’s remaining shadows unconcerned with the human predicament.

But we have not touched a clutch in months. We walk to town up and down the muddy, forest hills to the yellow bridge across the river that cascades from the chiva circus and trucharias in Caldas to the south. It is just enough exercise to lubricate our brains and bones and earn an evening beer. In town the pretty plaza stands empty on the verge of tears, holding its corsage tightly, waiting to be the center of life once again.

My outdoor office outside the village of Jardin, Colombia

We sometimes sit on our mosaic tile patio and look up at the pantomime village, a place that just weeks ago was brimming with life, now a stumblebum on a cliff. Oh but for the high-rev snarl and rumbling thunder of a badly tuned motorcycle bouncing off the Colonial walls or people yelling hello from balconies or bus horns blasting their departures, or the clinking of beer bottles or church bells banging away at ungodly hours. I never thought I’d miss these sounds of life unfolding, clatter and reverberations demanding to be heard.

The river croons, heaves and gushes after a quenching rain and Rocas* screech in the woods. We watch as the day shift of bees and flies are replaced by the night workforce of moths and beetles.

Some days I can almost hear the sound of trees growing.

*The Andean cock-of-the-rock (Rupicola peruvianus), also known as tunki (Quechua), is a large passerine bird of the cotinga family native to Andean cloud forests in South America.