Part Three - Falling Under Barichara’s Spell

It’s a little overcast this morning as we set off with Diego on the drive north, through Boyaca and into the district of Santander and our destination for the next two days, the enchanted town of Barichara. We’re passing through rural farming communities and beautiful landscapes, with clouds covering the mountain tops and huge varieties of vegetation wherever we look. 

The roads are windy little back routes, climbing up and down and round and round, with magnificent views beyond every corner. Rich forests cover fertile hillsides and rolling green fields are bisected by streams and banana trees. In the valleys are vast poly-tunnels, with year-round harvests of crops due to the tropical climate, and vibrant flowers drape across the walls of little homesteads by the side of the road. 

As we reach Santa Sofia, which boasts a huge church, it’s starting to rain gently, feeding the verdant countryside and by the time we drive through the larger town of Barbosa the road is slick and the air is humid. After a coffee break the rain stops but the humidity sticks around and increases as we drive towards Barichara, which at 1360 metres above sea level is at a lower elevation than both Bogotá and Villa de Leyva so boasts a warmer climate. 

Through the region of Santander we travel, with constantly eye-catching scenery, passing large towns such as Socorro and San Gil, which is the epicentre for backpackers and adventure sports enthusiasts visiting Colombia. And then as we approach Barichara, the area becomes more landscaped and extremely pretty, with cute houses and well tended gardens. Before we know it we’re bumping along the cobbled streets of the most picturesque village in the whole of Colombia. It’s so gorgeous that 40 years ago it was awarded the honour of Most Beautiful Colombian Pueblo by national decree. 

So it’s no wonder that we learn Disney used it as the inspiration for the village in the recent film ‘Encanto’ and as we pull up outside our hotel, Misión Santa Barbara, we can see why. Whitewashed buildings, with tiled roofs and green doors and balconies, line the streets and at the centre of the town is a large terracota basilica set back from the pretty garden square. 

We have lunch by the steps of the church at a cafe called Al Fagolia where we try the local Andina beer for the first time and look out at the elegant plaza. Once back at our hotel we are met by our guide, Luis, who is one of the sweetest and most innocent people we have ever met. He describes himself as a “peasant”, which we find a somewhat challenging term, but over the next 24 hours he reveals more and more of his life and we are completely charmed by him. 

He has lived his entire 25 years on a little farm, 18kms outside Barichara in a small community called Butaregua, named after the chief of the local Guane people who lived in the area until the Spanish conquest. He works on the farm with his mother and grandmother, growing avocados, passion fruit, mangoes, lemons, guavas and other fruit, with a large vegetable plot in the forest, chickens to lay eggs and drinking water from the nearby mountain spring. They sell the produce in the local markets and barter and trade with others in their community for anything they don’t have. 

His father and three siblings left over the years to move to bigger cities but he loves this area and the life he has on the farm with his mother, and has no desire to move away. However, unlike his father who can’t read or write, or his siblings who will work any job to get a house and a car, he has focused on education and self taught himself English and German, being fluent in both. After a chance encounter with a local guide, he started showing visitors this utterly magical part of the world, which radiates from his very being. 

He leads us first to the outskirts of Barichara where in 1702 a vision of the Virgin Mary appeared in a quarry, leading the colonial workers to decide they must settle here, taking the name Barichara from the Guane word, meaning ‘place of relaxation’. There is a little shrine and a grille over the stone in the pavement where the miracle was said to occur. 

The village and surrounding area of Barichara has now grown to have 8000 inhabitants and draws visitors from all over Colombia, although foreign tourists are still much fewer than in the likes of Villa de Leyva. This is partly because up until 10 years ago the area was considered unsafe as there was still guerrilla activity in the surrounding towns and villages, and Luis tells of growing up hearing gunshots and watching helicopters being shot at from afar. However the village of Barichara and his rural community was always left untouched, as though it was a special place free from intrusion. 

North Americans have now started to visit (hence the movie ‘Encanto’), and French, German and Spanish tourists also sometimes make it this far north from Bogotá too, but Luis tells us he hardly ever meets British, and especially Irish, visitors and wishes more would come. He loves The Beatles, Elton John, Queen and One Direction, especially Harry Styles, and would one day love to visit the UK and learn all about the history of that “special place”. He’s not so keen on America though. 

Near the shrine is a statue of a huge ‘fat bottomed ant’ and in April and May Luis and his fellow community all harvest these ants in their millions as they are a delicacy across Colombia. In fact, we saw a woman holding up a sign selling ‘Big Ass Ants’ in Bogotá. Luis tells us he, his mother and grandmother are life-long vegetarians and have never been ill in their lives as all their food is organic from their farm and unprocessed and they don’t eat meat, which he and his community believe leads to obesity, cancer, heart disease, anxiety and depression - none of which any of them have ever suffered from. However they do all eat the ants each year, partly because if left untouched they would destroy their crops. So better to eat and sell them than kill them with chemicals. 

Luis leads us up out of the village and into the woods where he shows us how traditional farming houses are made of mud, like the one he lives in, and picks fruits for me to treat a cold. We walk through a beautiful area, called the  Bioparque Mónocora, reforested with various native trees, where butterflies fly around us, and come to a viewpoint above the jaw-dropping Rio Suarez canyon. Luis tells us the Rio Suarez, or Sarabita in the Guane tongue, is named ‘Thread of Silver’ by locals as it glistens brightly in the moonlight. 

We continue on through the charming village cemetery, full of decorated graves, and on to a women’s collective who make paper from the local trees and sell various products from it, before Luis takes his leave from us in the plaza to ride his motorbike back over the hills to his farm. Before he goes he recommends the local vegetarian restaurant Shambala where we have dinner. It’s run by two smiling ladies who serve us Indian and Asian rice dishes, along with three margaritas, all of which come to just over £10. 

The next morning at 8am Luis arrives to take us on a three hour hike along the ancient Camino Real from Barichara to the smaller village of Guane in the Rio Suarez canyon. It’s one of the most magical experiences of our lives, despite us learning that we’re walking through the second most active earthquake region in the world. The scenery, bird life, tranquility and sense of being in a timeless natural wonder is bewitching, and the gentle presence of Luis roots us firmly into the landscape of him and his family. 

As we walk we talk about the description of the local people as “yellow feet” due to the fact the ochre soil permanently stained the soles of their feet yellow, and about local fairytales. He tells us of an apparition on this path that he and his mother both witnessed when he was twelve and the strange fever that afflicted him straight afterwards which his mother managed to cure with local medicine. When I get an insect bite that starts to bleed and swell he picks the leaves of three plants - mulata, guanabana and cat’s claw - and tells me to chew them for a few seconds before placing them on the wound. It instantly heals the bite. 

Over time Luis wants to guide more people around the area and is trying to make his home more “attractive” so he can take visitors on excursions to see his community and hike to the ancient pictograms drawn on rocks just two kilometres from his house by the ancestors of the Guane people over 13,000 years ago. He is also hoping to learn how to make soap from the abundance of bitter orange trees they have, as the fruit is inedible but has fantastic properties for the skin. 

He confesses he rarely speaks with his family or community of his aspirations to become a guide and to one day travel himself, but he is slowly trying to make his dreams come true, and we have no doubt that he will get there. His wisdom and intelligence promise a bright future, and when we speak to our tour company about him the next day they agree that he is a very special person. 

We finish our hike in Guane, sharing a much-needed cold beer or two at a little bar with astounding views of the canyon before the three of us cram into a little tuk tuk and chug our way back to Barichara. We say a very fond farewell to Luis, swapping numbers and promising to stay in touch, feeling very lucky to have met such a gentle and kind soul, and refresh ourselves with coffee and pastries in the main square. 

That afternoon we walk a short way back out of town to the Mirador Saltó del Mico for more amazing views of the canyon and also poke our heads into Aljibe, the lovely bookstore run by Alejandra Espinosa, the local lady who Disney employed as their cultural consultant for ‘Encanto’ and have admitted they partly based the lead character Mirabel on.

We are also by chance visiting a number of other places that inspired elements of the movie including Salento and the Cócora Valley later in our trip, but Barichara is the beating heart of the film and the bookstore is a lovely space, leading into the rather eccentric little museum next door. 

After returning to our room in the Misión Santa Barbara for a few hours we walk around the corner to the world renowned Elvia restaurant, recently voted both fifth best restaurant in Colombia and in the Top 50 restaurants in the whole of Latin America. The setting is lovely, the service great and the food beautiful, and yet again the bill is a fraction of what we would pay in other parts of the world. We have a final glass of wine on the main plaza, soaking up the Saturday night carnival atmosphere where a stage has been erected, a sound system is pumping and lots of people are dancing. 

Barichara, its landscapes and people have enchanted us completely. What a truly magical place!