← PreviousVilla de Leyva, the white town, by bike23 March
Guadalupe doesn't feature in many itineraries, and that was precisely what attracted us. It is a farming town in Santander, clinging to a hill among the pastures, which you reach after hours of hairpin bends in a bus that stops at every hamlet to drop off a sack of flour, a grandmother or a bundle of mail. On this kind of journey you end up knowing all the passengers by sight, and the driver greets half the people he passes. Through the window, facades painted with colourful murals finally announced the centre.
A village where horses pass in front of the church
The main square is a little oasis: huge royal palms, flowerbeds trimmed to perfection, benches where old men put the world to rights, and the big stone church with its two bell towers, lit up in green and gold at nightfall. Inside, the white and gold nave shone under neon lights. Colombians have a very uninhibited relationship with artificial light in their churches, and this mixture of fervour and kitsch was rather touching.
The next morning, riders came down the street at a walk, hats on their heads, as if nothing were out of the ordinary, in front of a little white and red chapel. Here the horse is still a means of transport like any other, and it's not unusual to see a mount tied up outside the grocery while its owner does the shopping. For us, city dwellers used to scooters and traffic jams, it was a small leap back in time.
The path to Las Gachas
24 March
The real reason for our visit lay an hour's walk away. The path, paved with pale stones, winds between rolling pastures where white zebu cows graze along with a few bold calves who watched us go by with undisguised curiosity. The path gently descends, and you already know you will have to climb back up on the way home.
At the end lies the Quebrada Las Gachas: a shallow river flowing over a bed of red rock, hollowed out over the centuries into dozens of round holes. These natural pools, deep enough to slip into up to your shoulders, form so many open-air jacuzzis. The contrast between the bright red of the rock, the green of the banks and the clear water is striking, almost unreal. Colombian families were picnicking on the rock, feet in the water, while the children jumped from one hole to the next, shouting. Only a few years ago the place was known only to locals, and you could sense it wasn't going to stay that way for long.
On the way back, under a sun finally breaking through the clouds, the valley stretched all the way to the blue mountains on the horizon. In the evening Guadalupe found its calm again, and so did we.
