AYE COLOMBIA!

A resounding firecracker-click of heel on tile hushed the crowds on Bogota’s Plaza de Bolívar, scattering pigeons far and wide. The cool, crisp morning air had been engulfed by stickiness, and Juan Fernando’s forehead was already beaded with sweat.

Dressed in a silver-studded charro suit and wide-brimmed hat, Fernando is a Bogota fixture. Hordes of onlookers respectfully formed a circle as he delivered a tuneful cry with theatrical aplomb, his powerful tenore di grazia rich in tone, reverberating among the throng.

Running his fingers through his black curls, Fernando surveyed his audience, swaggering slightly as he swung a 12-string tiple – a sort of smallish guitar – tight to his chest. Smiling broadly beneath his large campesino-style moustache, Fernando readied himself for showtime, his chin pointed dramatically to the sky.

“Cielito Lindo!” he declared with gusto, puffing out his chest as a prelude, before launching into the heartfelt tale of a beautiful dark-eyed girl. The enraptured gathering was serenaded in the proud Colombian tradition of musical storytelling. Colombia’s musical tradition is deeply embedded in local culture, and this rich folkloric heritage encapsulates the nation’s spiritual and emotional fervour – both the highs and the lows. It’s more than drama: it’s the lifeblood of Colombia, from honouring the gods and lamenting unrequited love to mourning the dead and praying for rain. Fernando’s ‘impromptu’ lunchtime performance is just one of a million musical tableaux enacted across Colombia, each with their own spellbinding mix of sorrow and elation.

Today, a broad range of musical styles – from the sultriest salsa to the cheekiest champeta – provides a raucous array of entertainment seemingly at odds with Colombia’s genteel religious practices and pilgrim sites.

Besides a cherished music scene, Bogota boasts a cultural mix as dizzying as the 2,600m plateau on which it sits. South America’s third-highest capital is home to 7.5 million residents, who enjoy the freedom to roam the city during traffi cfree Sundays. I joined them, watching cyclists follow Bogota’s 350km of urban ciclorutas as picnicking families lugged iceboxes to one of the 1,000 leafy parks

A South American tapestry
The next day I travelled north, grateful that my buseta (small bus) could tackle the tough mountain roads so I could just sit back and enjoy the ride. A checkerboard of smallholdings was home to roaming goats and chickens hemmed by fl ower farms on patches of potato crops and maize. A brightly coloured road sign proclaimed ‘Bienvenido Boyaca Su Merced’ (Welcome Boyaca Its Mercy) – a courteous Colombian salutation that prompted my driver to doff his cap.

Juggling a toothpick between his teeth, the driver regaled me with tales of Boyaca, a province renowned as the breadbasket of the nation. This natural store-cupboard is so blessed by colour that the locals call it el tapiz (the tapestry), and from my window seat I saw why. Clusters of red-roofed fi ncas and wooden campesino shacks sold slabs of yellow cheese and cream from silver churns, while sombrero-toting herdsmen ushered sheep across rocky gorges. “It feeds Colombia!” my driver enthused, grabbing at an overhanging branch of crimson berries as we passed.

We hurtled passed Zipaquira, a salt-mine town with a cavernous canyon large enough to accommodate more than 8,000 people in its girth. We took a pit-stop at whitewashed Nueva Guatavita, a replica of an original settlement razed to the ground for a reservoir in 1967. It’s anything but synthetic, though, its pretty red-roofed buildings decorated with rustic masonry and louvred shutters. The sunbaked central square was chock-a-block with locals decked out in all their fi nery, parading to the peal of church bells. All too soon we were back on the road, my day-trip destination, Villa de Leyva, in our sights.

Few entire towns in Colombia have been as beautifully preserved as colonialera Villa de Leyva, declared a national monument in 1954. I was astounded to fi nd it gloriously free from ugly modern carbuncles – a true triumph of architectural conservation. Each colonial building has been uniformly whitewashed, with shutters painted bottle-green. I strolled past snoozing, poncho-clad octogenarians on wooden benches around the expansive Plaza Mayor and explored narrow cobblestoned backstreets. I popped into tiny, mewsstyle shops and enjoyed a glass of freshly squeezed feijoa (‘pineapple guava’) juice. Gregarious storytellers swapped tales and tittle-tattle as I nibbled on baesos de nobia, a sweet meringue cake called ‘girlfriend kisses’. Sadly, despite the dry heat, there wasn’t time to take a refreshing dip in the town’s spring-fed natural pool. I departed with thoughts of cool, splashing water and more than a tinge of regret.

To the Caribbean coast
 Thanks to the skilful captaincy of my driver, I caught my fl ight to Cartagena, having been driven back to Bogota at speed. After an hour in the air, I was delivered into a hot-and-steamy Caribbean haze where an exquisite streetscape of picture-perfect buildings was blessed by dazzling bubblegum hues.

Facing the Caribbean Sea to the west with a sweeping bay to the south, Cartagena is a jaw-dropping jewel-box of Spanish colonial ostentation. I had known it was declared a Unesco World Heritage site in 1984, but I was wholly unprepared for its sheer beauty. Cartagena not only revels in an acclaimed literary tradition of world repute, but is also stunning to boot.

The boldness and vibrancy befi ts the artistic hub of Colombia’s curvaceous Atlantic coastline; it’s a place where street carnivals and parades celebrate the city’s seemingly permanent state of festival. It’s a character born from a past in which slavery, sainthood and swashbuckling buccaneers each played a part.

To best experience Cartagena, simply walk its streets. The next day I meandered to my heart’s content. Blossom-clad shutters opened out onto neat rectangular plazas where vendors plied juicy red papaya in man-sized slices. Sizzling kerbside food stalls emitted the telltale aromas of Cartagena’s deep-fried, meat-fi lled empanadas, while street clowns entertained coffee-sipping passers-by.

Cartagena is still centred around colonial-era, cannon-fl anked fortifi cations, part of the ramparts built by the Spanish. Founded in 1533 as an important strategic shipping post for the plunder amassed by the conquistadors, Cartagena still retains the thick stone walls of a bygone age. Old rock-hewn dungeons house local craftsmen; I couldn’t resist buying a palmfi bre basket and a woven scarf.

On a whim, I hopped aboard a rainbowpainted chiva (open bus) to tour the city in a fast-paced kaleidoscopic blur. I was particularly keen to spot the city’s quirky statue Los Zapatos Viejos (The Old Shoes) – a brogue-shaped monument to honour homespun author Luis Lopéz. A friend of Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez, Lopéz famously immortalised Cartagena in a poem in which he declared he loved the city more than his favourite pair of shoes. Even though I’d spent just a short time in Cartagena, it was an affection I could well understand.