A year ago today we met Freddy and his family who sheltered and cared
for us for the next 9 days or so. We went to a panela mill and had a
country feast in a strange house.
Up and back to the square where we meet the kids from yesterday. One
invites me to his house which is on the other corner of the square where
I have pisca andina which is a typical soup of the Andes made from yuca
(manioc), cilantro, onions, egg beaten and poured into the soup,
potatoes and anything else that they want to add. Just before serving,
you add soda crackers to the soup. It was very good and brought back
memories of my days traveling in Colombia some 30 years ago when the
soup at the beginning of the meal was so large that by the time you
finished it, you had no appetite for the meal.
Many of these colonial houses on the plaza lie empty most of the time
since the people have moved away to other cities and return to their
ancestral homes here in Seboruco only for the fiesta which is once a
year at the end of August.
Back to the square where we meet Pedro Pita - don't know his last
name - who is the army recruiter for the area. He says he has seen us
around the square but asks if anyone has offered to take us and show
us any of the surrounding countryside. We tell him that people have
talked to us but so far we have not had anyone take us anywhere. He
offers to take us to a finca out of town and fix an assado (grilled
meat) for us and we say Yes!, let's go. The young Pedro from
yesterday and I go to buy 4kg of meat and some tomatoes for a salad.
Pedro Pita meets someone in the plaza named the Brujo (the witch)
who gives Pedro the key to the gate to his finca near Palmeritos and
we head out of town. Paulina, Pedro's daughter, goes along. We head
back down the mountain from which we came up from La Fria. Then we turn
left just before the bridge onto a small concrete road.
The road is unremarkable except that it is very narrow - only one
lane wide - and built entirely by hand using a small cement mixer and
finishing it by hand. Every section is hand laid and there is concrete
only where it needs to be. If the road is flat, then there is no concrete
- if it is pendiente (steep) then there is concrete. Folks, let
me explain steep: the steepest road that I had seen till this day in
my life of 57 years is the one that leads from La Grita up to the paramo
and then on to Merida. That really was why I came back to this place
- to show Kai what a really steep road was. Let me say that after seeing
the roads we saw today and those that we have yet to see on tomorrow's
expedition, I am over steep! The roads seem to go everywhere over every
type of terrain. Most are so steep as to warrant 4WD. It strains our
little VW to climb some of the steepest parts. If you meet someone and
have to back up to let them pass, then you have to back up to a flat
place to get started again. Sometimes to get up a steep slope, you have
a series of switchbacks which are murder for our VW.
We drive down a small valley with some steep sections of road alternating
with short flat sections all either bordered by forest or by fincas
where coffee, bananas (cambur, guineo), cacao, citrus
fruits and other plants grow. The houses are all white and look well
kept with an amazing variety of plants on every veranda. Every house
has ferns with fronds stretching 4 or 5 feet long. Every house has some
orchids. Birds of all colors flit about and sing. Occasionally, you
see one of those giant iridescent blue morpho butterflies. Alongside
the road impatiens (besitos, amor ardiente) grow wild
in profusion. Sometimes the purple plant known as Wandering Jew covers
the hillside. Thunbergia grows everywhere beside the road.
People plant tomatoes, bainitas (green beans), pepinos (cucumbers)
and a few other crops on the steep slopes that all have to be worked
by hand -- plowed by oxen (bueys) with wooden plows (arados)
and seeded by hand. Here, tomato seeds are planted to be harvested 75
days later. We stop and talk to an old man beside the road who shows
us coffee beans and gives us sugar cane to chew which is slightly sweet
and very cool and refreshing. He also gives us cambur which is a small
sweet tasting banana.
We stop at a small stream to get in the water to cool off while the
people in the house by the river look at us as though we were from Mars.
But then here in this valley where tourists never come, we must appear
to be just that -- strangers from a strange place exiting three strange
vehicles the type of which they have never seen. Pedro asks us if we
would like to go to a trapiche which is a cane mill where sugar cane
is crushed so we head down a small dirt road along a ridge and curve
around and arrive at an open sided tin roofed construction where the
entire process of turning cane juice to panella or blocks of sugar takes
place.
We hear a two cylinder engine which Will says sounds like a John Deere
'B' running at an idle. Onto it is mounted a wheel that turns a belt
which in turn runs the cane mill. Pieces of cane about 2-3 feet long
are stacked as high as 5 feet just by the mill. Two or three people
work the mill - two feeding the cane in and one or two taking the spent
cane and throwing it into piles at the other side of the mill. About
a dozen people are at work in the trapiche. One guy was the greaser
and all he seemed to do was grease the machinery. After the cane juice
(guarapo) left the crusher, it ran through a pipe (tuberia)
by gravity to a calentador (heater) where it was pre-heated.
Then it went into one of three huge pans about 7 feet across and 4 feet
deep holding maybe 200 gallons of cane juice. Fires were going under
the pans and each one was at a rolling boiling. Sr. Ochoa, a handsome
older man dressed in white with a nice moustache resembling an older
Juan Valdez of Colombian coffee fame constantly stirred the boiling
syrup.
The first pan is called a guarapera, the second a mielera (miel=honey
because of the syrups' appearance of honey at that state) and the third
one is the colchera. When the syrup boils down to a consistency known
only to the maestro of panella, el Sr. Ochoa, it is transferred from
pan to pan with a huge ladle ending up in a fourth finishing vat called
an artesa where the syrup cools and thickens to a liquid caramel state.
At the same time Sr. Ochoa's assistant, El Gallo, (Jose Willians Molina)
wets down the forms into which the finished product will be poured.
The forms are made of wood and each one is about 8' x 4' and there
are about two dozen forms per block. One block of 24 forms is called
an arroa and about 45-60 arroas are produced from each run of the trapiche
which occurs about every week. About six blocks of forms are wet down
and spread out on a concrete table just behind the boiling syrup. Then
Sr. Ochoa makes the last transfer of the nearly finished syrup into
the artesa which is a fourth flat bottomed container resembling a large
mortar box. This container is metal lined and is the cooling container.
All attention now is concentrated on this last step where the caramel-like
liquid is constantly stirred with a large oar like wooden spoon. Then
Sr. Ochoa's other assistant takes a large wooden bowl and begins to
scoop out the thickened product which he then carries to pour into the
waiting forms where Sr. Ochoa waits with a two flat paddles which he
keeps wetted down to spread the semi fluid mass evenly into the forms.
Not a moment is wasted and not a drop of liquid is lost. Sr. Ochoa
is truly a master of his trade knowing exactly how much liquid to move
from one set of forms to the next to exactly finish off the batch leaving
not a cupful of liquid left over. Then after the blocks of panella are
cooled they are removed from the forms and wrapped and tied expertly
by El Gallo in brown paper to be shipped to be sold. I think someone
told me that they get Bs 4,500 or about $6.75 for 24 blocks of panella.
The work starts at midnight and goes through to the next afternoon.
If they produce 60 arroas at US$6.75 each, the trapiche makes US$405
each week. It takes about 10 people to work the trapiche plus innumerable
others to cut cane, etc.
Panella is bought by the people here to use for sugar and to use in
water as a soft drink. It's most important use however seems to be to
make miche which is the local brand of aquardiente. Aquardiente (moonshine
if made in an illegal distillery) can be made from panella or from cucuy
which is a large leafed succulent which grows all over Latin America.
After the miche is distilled, it is sometimes flavored by boiling apples
or herbs with it. One of the herbs is inojo which may be anise or caraway.
So far I have not been able to find out which one it is. Ineldo is used
too and it is an herb with very fine leaves. It is used green. Inojo
is used as a seed to give miche its flavor. The still where miche is
distilled is called an alambique or cachimbo. A whole lot of money is
spent on miche and a whole lot of people do nothing but work a little
to get some money and then they drink it all up with miche. Some people
like Francisco up the hill do nothing but drink miche.
After the trapiche, we go to the Rio Venegara to cool off - our second
river of the day. This one was bigger than the first one which was just
a stream so we were actually able to take a bath in it. Valeria and
Kai thought it very cold but I thought it to be comfortable. The river
courses through lush tropical vegetation over huge rocks. The bridge
that crosses the river is a suspension bridge.
After the suspension bridge, we go up again and see some zebu cattle
in a lush pasture. After a few pictures there we head on up the road
which is now mostly rock and come to a turn-off to the left which we
take. It is looking like rain. We come around a turn and see a young
man using oxen to plow a very steep field. It reminds me of the stories
my mother used to tell of my grandfather and my uncles plowing the steep
fields of Buchanan County, Virginia, with oxen in the 20s and 30s. So
with that nostalgia in my mind, I stop and take several pictures of
him and then continue on up the road just as the rain starts. We find
out that the finca of the brujo that we are trying to find is still
further on and that the road is liso or slick with the rain so Pedro
asks the family if they could fix the meat we have brought with us and
a salad for us which they start to do. The house where we stop is clean
and neat with hundreds of flowers on both sides of the road. As the
rain comes down, the meal is fixed. The old man of the house, Don Jose
looks on a little bewildered as all these people mill in, around and
through his house. We sit on the back porch which has a nice view and
watch the rain. There is a beautiful small white zebu bull calf tied
on the back porch. The meat is just so-so but the tomato salad with
onions is really good.
Finally the rain stops and we walk outside. The fellow who was plowing
with the oxen walks up the road and introduces himself. His name is
Freddy Herrera and he lives in the finca just down the hill. He sees
me taking pictures and tells me that in his mother's house, there are
flowers that are not found here and to come down and see them. He shows
me a wasp's nest that's in a small flowering tree beside the road. Finally,
everyone is ready to leave. As we are going back down the road, Freddy
is walking home. I stop and ask if he would like a ride and he says
yes and that we should all stop in at his mother's house. Will and I
pull in but Les and Kai decide to park down on the road because they
want to get back to Seboruco before dark.
As in every house in Venezuela in the countryside, coffee in tiny
cups is immediately brought out for everybody. We sit on a veranda that
is covered in flowers. There are even two orchids growing there. Freddy's
parents, Jose Gentil Ramirez and Graciela Herrera are very kind and
gentle people and remind me of the people that I have met who lived
in the countryside all over South America -- simple, real, honest and
hard working. After visiting a time with them, we return on the road
through Palmeritos to Seboruco. We see night birds on the way along
the road - they are large like Whip-o-wills and fly up and ahead of
us when we get to them.
We go to the hamburguesa stand in the square in Seboruco and get those
wonderful sandwiches that I have only eaten here. They have ham and
cheese and egg and tiny dried french fried potatoes, lettuce, mustard,
ketchup and other wonderful things on a huge bun which after it is slowly
built up, is heated. Will and I walk back to the fiesta but everyone
else goes to bed. More crowded tonight with lots of loud music. We meet
up with Pollo, the mayor's brother who shows us a quiet street to sleep
on and we do that - but still only sleep fitfully.
