Federicos farm

Constantly consulting with Federico about things to do in Bogotá, he suddenly suggested we should visit his farm. Intrigued, we immediately went for it!

The 2,5 hour drive was liberating, liberating because we could actually drive again. Bogotá traffic is bonkers. So out of town the scenery changes after around 1 hour when you start driving up the mountains again. Here, in the northern hills, there is hardly any palms and tropical plants left. It really felt and looked like Switzerland or Austria.

When we did the final climb up to the little town of Samacá the air became filled with a strange mix of Eucalyptus and onion smells. We loved the Eucalyptus so much that we got some twigs for Jim to drive around with.

After Samacá it became a true scavenger hunt by following Federicos directions bit by bit:

etc etc.. Lu and i loved it! The way is actually not that complicated but than again, the first time it kind of is 🙃

Finally we reached the Perry enclave.And what a beautiful dreamy place it is !

I love browsing peoples libraries, most of the time it gives you a pretty good idea of who you are dealing with, i think. So let me highlight two of my findings.

Not as if we didnt know before, but definitely the right kind of people!

After a quick coffee we headed to Villa De Leyva, a very charming but quiet touristy little mountain town about half an hour away.

After a thorough walk about we had some dinner in a very nice restaurant ,

bought some very good chocolate in a very nice shop,

and went for a very early night in the country side.

There was a lot of exploring to be done the next day. And with the sun out, we got a better look at the house,

and at one of the neighbors,

or two,

One of the crazy things is that you have a stable climate here without change of seasons. Which means that you get multiple crop harvests a year. Depending on what you plant, obviously . Federico cycles potatos, mais and onions on his fields. He ran down the math for me as far as onions go and it goes like this:

“You can grow more or less 30 pounds of onion seeds… And each pound in a good harvest should do 200 sacks of 50kg. So.. it can produce 6000 sacks of 50 kg or 300 tons.”

“A year?” my limited European mind assumed. “No, a semester “ he replied. “ So.. when you are growing the Cebolla cabezona… 2 month growing the seeds .. and then you transpalnt the seeds… And the 3 months and 15 days aprox to grow the onion bulbs..Because we dont have seasons winter or all that you can grow 2 to 3 crops per year….”

Let that sink in for a minute..

It is also what Gato and Caro told us about their Cannabis since they harvest 3-4 (!) times a year.

Lu and i had to check around the fields and witness this insane fertility , yet again. What you find is nuts, at least for us, since you can see different stages of the same particular plant cycle in neighboring fields. Here is 3 corn fields in walking distance next to each other. Bonkers..