The bus ride from Medellin to Jardín normally takes about three hours but not on weekdays when one of the main roads is closed. And as we traveled on a Thursday it took us five hours. But even tough we weren’t happy about the 2h detour we were impressed on how beautiful the landscape was.
It was a curvy ride through the most beautiful green hills we had ever seen. They showed every shade of green known to us. Chartreuse, emerald, lime, aquamarine, teal, bottle, glaucous, asparagus, olive, celadon, jade, malachite and many more.
And they reminded us a bit of Switzerland but were also completely different. They were covered with regular trees, palm trees and sometimes even bamboo. And they were so steep we wondered how the Colombians managed to farm on them.
Another difference to Switzerland was the absence of tunnels and therefore we enjoyed five hours of shifting from left to right and back until we reached the marvelous town of Jardín. In this beautiful colonial town everything is centered around a big plaza in front of an even bigger church. On this plaza the entire town meets for a chat, a coffee or a drink. And on the weekends the caballeros present their skills on the horses.
We also realized that it can get quite cold in the evenings. But considering the fact that Jardín with its 1’750m is higher than Davos, we shouldn’t have been surprised.
But we didn’t just sit on the plaza and enjoy Colombian coffee, we also explored those marvelous green hills by foot. On our hike we passed a tunnel full of bats and took a ride in a tiny cable car which was basically a wooden box on a metal rope. And before we enjoyed this shaky ride we spotted the highlight of our hike, the famous Gallito de Roca. It is one of the strangest looking birds you can imagine. He has a huge head but a tiny peek that is almost invisible. But with his beautiful red feathers he looks just marvelous.
Leave a reply