We have been here almost three weeks. We read that it would be rainy and cold much of the time. Instead it hasn’t rained one day and while it is pleasantly cool at night, sweater weather, when we are out in the sunshine it can be hot.
Yesterday, after joining the Mahy siblings on Zoom around the world, we were out in the sunshine, first to the flea market a block from our apartment, and then after a brief rest, at an outdoor street fair five minutes away by taxi, on the hill above us, where it turned windy and cool. After this second fair we ate at a rooftop Italian restaurant near the fair and then took a taxi home. Taxi rides are my new way of getting easily around, provoked by my Camino Real trail exhaustion.
What stuck me again at both outdoor markets is the exuberance and vitally of Colombian life. I noticed this particularly at the more upscale outdoor market up the hill. Here there were many eating places connected with local restaurants extended out into the street along with blaring music, both recorded, and from four live bands all along the stalls on both sides of the streets selling handmade objects with the street so full of people that walking was very slow. At each band there was an audience crowded around, often dancing or swaying in time to the music, but even the people who didn’t stop and were strolling through danced their way along as they passed the band. Everyone was dancing, particularly the women, and very alive. I thought of the summer Saturday street markets on Pack Square in Asheville, with outside vendors selling their bright wares and food. People walk past, but there is no loud music everywhere, and no one is dancing, no one electrified by the music, no one obviously letting go and enjoying life. And the rooftop Italian restaurant filled with people had this same feeling of letting go and enjoying life.
I recorded a couple of the bands in spatial video and took many photographs at both the flea market and the later street fair.
https://share.icloud.com/photos/04fNIBUabarkqPCW_M-jfuLsA
https://share.icloud.com/photos/0eboap632e7MMCNO1bIrEjU6Q
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 