ARRIVING AT PERIERA

My first impression of Periera was of a typical Colombian city, although it was already colder than the ones I had visited. I knew I was in the foothills of the Andes, however, and in the center of the so-called Coffee Axis. One of the advantages of hiring a driver is the opportunity to observe the city that will be your home for the short amount of time ahead of you. I had arranged for the driver I had met briefly last year in Bucaramanga (about a ten hour drive from Periera) to meet me at Matecaña International Airport and we had little trouble finding him. Periera, the capital of Risaralda, is the largest city I’ve visited in Colombia (apart from a drive through Bogota in 2012) but it maintains many of the subtle features of other Colombian cities and towns. Before reaching Hotel Reserve Monarca in Salento we made a stop at Victoria, one of three shopping malls in Periera. It is a three-level building with a movie theater, casinos, arcades and a food court offering the standard fare represented through national staples along with a McDonald’s, Subway and a Dunkin’. We tried a place called Sayonara which, despite the name, is not a Japanese establishment (that was represented in the food court by Sarku Japan). Rather, Sayonara offered burgers and sandwiches with a local flavor. I had but one misfortune here that served as a reminder of the need to prepare. I went to use the bathroom by the food court only to find that the toilet paper needed to be purchased in a vending machine next to the bathroom. It only accepted coins and I only carried paper currency. I tried making change in one of the arcades but the staff carried none. Finally, I had to purchase an ice cream at McDonald’s Posters (as the McDonald’s in the mall is called as it offers desserts exclusively) and was finally able to use the bathroom. I was just in time for the mall closed soon after with some of the exits barricaded by security (a standard practice to funnel people out to prevent theft) and we began our way to Salento. Once away from the cities darkness is broken in Colombia only by the faint lanterns of isolated farm houses and the occasional roadway shop. I began conversing with our driver about local politics. He mentions his reluctance to discuss Colombian politics with other Colombians and this seemed to me his opportunity to express his dismay, albeit tepidly. He expressed dismay at the election of President Gustavo Petro which took Colombians by surprise two years earlier. Few Colombians, he said, would have guessed that a former guerrillero would be elected president and I couldn’t help but make the comparison to the election of Chile’s Salvador Allende in 1970 which startled some Chileans but also the United States officials who, up to then thought they were making headway into eradicating Marxism in Latin America. “Elections are coming up in your country too,” our driver asked me. “Yes. My country is very divided now,” was my response. “In our way we have a hard time discussing politics. Even within the two main parties there is division.” “Donald is stronger,” the driver observed. “Perhaps, but with the legal cases against him who knows what will happen.” After a drive through the darkened fields the car made a turn on the highway and turned into a rocky road with a few abandoned barns. Winding up a small hill the glow from the Hotel Reserva Monarca illuminated the entryway. We were greeted at the gate by a hotel worker. Our driver said he was bringing guests and we were allowed through. The Hotel Reserva Monaraca is a modern rustic hotel surrounded by flower gardens impossible to appreciate in the darkness. What I took initially to be a pool was instead a moat in the gardens upon which sat a bar and restaurant frequented by international guests. The hotel gets its name for its butterfly motif and each room, the clerk at the desk informed me, was color-coded and named after a different species of butterfly. Indeed, nature, especially insects, abound in the surroundings and often make its way into the room. On our first two nights I had to eradicate bugs from behind the bed. This is but a minor inconvenience, however, to the privilege of being surrounded by the local flora. The hotel is deceptively humble and offers few frills (no laundry service is perhaps the only one I would gripe about), but the daylight brought surprises. At dawn the magnificent vistas came to life in all their colorful glory. A natural paradise was revealed.