A few days ago in Salento after finding out I had traveled solo for several months around South America with only my broken Spanish, two men told me I was berraca. I wasn’t sure what this meant, so texted one of my Colombian male friends on WhatsApp to enquire and he started laughing at me… and told me it was a compliment, and that it basically means a brave badass female.
So today, after an exhausting day of travel yesterday from Salento to Jardin me, me the mighty Berraca, woke up in my beautiful Colombia finca ready to seize another day.
ver a simple Colombian breakfast of a corn arepa, 1/2 an avocado, wedge of cheese, fried egg and coffee, I decided that the plan for the day was to hike to Cueva del Esplendor.
Cueva del Esplendor was supposedly a huge waterfall inside a cave about 12km each way from Jardin. Most people meet in the towns square at 8am daily to take a jeep 4.5km up to the beginning of the trail, and then horse ride the remaining 4.5km in… but not me. Because apparently I like pain, and what else would I do with my day?
The hike probably wouldn’t have been so bad, if I would have had an accurate map and wouldn’t have had to turn around after hiking 1-2 miles up 3 different roads that ended up being the wrong ones… as every road is unmarked. At one point I found myself walking through a palm plantation and several times being chased out of people’s properties by dogs. Good times.
After already covering 8 miles of ground in the remote Colombian wilderness, I finally found the right road and luckily got driven up 1/2 of it by two Colombian man in a tuk tuk. After they dropped me off, I got to sludge two hours the rest of the way to Cueva del Esplendor through the rain on a horse-trail that was pretty much a muddy creek full of dirty water, horse and cow manure.
Big sow near cueva del esplendor
A few times I passed gauchos on the trail riding their horses and they asked me if I was solita (alone)… After I responded yes, they told me I was muy guappa, “very pretty.”
I finally made it and it was quite splendid, I only wished I had made it earlier in the day so I could have spent some time swimming in the falls…. but by this time I knew I would be pushing daylight to get back to Jardin before sunset.
So I set off again down the sloppy hill back towards Jardin. Luckily it had stopped raining, but I was already exhausted but was blessed by the stunning vistas along the way… and after a few face to face show-downs with bulls in pastures along the route, my adrenaline was pumping enough to make me last for days.
As I trudged back into town, exhausted after putting in a 20.5 mile day through the Colombian hillside to Cueva del Esplendor I was pretty sure I wasn’t muy guappa by this point, as I was probably more muddy, sweaty and dirty than the sow I had photographed. But I was definitely feeling berraca, and there isn’t anything I’d rather be.
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Cueva del Esplendor & Everything That I Am A few days ago in Salento after finding out I had traveled solo for several months around South America with only my broken Spanish, two men told me I was berraca.
