Barichara…where she creates a magical world, where I am blessed to be invited from time to time, even when I show up at her Barichara home with twelve members of my beautiful family!
This trip, to this lovely town called Barichara, in Santander Colombia, was in July 2017 and I remember arriving anxious to see my family, after an 80-day tour around various countries in the world..
..and then Barichara caught me again, I was full of pride to be Colombian. I have no doubt that this is truly a magical place, full of a calm and a peaceful atmosphere, where time seems to have stopped.. almost as if it was taken from one of Gabriel García Márquez books. This is a city reluctant to lose its historical identity, which I had previously visited years ago with my sister Adriana, but it was then time to return.
This has been one of the trips that I have never written about before but which brought me great joys, sentiments, adventures and much friendship, thankful to see this gathering becoming true. Well, as I was telling you a few lines ago, Margarita had invited me times before… and well, then my travelling head, full of ideas, told me that this city could be the ideal point to set up a family trip, and without further ado, I proposed my family to meet me there on the last weekend of that July, to celebrate together with family and friends, the culmination of my fantastic 80-day trip. That was the place then, where we would enjoy a warm weekend in July, with my great friend Margarita.
Thanks to my family who is exceptional and a little crazy, and mostly so willing to cope with my madness. They grabbed their kids and stuff and embarked on a 300km road trip and almost 7 hours from Bogotá to Barichara, arriving at Margarita’s door, Tu Casa Barichara, a place where they were welcomed with affection, friendship and love for the land.
While they were travelling through the mountainous roads of our beautiful country Colombia, I was leaving San Pedro Ambergis in Belize, happily aboard those birds of metal, sticking my nose to the window as usual. I crossed Panama, Bogotá, and Bucaramanga…. And then 3 more hours by road… phew until finally arriving at dawn, with my eyes on the neck, tired but happy at the entrance door of “Tu Casa Barichara,” with the tremendous illusion of seeing my loved ones and making a mixture of adventurous memories during that weekend in that wonderful land of Santander.
Barichara: The most beautiful town in Colombia
Barichara is a small town in the north of Colombia, in the department of Santander, a city that proudly adorns itself with its cobbled streets and its brownish and colonial architecture, it is also colloquially known in the country as “the most beautiful town in Colombia“, thanks to being one of the best-preserved, where one feels that they have travelled a couple of centuries ago.
Barichara, a place of colours and brown/reddish roofs where churches play a significant role. We passed by the beautiful Chapel of Santa Barbara, which was very close to the main square, there I took the opportunity to take some photos of the family moments. Right in front, there was a sculpture of a cross and oxen ploughing the land symbolizing the activities of this land. This turned out to be also an ideal place to stop to observe the rows of tile roofs that can be seen in Barichara that seem to extend towards that beautiful mountain perspective.
The streets of Barichara gave us a vivid representation of the city, as it was the best way to appreciate it, spending the afternoon hanging around the squares and streets while stopping at some craft stores, or eating ice cream, moments full of scenes for good photos. Barichara also gave us the opportunity to get in touch with ecotourism, nature and beautiful landscapes full of green fields and traces of our colonial past.
We then stopped for a while at El Mirador where we enjoyed a panorama drawn by the Canon of the Río Suárez and the Gran Cordón de Yariguíes, there the sun gave way to witness the magnificence of the gigantic Andean mountains.
El Camino Real – From Barichara to Guane:
This 8 km trail was built by the indigenous Guanes, and later on, used by the Spanish during the colonial times. The path has become a traditional route, and one recommended to those lucky people visiting this area of the country. It goes from Barichara to Guan. It normally starts at La Calle de la Piedra de Bolívar.
At the time, I had not arrived yet to Barichara, but my family undertook this hike and then told me all details about their experience. It seems to have been a challenging one. The path is full of cobblestone roads with many descents and ascents, which made it difficult to hike since they were together with their young children, who in the end were managed to complete the hike happily. The route allowed them to enjoy this ecotourism experience, full of beautiful scenery and also allowed them to experience a little bit our past, the past of our Guanes aboriginal ancestors.
“In Colombia, there is the most beautiful, authentic and beautiful city, an authentic jewel of our past and our heritage ”JR.
🙏
Jenny
Well, now I would like to tell you a little about Margarita’work, who as I told you before, is a great friend who I deeply appreciate and respect for her integrity and love for the land. (By the way, whenever you want to go to Colombia and visit this beautiful city, do contact me and I can gladly advise with your personalised itinerary).
Frutos Conciencia Barichara: Live and Energy Food
The community group led by Margarita works with science and ethics to heal the body and mind from the roots, where the power of our relationship with food comes from our mother earth, as a connectivity doorway, mother listens to and cares for our body, our spirit and therefore all our surroundings. Frutos Conciencia believes in the opportunity of transforming the world from the delights of natural food. Each powerful cereal mix, made by Margarita and her team of collaborators, includes a variety of fruits, seeds, and leaves, carefully pressed and made to make food a conscious act of well-being and health.
The ingredients are all locally selected, fresh and nutritious, from their own garden or from local peasant production in this region. They are then perfectly blended and fermented to produce true nutritional delights for human consumption. Frutos Conciencia strives to care for relationships with all beings that make possible the realization of this unique product, to provide light and transform lives, those lives that Pachamama has given us, to fill it with the pure food of the earth made with a lot of love.
frutos_conciencia_barichara: https://www.facebook.com/FrutosConCienciaBarichara/
https://www.instagram.com/frutos_conciencia_barichara/
Photos Taken by @pedromiguelfotografo
And if you are still reading, here I share this: My Writings Dedicated To My Friend Margarita Higuera: Frutos Conciencia Founder. Written in September 2019)
”. .. and here we are, taking a breather in time, to pause and take time for ourselves, for me.☝️ Today, I celebrate her life, because she travelled over 8000 km, with her handsome little man.. Ahead in time, through the sky with no limits.. to this part of the ocean,, and thanks to a wonderful gigantic metal bird… An Avianca Dreamliner.. A bit of the story today is about dried fruits, those that she transforms from her gorgeous and fertile Barichara land, thousands of miles away from London, she converts them into delicacies of glory, delicious and super healthy that I can practically taste a piece of heaven. She works entirely an organic product, full of faith, patience, passion and love for the land, Pachamama is her life, her natural state of mind. That day I had the joy of trying some of those delicacies. Mmmm Lucky me!.
In everyday life, she gives herself to others and often even forgets her own needs. She is tremendously kind with that sort of energy that illuminates the whole coast! , ..well that day the Costa Coffee of the Westfield promenade!. I can feel her spirit chit-chatting because of the pleasantness of her thoughts and then she drinks a hot black cup of coffee, in the hot weather like that day! Madness… just because she lives in a different world. We are so different yet in some way alike. Being around Margarita feels like an instant of profound well-being. And while I am sipping my nice iced-soy cappuccino, I listen to the stories of her fantastic yet real-life adventures, I smile and I listen.
That day I escaped work to see this remarkable woman, who I profoundly admire, who lives in a world outside our world, outside our system, in a jewel of a town, frozen in time, called Barichara, in Santander, Colombia, so peaceful and so present. She expresses and smiles by experiences of working the land with her own hands, and of those fortunate to be around her, she has the power of creating, rooted from her curiosity for nature, and then she creates a magical world, where I am blessed to be invited sometimes. (Even when I show up at her Barichara home with 12 members of my family!!!).
Challenges of time, matter not, neither does expired passports.. there are no obstacles to her path of life.. because she carries on, she travels through her routes and beaming along the way… and despite some drawbacks, she inspires peace. She converts the impossible into I’m possible. She is a rock, yet vulnerable to the social modern system we live in.
I write sometimes stories and today she was my story, that one that I really needed to share. Her life is based on living her presence, sometimes a hippy and always happy.. Always a psychologist and forever a friend. Today my writing is dedicated to her “mi niña mangarita” as I call her sometimes, with a heart of gold, thanks for making my day and many other days before today, more joyful and full of calm, hope and comfort…. friendship shall remain within the energy of our souls. Feeling inspired, with a highlighted heart I’m grateful for another blessed day”
How Can YOU Help This Initiative? – Frutos Conciencia Barichara
- After reading this article, check their social networks of the project and share it, sometimes we want to help and we don’t know how, well here is the opportunity to help this beautiful community project.
- After buying and testing your product you can also share your feedback about it to Margarita and/or even better also share them on all your social networks.
- Make your requests, enjoy the mother earth within you.
“Mother Earth is not outside of you. Mother Earth is not just your environment. You carry Mother Earth within you. ” Thich Nhat Hanh
Love
🙏
Jenny
Jenny Sky Is The Limit 