Souvenir Photo Studio, by Al Bourassa: Friday January 15, 2021 Road Trip 2

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Friday January 15, 2021

Continued...

In these smaller, more isolated towns, people without cars or motorbikes catch either a Willys Jeep or a (Romancing The Stone) converted school bus to travel to the nearest major center. There, they can get regular buses and taxis.

So we bypassed Salento to go to the Cocora valley tourist trap, but a really impressive trap where a person can rent horses or jeeps to explore. This location is said to have the world's tallest palm trees. John and Martin walked down the the river valley below to see a fish farm/museum? Igor went down most of the way but quickly came back to keep me company. I asked a couple coming up what to expect down there. Small world. It turns out he is a Colombian working in Edmonton, Alberta, for the money.... It didn't sound wortht he aggravation to my body and I had looked over the edge to see how far down the river was, and I rightfully remembered that "what goes down, must come up" and, doubly sure, with threatening clouds about that I was not risking the descent. There was lots to photograph up top!

Then we backtracked to Salento and went up to the Mirador (Viewpoint) first. There are many wonderful vantage points up there to overlook the town and the vally to the side. With the dramatic clouds dominating the day, we got some striking shots, I think you will agree. Martin got to shoot at targets with an air dart gun.

On coming down, I vividly recalled a magnificent mural of a native warrior being somewhere there but it must have been painted over. However, there was another lovely mural of a woman that I had to take through the fence. Igor, however, has a phenomenal wide-angle on his phone so I am including his shot, along with 3 other phone shots which I have modestly enhanced.

I bought some hemp oil that promises to cure everything that ails me. We'll see about that. I got a couple of souvenirs for Cristina who was sad that she was not able to come at the last minute.

Igor donned a poncho and got his tourist photo taken atop a Jeep. John and I took our own photos of the proceedings. Then it was time to tackle Salento itself. Salento is a town of beautiful artsy-fartsy people who are also aggressive sales people. A person is beckoned into the many eating establishments so we had a mid-afternoon meal of fish. With a window to the happenings in the street, we were well situated. It was impossible to force money onto John who insisted on picking up the tab for everything so we found Martin's willing pocket instead. That satisfied everyone.

I kept trying to find a specific art store that had an amazing selection of painting on my last trip there but it was either closed, or closed down. I did find some incredible ink art at one place.

Salento is also very colorful, so Igor was having a field day photographing bright doors and windows. The main square is a collection of goodies for sale to tourists who literally jam the town on Saturdays and Sundays. I even heard a couple taking English so I asked where they were from and they said Alberta, before hurrying off like I had the plague or something...

John and Martin exhausted the Canon battery and had neglected to bring the 2 spares. Then their phones were in action...

When we did leave, we had steady, heavy rain almost all the way home. I am getting to really hate winding 2-lane highways dominated by big trucks that motor along at a snail's pace, oblivious to the inevitable line-up behind them.

We hit the rain in Armenia, a major town rebuilt from a major earthquake in 1999. John made a left turn and we were in the red-light district. I had never seen so many ladies of the evening in one place, and it was still early, before dark...

John then made a stop at his parent's place in a town nearby (the name escapes me) and we got to meet his Mom and Aunt. What a wonderful family overall!

I was home at 8pm, after a 14-hour odyssey and still managed to work on half the pictures before collapsing in bed. I had left my camera bag in John's car.

John needs to come and see me soon because I am certain that I forgot to change the Canon to shoot JPG format for him instead of RAW. Since he doesn't have the capability of processing RAW files, I really did him a disservice. Now he will have to stop by with the camera, a full battery and a memory card or stick, and I will have to process any RAW photos for him and correct the camera.

A road trip like that was exhausting, but oh so worth it.

I hope you enjoy the pictures. This batch only took 6 frustrating tries. That was the day’s excitement.

Please don't expect a Blog for Saturday. I am too bushed....

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