Bucaramanga Hotels
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Daily life in Bucaramanga
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Well as things are settling down for me in terms of excitement, I figured I'd post some everyday pictures instead of touristy stuff. I've been here a while now, so a lot of things are starting to seem normal which are every unlike things in the US, but I'm attempting to try to realize what these things are and take pictures of them while I'm here and without much to do.
The one thing that is normal for me here is hearing the Avocado selling man push his cart up and down the road, every day around noon. (In case you didn't know, lunch is the main meal of the day here, and avocados (though grown here) are both popular and pricey (Colombian pricey, not US pricey) additions that most people like to add to it. There something I didn't really like that much before coming here, but now I really like them.) It might seem kind of
normal if he would just push the cart and have a sign saying the price, but here, he uses a P.A. horn and microphone to relay his message to the entire neighborhood. He says "Rico aguacates, aguacates bueno...." over and over again (translated as very good avocados). I didn't really notice sad the shape of his little cart is until I took the pictures of it from up here on the 5th floor balcony. It seems to me like his umbrellas to little to no good to protect his car from the sun and rain.
To go along with the avocado selling man, there is also a guy who sells these little cooked
things (can't remember what they are, or what they're called) who carries them around the street in two styrofoam coolers covered in packaging tape, yelling about how good they are. Ana has told me they are good, but I haven't tried one yet.
There is also a guy who rides around a bike-driven cart that has a huge metal pot on it. In the metal pot he has a milkish looking hot drink that is made of corn and some other fruits and
topped with some sour/salty Colombian cheese and raisens. I tried it, it was good, but I forget the name. Ana says she doesn't like it, but it really wasn't bad at all.
The next thing I've come to see as normal here is the tienda (store, generally only selling food and drink). Tiendas are everywhere here. On every street there is generally at least one, and most of the time, they are never busy. Most of them sell things like snack foods, milk, sodas, beer, regular food making ingredients, ice cream treasts, and household supplies. Some of them also cook foods to sell (Mostly empanadas which are deep fried, wrapped in a bread-like corn coating, resemble a large perogie, and are filled with rice along with whatever meat or vegetable the stores decided to fill it with. They are also very cheap ranging from 25 cents, to about a dollar for a huge one in an expensive tienda), serve hot beverages, and many others also sell fruits and fruit drinks (though the stores that exclusively sell fruit products are called fruterias). The thing that is most enjoyable for me, regarding to tienda, is how they are a very cheap, almost always mostly empty, and a great place to just sit back and relax at. Instead of charging the 2k-4k pesos like at the bar, the tienda charged you from 600 to 1200 for the cold beer of your choice. Most come in returnable bottles, and the most popular beers here are Aguila, Club Colombia (the darkest, though it resemble Corona in color), Contena, Costenita (a small Costena, which means the coast, that comes in a small green bottle), and Pilsen. All of the cheap and popular beers you can buy cold in a tienda here are Colombian.
Just within seeing distance from the balcony of Ana's mom's apartment, you can see where my favorite tienda is located. In the picture, it is blocked by a tree, but it is a duplicate of the restaurant next to it (which only serves lunch, as does most small restaurants in the country). Since lately, I've realized how great of an option the tienda is over the higher priced bars and cafes, so Ana and I have stared to branch out, beyond our own street, in order to find some diferent ones to try that are close enough to take a short walk to. (my guess is there are about 20 within a 3 block radius of this apartment)
In the tienda picture, you can also see the small pickup with the very large cargo bed on it (most hauling pickups here look like this), and the very smal yellow taxi moving quickly. Taxis are everywhere here in Bucaramanga.... I would say there is too many taxis considering I generally see them empty and on the look-out for a passenger. The average wait time to find a free taxi, if you are in the city, is probably at most 30 seconds, and if you call for one, as is safer if you're foriegn, is about 2-5 minutes.
Another place to eat I have recently been shown is ¿Donde Esta Javier? This is a fast food restaurant here, but compared to any of the other Colombian fast food I've eaten, it's by far the best and the most unique. It is a restaurant that originated on the Carribean coast, so it has a different atmosphere than most restaurants here in the inland city of Bucaramanga. One thing that most Colombian people associated with the coast people is being very laid back. Some
things in the restaurant such as slow waiters, white plastic tables and chairs, and open packets of napkins on the table (how you would buy them from the store), exemplify the laid back attitidue of costeñas (coast people, though some see this as a derrogatory term, also the name for the great beer). Though the atmosphere sounds unique, the food is the most unique part. They have a lot of options including double hot dogs with bacon on top, but the food I like the best there is this unhealthy salad concoction. You have the option of getting it with the meat of your choice, and then they add lettuce, cheese, some other yummy fried cripies, and these little round things made of rice (which are quite good). When it's done they serve it to you on a plate covered in tin foil (must be a coast thing...never seen it before) and the topping I always use (that's on the table) is pinapple sauce. These platter is wow good and is cheap (about $2-3). Since it's quick food, and only takes ten minutes to walk to, this is currently my favorite option in eating out at night. The one annoying thing about the place is there is always
homeless people begging for food and money around the outside of the restaurant, but the waiters are mostly big guys that chase them away fairly promptly. I have one picture of a 2/3rds eaten platter concoction, and another of Ana and her friend Paola. In the picture you can see the street just behind them.
The last topic for this post will be the rain... Every day here it is about the same temperature (75 degrees F), about the same humidity, but almost every day it rains once for at least a little bit. It is the rainy season here (the only "seasons" they have here are the rainy season and the dry season), and sometimes it gets a little old to see the rain every day. It is sort of interesting to see the storms come here over the mountains that encircle this city, but I would more enjoy being able to sit on the hammock all day and night without having to go inside to avoid getting soaked.
That's it for this update, but for next time I promise to have more pictures and probably more stories about strange Colombian things.
-Dan
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