The Town of El Cocuy

Day 62 (August 29, 2018) - El Cocuy, Colombia

El Cocuy is an extremely different town than anywhere else we've been in Colombia. Since the town is so small and secluded, there's just a different vibe here. Everyone in town knows each other. Everyone says hello to one another, even to us. It is extremely safe, since it is so far removed from any major city, and only locals (and some tourists) are present. Shops open and close at the whim of the sole shopkeeper: if they had to run an errand or something, or go to church, they'd close. Even shops with posted hours would sometimes be closed during their open hours, which was a little frustrating when we needed something from the pharmacy. Everything is extremely cheap: a "tinto" (a small cup of somewhat watery coffee served in a plastic Solo cup) was only $500 pesos (about 16 US cents). Nobody really tries to rip you off like they sometimes do in big cities (though one grocery store here did seem to charge us a Gringo tax about $1 - not enough to complain about). It felt like we were in another country, or even another world.

Here you can see the tintos in plastic cups, along with some croissants we had for breakfast one day.

The main square of El Cocuy is lined with several shops, some selling prepared food, some selling groceries, and others selling a mix of random things (from paint to padlocks to digital watches). Many locals hang out on the sidewalks lining the square chatting with one another and doing some people watching. The locals all wear wool ponchos to keep warm called a "ruana." 

The town square of El Cocuy. Many locals in their ruanas chatting away.

While there are shops that sell prepared food, there are not really any "restaurants" in town (i.e., places with an actual menu and posted prices). Instead, you can go into a shop and ask for the menu of the day, or you might be given a couple of verbal options (in Spanish), but there are no menus. And, as I mentioned before, everything is so cheap. We ate large meals with meat, rice, salad, a drink, and potatoes or french fries for about US$2.30 per person. A slice of pizza was about US$1. A hamburger with french fries was about US$1.60.

Me eating the first course (soup) of one of our gigantic menus of the day at a local food shop

Although we usually rely heavily on TripAdvisor when trying to find good and cheap restaurants when we're traveling, there is not even a restaurant section on TripAdvisor for El Cocuy. I've never seen that before. Even Google Maps was no help when it came to finding restaurants and coffee places. We'd attempt to walk to the right location on the map for a coffee shop only to be confronted with residential housing. So, we ended up walking around town the old fashioned way to find places to eat and drink.

One cafe we ended up returning to several times was called Calle Real (meaning "Real Street"). It was the only place in town that advertised cafe con leche (coffee with milk). I was dying for a familiar cup of coffee (rather than the black watery tintos), so I ordered one. Mark ordered a tinto. The shopkeeper said ok and had to walk across the street to a little tienda to pick up a bag of milk (on a side note, there are no milk cartons, just bags here, which are better because they're cheaper and generate less waste). We felt bad that she had to buy a whole bag of milk just for my one cup of coffee, so we came back the next day and we each ordered a cafe con leche. Since she still had more milk left over, we came back the next day and ordered the same thing. This time, she made our coffees and, without saying a word, went across the street again. We weren't exactly sure where she went, but we joked that she was getting more milk. Sure enough, she came back with another bag of milk! We said "mas leche" (meaning "more milk"), and she said yes, that it was for us next time we come back. Well, we again felt obligated to come back the next day, which we did, but the shop was closed. We never made it back after that, since we left on a bus the next day, but it was an interesting (and funny) experience. We recounted this story to our hostess at the hotel and she assured us the milk would get used for something.

Calle Real - our go-to cafe con leche place.

Another shop we went in a few times sold a whole mix of things. We were looking for a small padlock that would fit our backpacks (where we usually lock our money belts if there is no safe in the room). The shopkeeper was extremely friendly and actually knew a little English and a lot of US history. Normally we tell everyone we're from "Nueva York" (New York), since nobody seems to have heard of Philadelphia. But this shopkeeper knew Philadelphia, as well as the names of many of the founding fathers: Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, etc. He also knew many of the sports teams of the US: he'd say "Phillies," "Patriots," "Eagles," etc. We went back later to look for something else, and he pointed at us and said "Phillies."

The hotel we stayed in was pretty amazing. It was called El Caminante, which means "The Traveler." The hostess was Martha, who was very nice and organized all of our hikes, including the park tickets, the required insurance, transportation to/from trail heads, and changing the dates of our second hike when we (I) felt a little under the weather. Martha was also our guide for the two hikes we did. She pushed the pace and it was sometimes a little hard to keep up.

Picture with our hostess Martha during one of our hikes

We were also the only guests for a major portion of our stay there, which made it feel more like a home than a hotel. It was very cheap, only about US$17/night. And we had some pretty nice chats with Martha about El Cocuy. For example, when we were on the lechero going up to Hacienda La Esperanza, the milk truck would stop at various farms along the road to collect the milk. It seemed there was no system in place to record how much milk each family gave, so how would they get paid? Martha explained that each family gives the same milk every single day, so they always get paid the same amount. Only when there is a noticeable change in milk output will the milk truck guys take note and reduce/increase the pay to a particular farm.

Our hotel in El Cocuy:  El Caminante

The view from the rooftop of El Caminante

We ended up staying in El Cocuy for far longer than we anticipated. We first thought we'd stay Saturday to Wednesday (4 nights), which would give us enough time to do two hikes and relax a little in the town. But we ended up staying until the following Monday (9 nights), mostly because the first hike was so grueling at 22 km (13.7 miles) that we needed a few days to rest before we did the second hike (and then a few days to rest after we did the second hike). We could have left Sunday, but only small shuttle vans were running that day, and we thought it was worth waiting one more day for the large luxurious coach buses that run during the week for our 8 hour bus trip to Mongui (our next town). It's a good thing we have nothing but time.

Our Libertadores bus during a stop about 4 hours into our trip from El Cocuy to Duitama (where we'd catch a bus to Sogamoso and then on to Mongui)