I love vallenato, a type of Colombian folk music that is always on the radio. I also like to listen to reggaeton and dance!
I went on a long hike on an ancestral trail with a friend named Maria who is working to protect these ancient pathways in the Barichara area. She taught me a lot about how this region was the original homeland for a group called the Guane, an indigenous people, some of whom still live nearby but who were displaced and had their land stolen by new settlers. The Guane lived in and took care of this land long before the arrival of the Spanish and colonization of Colombia. They made many of the original ancient walking trails still used in the area today that connect the towns in Santander.
I am trying to read a book in Spanish called Primero estaba el mar by Tomás González.
I love to go on long mountain biking rides and check out the landscapes nearby. I especially love the route that goes along the border of the Chicamocha Canyon.
I took a special course on a unique type of sustainable farming for this region. It is a practice called syntropical agriculture, and it involves helping to recreate the ecosystem of a tropical forest. The instructor learned the technique in Brazil, where it has been used to increase productivity of farms while regenerating the soil where the plants grow without needing to add fertilizers.
