mikeShriver

The power was out most of the day so we hopped aboard a couple motos to Old Mampujan, the original village occupied by this community before their displacement by paramilitaries more than a decade ago. The community members were shooting a documentary re-enacting the event that pushed them from their homes.

Most of the day, a looming storm front kept the sky in a brooding darkness while the town was softly, but brightly lit. the lighting was unbeatable for photography, and I burned almost a whole roll of film up there.

Torin took me around to some oft he old locations in the town. I saw the old town square, the school and the cemetery. The town was far more spread out than the losts that the new town occupies, and it had enormous beauty in the way that nature had retaken much of it. The cemetery had been poorly kept, and many of the mausoleums were decaying and overtaken by the trees. In one case, a tree root had completely broken away a corner of a tomb, leaving the remains inside exposed and allowing honeybees to build a nest inside.

The storm, when it finally came upon us, did so almost all at once. We boarded a truck hastily to outrun the heaviest of the rain, which followed right behind us most of the way out of the mountains. It only caught up with us as we pulled into the neighborhood, and we still ended up soaked.

Tags: South America, Travel Journal