Living in Colombia: The Finca Phenomenom (Guest Post)

This is a guest post from our good friend Jonathan House.

There are many instances where to translate literally from Spanish to English is a mistake; ‘La Finca’ is one of them. To utter these words to any of my Colombian friends instantly conjures up images of sun, swimming pools, Arguardiente and parties. To translate to English it rather misleadingly means ‘The Farm’. Now, a farm to me means animals, early mornings and combine harvesters and not particularly a place to go for some R&R. I have now come to realise that fincas and farms are not one and the same.

Imagine living in London 7 days a week (as many of you can I’m sure), now imagine you also have a large house just a few hours away where the temperature is 15 degrees hotter, there are no people, no traffic and as much food and drink as you can manage. Add to this 13 bank holidays a year (sometimes 3 a month) when you are able to travel there with your entire extended family. This to a Bogatano is a ‘finca’ – not so much a farm as a private country retreat.

Obviously I am only speaking from my own experience but during my year in Colombia, ‘La Loma’ (the finca of my adoptive family), did so much to help transcend many of the preconceptions I once held about Colombia that the notion of ‘la finca’ will always resonate deeply with me.

La Loma sits upon the foothills of the Andes overlooking the city of Villavicencio. To the rear of the plot are the towering jungle covered slopes of the mountains whilst in front lies the flatlands stretching uninterrupted to Venezuela and beyond to the Atlantic. The view to the East across Villavicencio and over the Meta River that runs alongside it is made all the more impressive by the contrasting landscape that looms behind you. I spent many a drunken moment quietly enthusing about how lucky I was to even be there whilst simultaneously chastising the fact we don’t have this kind of set up in England.

The plot itself is equally as impressive and consists of three large houses. The main house contains 8 bedrooms and enough floor space in the living room to sleep half the population of Belgium. The second house boasts 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms and a large terrace (the central meeting point for most drinking related activities). The final house is of a comparable size to the second and sits between a more than adequate swimming pool and a field of cows; incidentally this was the only ‘farmlike’ aspect of the entire place that I ever came across.

As I mentioned there are enough bank holidays in Colombia to make you wonder how any bank can actually function, which for numerous Bogotanos provides the perfect opportunity to visit their respective country retreats. A mass exodus of the capital does not do justice to the sheer scale of people movement that occurs. The standard procedure was to finish work as early as physically possible on the Friday, throw your flip flops and swimming trunks in the back of the car, and hit the road in an invariably futile effort to beat the traffic. 2 hours later we would finally and rather suddenly hit the edge of Bogota. After another 2 hours winding our way down 10,000 feet on one of the most impressive and spectacular roads in Colombia we would eventually reach Villavicencio and the beginning of the plateau.

Without exception the next priority was a trip to the local Olimpica (think Tesco) to buy enough booze to compromise the buoyancy of an aircraft carrier (although I must take the lion’s share of responsibility for this due to my somewhat persistent and jingoistic insistence on buying slabs of lager [As a fellow Brit, I can empathize – Paul]).

After arriving at the house, unloading the 4×4, and greeting each of the finca dogs with enough gusto and enthusiasm to placate their barking we would convene on the terrace equipped with cards, shot glasses, beer and arguardiente and more often than not at least some of us would remain there until sunrise.

The following days were then spent lounging by the pool, drinking cold cans of Aguila, playing games and listening to music from the various departments of Colombia. The journey back to Bogota on the Monday was never a happy one, but then it was only ever a couple weeks until we were coming back again.

La Finca, and all it stands for in terms of family, fun and relaxation is part of Colombian culture not to be missed. It’s something I often find myself pining for and if you ever have the opportunity; it’s something you shouldn’t miss. Just remember to bring some Aguardiente.

Jonathan

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