Footloose in Manizales (Colombia 07)

Room with a view: Manizales from the Varuna Hotel

We spent a few nights in Manizales. This is a fascinating town perched on a ridge-top, the capital of the Department of Caldas, and near the Nevado del Ruiz volcano. The ridge runs approximately east-west, and to the north and south, the mountain drops off steeply. How did anyone choose to build a town here at about 7,000 ft altitude? Was there dependable drinking water? 

Manizales aerial commuter tramway (Fuji Acros film, Leica M2 camera)

The roads are twisty and windy, really interesting. To save us from a seep mountain ascent and (uurp) car-sickness, our van left us at the bottom terminal of the Cable Aereo Manizales aerial tramway. Thousands of commuters use this daily to get to and from work or school. Most of us associate a tramway as having a bottom and a top station, as on a mountain resort, but this one has intermediate stations. Think of a subway where you can get off or on at any station you select, but instead you are up in the air.

Cable Aereo stations

View from the gondola (Jan. 25, 2019)

Tramways have operated in the city since the 1920s, but this one was built by Leitner Ropeways and inaugurated in 2009. In ten years, it has carried 30 million passengers. It can also carry victims of medical emergencies. Tramways are slowly becoming more common in hilly cities that have traffic problems (e.g., almost any modern city). Even Ankara has an aerial tram today.

Calle 26, Manizales

Calle 24, Manizales. Note the fellow on the scooter

I told you the side streets are steep. 

Carrera 23, Manizales

We walked along the main shopping street, Carrera 23, towards the cathedral. The place was packed with wall-to-wall people. Latin towns are like this at dusk; people are out forgathering, enjoying the end of the work day, and seeing and being seen.

Stores and sidewalk vendors sold all sorts of merchandise, clothing, electronics, foods, and drinks. No one paid any attention to us. "Oh, some more doofy tourists."

The neo-Gothic Catedral Basílica Metropolitana de Nuestra Señora del Rosario dominates the Plaza de Bolívar downtown. It is an unusual reinforced concrete structure, begun in 1929 and completed in 1959. The height of 106m for the top of the tower places this cathedral in a ranking of tallest churches in the world. Unfortunately, it was too late in the day for us to climb up into the tower to the balcony. 

Who takes selfies in front of the cathedral? Answer, everyone. 

Dear Readers, this has been our short visit to Manizales. It is an interesting city with an innovative means to address the topography and traffic issues. On your next trip to Colombia, make a point to visit Manizales.

Organized Chaos at the Galeria Alameda, Cali (Colombia 04)

2021

Dear Readers, 2020, a truly horrifying year, for which we Americans should be overwhelmingly ashamed and contrite, is behind us. The presidential freak show will be over by late January, and maybe the MAGA malignancy will fade, like a pestilence that has run its course through a population or a toxic scum that sinks back into the cesspool. 

Let us start a new and more hopeful year with a colorful food market. As you Urban Decay readers know, farmers' or food markets are always fun. They are colorful, odoriferous, noisy, cheerful, and full of photographic opportunities. The Galeria Alameda between Carrera 24 and 26 in Cali, Colombia, is a good one. The Cali Adventurer summarizes it as 

"It’s organized chaos. Imagine a place where buyers and sellers of herbs, flowers, exotic fruits, veggies, meat and fish mingle and haggle. A place where a pound of cow eyes are just as likely to be sold as a bag of potatoes. A place where indigenous women sell hand-woven baskets next to “snake oil salesmen” selling alternative medicines." 

I am not sure about the chaos part. Compared to markets I have visited in Africa and Asia, this one looked pretty clean and sanitary, but don't let that make you think it was boring, by any means. 

Note, these photographs are from January 2019, obviously pre-virus; it seems like another lifetime.

Want to test a pepper? Snacking available; have some ice water available to cool off your tongue.

 Some of these goodies were wrapped in banana or plantain leaves.

 The cheese vendor checking his phone. Everyone in Colombia checks their phone....

The chickens were refrigerated and trimmed - no live ones running around. And this employee was already wearing her mask.

Lunchtime! Our charming guide, Vivian, knew exactly where to eat and knew the staff at the cafeteria. The serving gents in the orange shirts were pleased to have some foreigners chowing out. Top it off with a strong Colombian coffee - it does not get much better than this.

These photographs are from Kodak Ektar 100 film from my little Yashica Electro 35CC camera. I used it on auto-exposure, and the little electric eye calculated most exposures as well as I would with a hand-held meter. The color balance was a bit funny with various types of lighting, but that is one downside of film as opposed to digital. I scanned these negatives on a Plustek 7600i film scanner.

Travels on the Mother Road, Route 66: Part 14b, San Jon, New Mexico (2019)

On my 2016 Route 66 trip, I completely missed San Jon, a small town (village) in Quay County, New Mexico. According to Wikipedia, "The village was founded in 1902 and grew after the arrival of the railroad in 1904. It was once an important local commercial center and stop on U.S. Route 66 and home to numerous tourist-oriented businesses, such as gasoline service stations, cafes and motels. However, when Interstate 40 bypassed the village in 1981, the local economy went into a decline, leading most of those businesses to shut down. Today, only one motel is still in operation and all of the gas stations and dining establishments are centered around the I-40 interchange on the north side of town."

Today, San Jon is a superb dump - the quintessential fading Route 66 small rural American town.

The Route 66 handbook claimed that the Western Motel was open for business. Not any more....

San Jon was definitely a "buy gas here" type of town in the old days. We saw at least three now-defunct filling stations on the main drag.

These are all post-WWII nondescript cinder block construction, and I cannot tell what brands were once sold at these stations.

Another station of unknown branding.

The mural on this building looked fresh and was a memorial to some townsman who, I assume, died. I love the curved glass brick at the corner. Note how the curb curves to match the building. I wonder if this was once a car dealership?

Ceramics shoppe, San Jon, New Mexico (Kodak Ektar 25 film, Yashica Electro 35CC camera)

There were a few stores in town - once.

The temperature that morning was skirting freezing and the wind was howling. We left San Jon and headed east at high speed to zip through Amarillo to beat an impending ice storm. 

Room with a view: approaching winter storm, Childress, Texas (Moto G5 digital image)

We stayed in Childress, Texas. I passed through Childress and other Panhandle towns in October on my way west (click the link). The following night, we stayed in Texarcana. I described the abandoned Union Station in an earlier post (click the link).

Finally, home. Unload, clean and sort the junk, unpack, do laundry, wash the car, develop film, pay bills, etc., etc., etc. Prepare for the next trip.

Look what awaited us from the garden: a treat!

This ends my 2019 Route 66 expedition. If you want to read previous posts, please type "Route 66" in the search box. Some day, I want to explore the section from Oklahoma eastward to Chicago. Standby for more adventures.....

Travels on the Mother Road, Route 66: Part 8d, Budville and Cubero, New Mexico (2019)

Continuing east on Route 66 (where it still exists) or I-40 through central New Mexico, the country is pretty arid with only an occasional farm or truck stop. According to the Route 66 Adventure Handbook, Cubero was bypassed by a new road in the 1930s. An entrepreneur built the Villa de Cubero, which is still in business on Route 66 where it diverges away from the interstate. You can buy snacks, gasoline, and other essentials there.

Courtesy of 66postcards.com (Thank you!)

The Villa de Cubero Tourist Courts catered to early Route 66 travelers. According to the Route 66 Adventure Handbook, the adventure/musical Desert Song was filmed near here (the 1943 or 1953 version?). Desert Song was based on Sigund Romberg's 1926 operetta about a galant and handsome desert sheik who captures the heart of the beautiful city girl and rides off to the desert with her, singing all the time, while he also directs the revolt of the Berber tribesmen.

Villa de Cubero De Luxe Tourist Court (expired Kodak Ektar 25 film, Yashica Electro 35CC camera)

The tourist courts are closed but in reasonably intact condition. The Route 66 Adventure Handbook also notes that Ernest Hemingway may have written The Old Man and the Sea here! Or maybe he did not because he might have been in Cuba. A blog from the Villa de Cubero explores the controversy of Papa Hemingway's stay in the tourist court. We need to weigh the options:
Cuba: tropical breezes, palm trees, beautiful women, lots of booze, and deep sea fishing.
Cubero: desert, not much to do, and booze.

Budville Trading Co. (Moto G5 digital file)

About a mile southeast on old Route 66 you come upon the former Budville Trading Company. It is closed and longer has pumps on the island.

Budville Trading Post (Tri-X film, Hasselblad 501CM camera, 50mm ƒ/4 Distagon lens)

A bit further east I saw another closed garage/filling station. This one had another long-wheelbase Cadillac!

That is all the excitement for Cubero. We will continue east on Route 66. Standby for more updates.

Travels on the Mother Road, Route 66: Part 8c, Continental Divide, New Mexico (2019)

At the continental divide (Kodak Ektar 25 film, Yashica Electro 35CC camera, polarizing filter)

Heading east from Gallup, the country is pretty bare, with rock ridges and occasional small farms or ranches. We reach a small community known as Continental Divide. Needless to say, there is a souvenir shop and "Indian Market" on the site. It is a popular stop on I-40. In the parking lot, I spoke to a gent with a Studebaker Avanti - a real Avanti from 1962 or 1963, not one of the versions made later by other companies after the Studebaker factory closed forever  in December 1963. He was driving from California to a car show in Florida. A friend hiked some of the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail (3100 mi. in total) several years ago and would have passed through the nearby town of Grants.

Is this really the Continental Divide? (Moto G5 digital file)

A sign explains that water falling west of the sign flows westward towards the Pacific (actually, to the Gulf of California), while east of the sign, water flows to the Gulf of Mexico and eventually reaches the Atlantic Ocean via the Gulf Stream oceanic current.

Continental divide in the United States. Map from ESRI ArcMap software.

In the map above, you can see that the Rio Grande river approximately parallels the Continental Divide in New Mexico. At El Paso, Texas, it turns southeast and becomes the border between the United States and Mexico. Much of the water is taken out for agriculture, but a small amount eventually reaches the Gulf of Mexico. In central Colorado, runoff flows into the Arkansas River, which joins the Mississippi River a few miles southeast of Pine Bluff, Arkansas. To the west, the Colorado Plateau is highly arid, but what water does fall as snowfall or occasional rain enters the Colorado River. Most of this water is also removed for agriculture, leaving almost nothing for the Gulf of Colorado.

This map (from Wikipedia) shows the major hydrologic divides in North America. Note how water that falls in the central United States flows to the Gulf of Mexico, much of it via the Mississippi River and its tributaries. The Great Basin is an arid region that has no outlet. Rainfall in the eastern region flows to the Atlantic Ocean via numerous small rivers, none of which even begin to approach the Mississippi River's volume.

Travels on the Mother Road, Route 66: Part 7c, Jack Rabbit and Holbrook, Arizona (2019)

Jackrabbit Trading Post, Joseph City, Sep. 4, 2019 (Kodak Ektar 25 film, Yashica Electro 35CC camera, polarizing filter)

 We will continue our drive east through Arizona. Near Joseph City, not much remains of Route 66, just the frontage road to I-40. West of town proper was the famous Jackrabbit Trading Post. A billboard with the logo "HERE IT IS" may be one of the best known Route 66 sights. Hundreds of tourists pose in front of the sign or sit on a big jackrabbit on the other side of the interstate. For the photograph above, I waited for some people to take their pictures and leave, and caught a BNSF train thundering through.

Room with a view, Joseph City (Fuji X-E1 digital file)

The terrain around Joseph City is a bit severe. I stopped in Joseph City during my 2016 trip but totally missed the Jackrabbit sign. The town has some urban decay material.

Dinosaur, 2214 Navajo Blvd., Holbrook, AZ (Kodak TMax 400 film, Hasselblad 501CM, 80mm planar lens, polarizing filter)

Holbrook was another old-time Route 66 town. There was not much of interest on Business 40, and I completely missed the Wigwam Village Motel. Fortunately, I visited a sister Wigwam Motel on Foothills Blvd. in Rialto, California, in 2016 (see Mother Road article 1). Here in Holbrook, I was pleased to see dinosaurs in town. The truck was sort of interesting, as well.