In the lands of the coffee, from the book, Searching for treasures
Suddenly, he began to sing in a low, but melodious voice.
“Breathless are those trails through the sierras of my Caldas; they are the strokes of manhood’s forceful strikes of machetes against the flesh of the ravines. Yearning the flight of the mules, oxen, and pack animals drive onward fueled by the rowdy songs of the muleteers leaving hoy and worldly women in their wake.”
Caldas’s paths brought the hopes of caucanos and vallunos, of tolimenses and paisas, forging a green butterfly with blows of the tiple and the ax unto Colombia, a butterfly that would be their map.”
“How beautiful!” Jean Marie exclaimed, on hearing these stirring verses filled with the history of these lands.
By the end of the second verse, Jon Jairo’s eyes were glowing with tears. With a voice, slightly broken with emotion, he asked:
“Do you know what a bambuco is, neighbor? You who come from distant lands where people have other manners in their speech…”