La Florida Colombia

There are tons of cute little towns scattered throughout the mountains surrounding La Mesa, and probably throughout the country.  I especially liked this pueblo, La Florida, which is quite a bit higher than La Mesa, perhaps an hour drive across windy mountain roads.  La Florida is in an area of black soil and cooler climate than La Mesa, which makes it ideal for exporting flowers, as the name might suggest.  The pueblo is very small, and has no system of government of its own, but instead tags off of another nearby pueblo Anolaima, for its organization - not unlike Esterillos Oeste tagging off of Parrita.  

The kids there are still very intrigued by the presence of a gringo walking around their streets.  One boy, in particular, holding a kite (which are really big here - people sell them at your car window at traffic lights here in Bogota like they sell fruit in Costa), saw me and, after staring for a bit and smiling, went to grab a couple of friends to show me to them.  It was cute.  It reminded me of Bello just north of Medellin when I landed there while paragliding in the low clouds.  But that's neither here nor there.   

In any event, it's clear that this town was hopping when the railroad used to run through.  I guess the rails have been replaced by trucks which hightail it to the airport with the flowers the locals grow.  You can see the old, worn down hotels and rail station, though.  It actually gave a cool feeling as you could guess the excitement when the train would pull in and farmers from the countryside would ride carts full of color to sell to vendors ready to load on the railcars.  Or, in any event, it looks cool.