…Glimpses of another town..

The second day I am here, after dark we set off to San Jose de Minas (about 20km away) to deliver some products for the Saturday market. I am absolutely cream crackered and ready to hit the sack after a day full of harvesting and meetings under mandarin bushes . Unfortunately I am wedged rather awkwardly round the gear stick in the front of a very full cab and sleeping is not an option. Michael and his cousin chatter away. It’s farming chat and I like it. Where one suggests a problem he has had, the other offers suggestions as to how to solve it. The pair are just as excited and involved in conversation as at lunchtime testing different versions of a mandarin syrup.. a new recipe Michael is trying out.

All I can see is darkness and at every bend a steep rock face illuminated by the headlights of the pickup. I imagine I could be in Spain, or a similar Mediterranean country. Its dry, mountainous and we’re winding our way round and up the valleys. But being in South America never really feels like you’re in Europe, my mind is not in Europe, it feels different. Eventually we reach San Jose de Minas, the biggest town close by. Even so at this time of night it’s quiet under the glow of orange street lamps. We pass the central square, and I see the beautiful church on the plaza. We plunge down steep narrow dimly lit lanes and I can glimpse lives through cracks of light in doors and shutters ajar.

Finally at our destination we deliver the goods for the market on Saturday to a friend of Micheal’s who is an art restorer. His workshop is fascinating. Odds and end of everything, glowing under a dim yellow bulb. The art restorer offers me a plastic beaker with a clear liquid. My guess is it’s not water. I rise it to my lips. It’s almost pure alcohol. I’ve learnt. I do the polite thing, I take the tiniest sip, say ‘salud’ and hand it on to Michael. My gaze is preoccupied by the most unusual object .

It is quite simply the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen. It’s beautifully made and executed. It is a bottle holder made out of a cow’s hoof and lower leg!! The old glass bottle is entirely sewn into the leather of the cow’s foot, with only the rim poking out the top. Long lost, the lid has not been replaced by a Coca Cola lid creating a peculiar juxtaposition of old and new. The proud object stands for itself on the substantially sized hoof.. in a corner of a room with plaster busts, Catholic iconography and leather saddles. I have always wanted a hip flask and this would be fantastic…. But I don’t think somehow it’s for sale!