Naranja: language lessons from a detour
And why I will never forget the Spanish word for orange.
“NAA-RRRRRRUNG-HA”
Our mouths jawed angularly, with our tongues rolling in syncopation in obviously unnatural directions.
“NARANJA.”
The pudgy Colombian kid continued to enthusiastically — as a child would — lecture us in the pronunciation of a seemingly elementary word. To two disparate foreigners, this made for a charmingly innocent interaction. He would point at various objects, colours, and articles of clothing, and then sound out the word in Spanish. When we made our attempts, inevitably, the child would shake his head in emphatic disapproval before correcting us.
“PAN-TA-LON-NES”.
Earlier on, we had heroically ridden in on horseback before being dropped off at a trailhead.
[Heroically being: barely staying upright in the stirrups as the $60,000-peso rental horse galloped through the jagged rock trail — no helmets required.]
From there, we were to hike into the jungly mountains, which connected to the infamous Cocora Valley near the town of Salento, Colombia. At a point in the journey, the trail presented us with a fork to either continue on towards the renowned valley, or detour to the right into an establishment called the Acaime Hummingbird Sanctuary. With the muddy conditions and having just finished a 5-day hike, the truth was, I would have preferred skipping some stupid bird sanctuary entirely.
We decided on checking it out anyway.
As we made the final ascent up the stairs into the bird sanctuary, I grew more and more mystified. Entire scores of hummingbirds buzzed busily all around us, congregating near strategically placed bird feeders that hung in the air, filled with syrup. Packs of curious man-apes would run towards the action, touting their cameras and phones, hooterin’ and hollerin’ in order to snap a shot of what was, admittedly, a rare and beautiful sight.
You can only dream this shit. To sound even more trite and cliche, this place felt magical.
But truthfully, you cannot help but enter a state of trance and awe, watching these busy little creatures zig-zag through the air, fluttering their wings at light-speed, and then for a moment, hovering in one place as if they stood still in time. The scene was made only better by the symphony of rainforest sounds that broadcasted from deep within.
The entire sanctuary was seemingly suspended in the air, with multiple platforms housing multiple wood cabins, built up on stilts of wood and peacefully perched up high in the thicketed natural elevation. After a steady, breathy climb, we finally arrived on the main platform. Here, we were offered hot chocolate con queso by the workers in the sanctuary. Hot beverages in hand and relieved from further climbing, we made our way over to the picnic tables setup for travellers to enjoy both the tranquility and the dessert.
It was at this time that a small family of three entered the scene in a cacophony. The aforementioned pudgy Colombian kid; a scarlet haired adolescent who must have been the sister; and an older, stockier gentleman whom, as he sat down, took off his wide-brimmed Indiana Jones hat to fan himself with. They came in babbling in Spanish, and being the wide-eyed foreigner listening in, they may as well have been in deep philosophical conversations — meaning, we didn’t understand fuck-all.
Before long, we were engaged with them.
The man spoke first, and asked us where we were from. He managed to do so in surprisingly good English.
“Canada.” Amer replied back.
And then peering out from his experienced eyes and gazing into some faraway distance, the man contorted his mouth, nodded in deep agreeance, and said, “Ahhhh… Canada.”
We engaged in a dance of small talk. On what? My memory eludes me. But each time the man would converse back to the two kids in Spanish, acting as a translator. We find out that the man was the two’s uncle, and had hailed from Guatemala to take his niece and nephew, from Medellin, out to see the Colombian countryside.
The man would tell us about beautiful Guatemala — how we must go there. He would tell us of the farm that he owns, and then periodically break back into Spanish for the two kids. Invariably, they would giggle. At us, or at the uncle, or at something else, I will never know. All the while, in my head, I could not stop myself from stereotyping this here man as some anti-hero drug overlord hidden underneath a friendly-uncle facade. My bias would not let go of the fact that we were in the global capital of cocaine after all.
The kid, on the other hand, was a curious-at-the-world type child. And of course, being a child with absolutely zero sense of built-up self and insecurities, he cascaded into a Spanish lesson, much to our delight.
Pointing to the colour of his shirt, he announced:
“Naranja.”
What a decision it had turned out to visit the hummingbird sanctuary. An act of rebellion against my own desires to “get the hike over with” turned out to be a charming sequence of events that has been randomly imprinted forever in my head.
Take that detour.
Note: Originally written on June 2nd, 2018, this excerpt from my Facebook post reminds me yet again of the importance of spontaneity. This was mentioned in my post, “Giving myself the chance to fall in love with life again”.
Hey! If you actually made it this far into my article, then thank you from the bottom of my heart for your consideration, patience, and love for reading so much of my work. Words cannot express how much I appreciate it.
They say ‘writing = clear thinking’, so I am on my own journey to crystallize my thinking (and thus my writing). If you enjoyed this article, you can find more of my work on Medium here. I also occasionally make long form blog-style posts on Instagram here. You can also find me blabbering on Twitter here.
What detours in your life have led to sublime and unforgettable stories? Do share! :-)
