La Finca

So, Kat’s don, a sickly older man, invited us to visit a finca this week. The poor man had/has cancer and had surgery this year, and the most movement we’ve seen out of him is a walk across the street to the colmado (general store). As he has no vehicle, we weren’t quite sure what we were going to see or what we should expect. He began the morning by inviting each of us to visit a finca in the afternoon. Generally a finca is a ranch or farm. When the time came, we made sure to wear walking shoes, and we set off. We crossed the small river leaving our neighbourhood and headed up the steep shortcut to the main road. Although it was slow going, we couldn’t believe he was making it! When we got the main road, we proceeded up an even steeper hill! As we neared the top, we noticed a closed gate. But this was no deterrent! We began walking thru the grass on the hillside and ducked thru some barbed wire… (Of course the view was amazing!) We were about to duck another barbed wire fence (right were the cows were… naturally), when we noticed some people inside the closed property. Dominican-like, they invited us in, and I thought we had escaped our second fence encounter. Little did I know what was in store for us! After enjoying a gorgeous view of Moca, we returned to the second fence crossing. At least the cows had wandered off! A beautiful walk, a steep hill (holding the grass to keep from falling downhill!), lots of clay mud, and 2 more barbed-wire fence crossings later, we arrived back to the shortcut! Apparently in this case – we learned – a finca just meant a large expanse of property! But to round out the visit, we made sure to stop at a chicken and pig farm! More on that below…