El Mono

Travel Guide

The corporate executive and the mountain man may be headings of two chapters in the book but they explain well the two worlds explored here. The sparse and exciting world of a new job for an exchange student in the capital together with the mystery of an old and ancient culture and  a man who seems to have links to the past.

To work in Bogota is exciting for an exchange student but its the Andean culture and mystery that transports her to the places and theories linked to it.

Juan Sebastien Torres is one of the narrators and he tells his story in theAndean part of the country –

To start off with, he might go to the Rio  Negro gold mind in the volcanic region or Parque Purace.  This was a long way north of his pueblo but it was open to all-comers and had been worked for decades by a host of refugees, displaced farmers and Andean Indians.

Mixed with this part of the country and its history we meet Karin the exchange student who is from Durham in the North East of England so straight away you know she’s going to have her head screwed on right 😉

Studying at the university of Los Andes in Bogota, she learns Spanish, learn the culture of the country and becomes fascinated with the fact that people seem to speak so clearly here and not like they did in Spain.

Its when she travels to the finca of her friend in Popayan that she meets El Mono and the real adventure begins

He’s a complete enigma as far as I am concerned

Like all indigenas the mountain seems to be in his blood but Alfonso says he is not one of them. He is El mono- the fair one. They say he only speak the language of the tribes but also the language of he animals and birds
some of us call him El Mago – the magician…