San Luis, town of Cúcuta (San Luis, pueblo de Cúcuta)

Here is another piece of the story about how my home town came to be. From my Dad’s book Elementary motherland (Patria elemental).

San Luis, town of Cúcuta (San Luis, pueblo de Cúcuta)

Long time ago, when the streets did not exist

and the whirlwind in which we travel

was, still virgin, the country estate of

Mrs Juana Rangel de Cuéllar,

there was a minuscule town by a river

sumptuous with rich cocoa orchards and fertile lands.

There lived the grandparents. A tribe Chief

wise and romantic. And an original town

through which arteries ran a little European blood,

the mix of the creative mess of the Conquest

projected to the Colony.

The old indigenous shelter

was settled there, still, under the shade

of its own humble trees.

THE TOWN OF CÚCUTA is the root

of the illustrious city.

It grew and expanded little

by little, holding the hand of time.

The breeze and the wind rocked

the palm trees, while its life

and its own soul transformed.

Until it concentrated one day around

where the Hero is raised in bronze,

upright, severe, provocative,

abundant of hope and faith in freedom.

And the durability of

THE TOWN OF CÚCUTA was transformed into a city.