Riders of paradise is a documentary directed by Talía Osorio Cardona that presents, through a work of more than a decade, the wealth of the Eastern Plains to the world. Its narrator is Cholo Valderrama, a horseman and musician whose passion for his land has turned him, more than a spokesman for that region, into a rapsoda of the Colombian Orinoquia.
The singer, winner of the 2008 Grammy Award for his album Caballo, talks about the reasons that led him to accompany the director of the documentary in this new audiovisual adventure and about the relationship of the Colombian cowboy with his horse and with his land, the absolute protagonist of this fascinating production.
Where is your house?
In a path called Guanábana, in the municipality of Pore, in Casanare.
How long have you been living there?
Since 73. It is not very big, but I am happy.
The gringo farmers say that a man is not a man until he has his own ranch …
They are absolutely right. And more if you do it with your own hands.
How does one make a house? How do you choose the place? How do I buy it?
I had the opportunity, back in the 70s, 72s, 73s, to get to know this land, still vacant. They were fast sheets that had no owners, and there were no fences. Here they walked through crossings and people stopped a ranch and said: “I am the owner from here to there”, and he met the neighbor, and the neighbor said: “Well, then, my boundary is this matica, this pipe …”, and everything was like that, as very communal, as very cool. And I was founded; I chose the site, I stopped a palm ranch, which looked nice, half crooked, but it looked nice. And then I put it Quiet Life. And I said: “Here I am going to make my life, here it was” … and here it is.
Were you married at the time?
No, completely single. But something they teach you here in the Llano is similar to what you tell me about the farmers gringos. That one must have his ranch, must have his house. At that time it was to be founded. And when there is a ‘fledgling’, over 18 years old, because it is no longer that they saw it very well there inside the house, then “make your story apart”.
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But at that time everything was empty, there was nothing but savannah and crossing, pure roads. At that time you did not find a fence that would block you. Then came the title of Incora, and the owner, people began to fence; people came who was not necessarily a llanera, bought land, and the fence became popular. I knew the Llano that was not fenced. Absolutely free.
What impact has that had on the life of the llaneros?
The impact is especially on the journey, because you can no longer ride like we do, on horseback. I sometimes went to visit an uncle in Puerto Rondón, who was three days from here, and walked wherever he wanted without any wire stopping me … That has changed, the roads have already come and that has changed the freedom of action of the llanero, especially since our main means of transportation and work are still the horse.
That, I imagine that like anything in life (like playing an instrument, making a radio, what do I know), it requires practice …
It was easy enough because it is a way of life. Thus one was raised; it was simply saddling the horse, sticking the trunk, or hood … in the hood the chinchorro, the mosquito net, the blanket and the change of clothes, or the underwear are rolled up; he sticks it to the horse’s rump, where the ‘pollero’ also goes, or just in case, the bastimento, made up of fried meat, bofios, and other things. And when he was hungry, he would stop and drink water, which at that time was crystal clear because high-proportion agriculture had not yet arrived. In any ‘cañito’ you could drink water … and if they wanted to eat meat on the way, they would kill a deer, or a hunchback, or take a ‘cerrero’ pig, there was a lot of pig around, and one was still there. He usually rode one type four and a half, five in the morning, until he reached some inn that was more or less known and arrived type five and a half in the afternoon. Like eight, ten hours of jogging.
And what a jog, right?
And that is close. Because here they made crossings … I managed to make crossings to Yopal … around here they made crossings with cattle … from Arauca, Villavicencio, which lasted 45 or 60 days carrying cattle. The transhumance … I think it is still done by Vichada, and cattle are still driven for eight, ten or 15 days through the savannahs below the Meta.
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This is where I live, development has come the most, and cattle are handled in trucks and auctions … but deeper still there are herds where there are thirty thousand heads of cattle, where there are fifty men working cattle for 35, 40 days and one works there. and it gets used. But there is no training. Training is given to you from the time you are born, from a young age, they are instilled in it … it is hard, but there you go, learning, to the handsome.
How many horses have you had in your life?
I ride a horse since I was two, three years old. I’ve ridden quite a horse in life. But there are horses that have marked you… there are horses that I have loved very much… around five of them, that I have really loved because they were outstanding ‘in the godmother’, which one calls. Smart, gifted horses. They weren’t very meek to say … especially a cinnamon horse named Cubiro; He was not very meek, but he was a gentleman horse. Big.
It is curious that he says that the horses he has loved the most have not been the meekest …
In those times when I had Cubiro and I had Desengaño, I was also young, and I gave up a piece on the back of a horse. He was not so stupid for the question. So it was also the challenge of having horsepower. Right now you are one of the old you have to ride in the busiest. Already one of old, the bones are so hard to us. And he who rides a horse knows that he who rides falls, and there are very hard blows, fractures. I had a hit at 18, 19 years old … hard. Very hard.
And everything was like that, because there was no script, or “do this, or this”, or “stop here to look younger”, or “put on this hat that looks prettier” … nothing.
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How did it fall?
Kicking in the savanna. A bull went through me and the horse hit the bull, and I fell in front of the horse. They both passed me, the bull and the horse, on top. I had quite a few fractures. I was hospitalized, in a coma. The pod was screwed up. But ‘it had chicken. And the pod was to recover to return one to the story. It is one of those falls that, as we say in the Llano, when you go to the ground, your mouth tastes like blood.
tell me about Riders of paradise, of this new adventure of narrating a documentary …
They took me as a narrator and I don’t think he was a narrator at all, really (laughs). This is a very nice story: I met Talía and Dr. Francisca Reyes, an anthropologist … she did a very nice thesis on the Plain, studied at the Universidad de los Andes. She passed me the thesis and I had the opportunity to read it … she was always interested in the Llano … they went there, and they started filming, almost exactly what I am telling her. That’s what i like about Riders of paradise, and what I liked when I found out about the project and Talía told me: “I want to ask you some questions, and suddenly I ask them in the film.”
And everything was like that, because there was no script, or “do this, or this”, or “stop here to look younger”, or “put on this hat that looks prettier” … nothing. Only the two of them talking and a cameraman who was here on the farm for about three, four days, and this whole story was born there. But I tell you one thing, brother: one of the nice things, when I saw Riders of paradise, is that Talía let the Llano speak. Obviously, there is the hand of a director, photography and many things, but the Llano spoke there. He let the earth speak. And that’s what I find most beautiful about Riders of paradise: which is the Plain itself, showing itself and telling people: “I am like this. See me that I am like this ”.
How long is the movie?
Around there an hour, an hour and ten. But they lasted twelve years filming it. A time. I think Talía even learned to walk barefoot and ride a horse and lived in the herds where they filmed. I knew many of the workers in those herds, and I knew what she was doing, from what I had talked with them, that they were not going to be fooled by anyone. Even many of those Creole llanero workers used cameras to show things as they lived them. I think this is the movie that best shows the Llano because it shows it as it is, brave, the Llano of horse, bull and rope. Those are not the soap operas, where they want to paint one of machito, with the revolver like that far west and all that story. You know how the pod is. I don’t want to get into that walk, rather (laughs).
Yes Yes. Well, you know that the cinema tends to catch … the cinema takes the gangster and the stereotype, the cowboy, and the stereotype, the rancher, and the stereotype. It is very typical of Hollywood cinema, especially.
Yes of course … I am very happy with this documentary. Not for going out on it, talking ‘macumba’, talking chatter. But I am very happy because the land is really being shown and my struggle to show the land and the llanera culture has been a lifetime.
The Llano spoke. He let the earth speak. And that is what I find most beautiful about Riders of Paradise: that is the Plain itself, showing itself and telling people: “I am like this. See me that I am like this ”.
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Is your fight to show the land what finally connects you to music?
Yes; Let’s say that the music is there because the Llano is musical. Here we have a saying the llaneros: ‘Llanero who does not sing, whistles’. But the music is there. Put the signature on it. And in any savanna ranch there is a four, a band, and there are those who tear it and who take a few lines from it. You get up at 4:30 am, have a coffee, to your ear and hear countless birds, an impressive concert. And if you go on a journey, as we talked about a while ago, you whistle. Always whistling. Singing a song.
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It is not showing the land with music, it is that the land itself is a compendium of everything. It is the great cultural baggage. I’m not an artist, and I don’t like to be told that I am, because I don’t know if I have an art. What I do know is that I am a llanero who likes to sing, just as there are llaneros who are good at coleus, there are others who are good at bonding, others paint, others milk, others swim. I like singing. And forward. Because pa’trás, nor pa ‘pick up momentum, panita.
Absolutely agree. And did someone ever tell you that you had that gift to sing?
I think that singing, singing, singing … everyone sings to this land. I started singing very little because Mom, when she milked, sang the milking songs very well, she liked to sing to the cows. Because the cows the more they sing, the more milk they give. And if they are milked by a woman, they give more milk than if they are milked by a man. It must be from the grips. I dont know. But it is like this. Really. My mom started milking and started (intones her voice quickly and effortlessly and hums) … I didn’t learn those songs: they came with me, as a human being. There, within me, and they developed within me, like a vehicle from the earth.
That is what I have always wanted to be. Not that my name is bombastic in notices and things, but that it is a vehicle to show the earth. My aspiration, more than a dream, was for the world to realize that we existed as a people. Like people. Because we, Alejandro, belong to a forgotten Colombia, but we never forget that we are Colombia.
-ALEJANDRO MARÍN
For the time
Musical expert, ‘podcaster’ and author of the book ‘Secret History of Music’ (2019). Listen to the podcast from this interview on the La X website: www.laxmasmusica.com. And watch the program
– Alejandro Marín television show, ‘#ElPodcast’, every Monday, at 10 pm, on Channel Thirteen.
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