PANCE EN COLOMBIA

Pance, Colombia
2016

BY Alex Phillipe Cohen

The below collection of photos were taken on a single roll of film during an afternoon spent in Pance, Colombia with my friend Luix. Pance, a small mountain town with a beautiful river, is only a short bus trip from the gritty, sweltering city of Cali (the salsa capital of the world - worth noting for those who love to boogie)

I first met Luix in Minca, a small town in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta a few years back. During this time we lived together in a remote artist commune called Uversia, started by our friend Rey. A year or two ago, Luix had moved back home to Cali in the south of the country. I had never been to Cali until I flew down in January of this year and rented a room in the house Luix was living in. One afternoon, we took the bus out to Pance to hike around and bathe in the river. 

Most of the day was spent in glorious silence - just like our days at Uversia. Later, Luix told me about a vision he had while laying there by the water. We found a small, rustic hostal/bed and breakfast and grabbed some tintos (Colombian for black coffee) and played music on a rickety old guitar and drum the kind owner had laying around. We then walked back to town and ate at the only open restaurant in town.

 So I snapped some photos while we waited around for the last bus back to the city. It got dark and the bus never came so we split a cab with two women going back.

One of the women said I was her brother's doppelgänger and showed me a photo of him. I made a lame joke, saying how good looking he was - but I got the sense something was lost in translation and she seemed awkward after that. We got home and I spent a couple more days hanging with Luix in the city and then headed south.