land of antioquia

One hundred and fifty years ago, roads only existed in the first world. In Antioquia there were only royal roads, roads clogged with mud and swamp along which only four-legged vehicles with long ears traveled.

Their drivers were "boar" men, as those strong individuals who colonized new lands and founded towns are called in this department.

History has granted the muleteers a great importance for the development of this mountain region, although the new generations only see in them a paisa legend of hat, ruana, carriel and espadrilles.

The progress arrived by mule

On the back of a mule, progress arrived in Medellín, the distant province that at the end of the 19th century was barely wielding itself as a large town. The story goes that one of the most important roads was the one that from Puerto Nare, Magdalena Medio

Antioquia, reached the capital. The merchandise brought from Barranquilla by the Magdalena River arrived there. From then on the adventure belonged to the muleteers.

The trip took about three or four days. “The muleteers worked six or seven hour days. The mules were very strong, they carried a lot and the men were very enduring”, explains Álvaro Fernández Agudelo, an “arrierologist” born in Ciudad Bolívar, a town that stands out among the mountains of Southwest Antioquia, a region that can be crossed more easily by mule. than in a Mercedes Benz.

But the trade is not exclusive to Antioquia, in Spain fish was transported from Galicia to Madrid by means of mules. And in Colombia and Antioquia it developed a lot because of the “curvy” terrain, because the topography demanded it, argues Fernández, author of the book “Historia de la arriería en Antioquia”, which he recently published with his own effort.

The writer assures that the principle of the muleteer is found in the silletero, who carried merchandise and people on his back. But the work became tiresome and the oxen appeared, coming from Europe.

They had their heyday to load in turegas, a system where several of these animals were used for heavy loads. This is how the bells, the altars of the churches and the engines to generate light in the towns were transported.

“Oxen were very strong animals, but they were clumsy and many accidents happened. Sometimes they were very difficult to handle. That was when the mule appeared, a very docile, strong and even intelligent animal, with the peculiarity that it clings to any terrain. The mule was the one that started the muleteer”, adds the researcher.

And if you investigate further, even the spirit of forming a company was forged between muleteers and muleteers. There were owners of mules like today owners of trucks.

“There were business types who had 50, 80, 100 mules and more. There was the case of an English mining company based in Zaragoza that had a herd of more than 2,500 animals. And at the service of the company they had about a hundred muleteers, muleteers of the most boars...”, continues Fernández.

What could not be missing

With their bare feet they walked long hours together with their mules. They usually wore rolled-up pants up to the knee and covered with a short, thick canvas apron that they called “tapapinche”. A thin poncho, a cane hat and a carriel where he kept everything the road could ask for: soap, mirror and comb; a pair of dice, an image of the Virgen del Carmen, cigars and love letters that covered a lock of hair of the beloved woman, to sweeten the way.

After a long and tiring journey, the muleteer unloaded at a tavern or inn, prepared food and then began to talk with other muleteers. He took the tiple, his faithful companion, and began to sing the verses that he invented at the time. History smiled at them for a long time, until the development that translated into roads and highways arrived.

A current trade in the 21st century

“The muleteer went into decline when the railway appeared, before the highways, at the beginning of the 20th century. Then the work of the muleteers was over, who dedicated themselves to carrying cargo from the stations to the farms. That was the end, the decline of the muleteer”, narrates Álvaro Fernández.

However, he says that even today, in the 21st century, the trade continues in many parts of Antioquia because it is a mountainous region where there are areas that are not reached by roads.

“The mule will always be needed”, declares the writer from Ciudad Bolívar, “currently several muleteers are hired to work in any part of the country”. And he presents the case of Miguel Ángel Arias, considered by many to be the best muleteer in Antioquia. "Man is so efficient that large companies hire him to transport power towers through the Turega system."

"The activity of the muleteer was in the past responsible for what we are enjoying today, the development of Antioquia happened through the muleteers."