Fiftieth Blog Post but First from Colombia!!!

Hello everyone! Sorry it has been so long since I have posted on this. I meant to do more posting towards the end of the year, when life as a teacher became a little more bearable and I had time to breath, but I didn't ever get to it. I guess my end-of-the-year wrap up will have to wait until next year!

Anyway, here I am...sitting in a internet cafe in Bogota, Colombia after one week of amazing adventures in this country! My first impressions of this country are phenomenal. The people are amazing and show extreme hospitality. The country is beautiful. And the coffee is damn tasty. And now, instead of chronicling every move I have made, I will share a few stories.

1) Arrived in Cartagena, which is a city of about 2 million on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. We spent the first day walking ON TOP OF a fortress built around the old part of town to protect the city from invasions. The following day, we decided to head to Playa Blanca, a beautiful beach, which according to Rich, is ¨straight from a Corona commercial.¨ To get to the beach, we headed to a busy market next to the water and found a small boat to take us along with other passengers. We set off to buy some fruit for the day at the beach, and I decided that I needed to buy a knife so that I could do productive things like cut mangoes, make sandwiches, etc. I walked up to a stall that appeared to be selling knives. I asked the man if he had any pocket knives. He said no. But then he took one out of a case that was on his belt, and asked if that was what I was looking for. I said yes! Exactly! He said, "Well, I don't sell these, but I will sell you this one. Here, take the case too." And four dollars later I was the proud owner of the man's beautiful knife. Not to generalize, but from everything I have experienced so far, Colombians have been some of the nicest and most helpful people I have ever met.

2) Second story of extreme hospitality: After the day on the beach, we planned to take the same boat home. However, the boat never showed up. So we were stuck on an island with no way to get back to Cartagena. We asked around and finally figured out a way to get home using ground transport, which would have consisted of motorcycles, ferries, and busses. But to me this was a terrifying option. Luckily, at the last minute, when we were about to get on the mototaxis (motorcycle taxis), a tour bus full of Colombians stops in front of us and tells us to get in. The tour guide, Monica, told us that they would gladly take us all the way back to Cartagena for free! So we spent the next three hours standing in the aisle of a tour bus with 50 Colombians from Ibague. We shared stories, sang, danced, drank beer, and had an amazing time. They not only saved us from a potentially very difficult trip home, but they also wanted to get to know us and spend time with us. It was a beautiful act of kindness that I will never forget.

3) After Cartagena, we had an epic adventure getting to our next stop, Parque Nacional Tayrona. First of all, we hopped on a small city bus to take us to the bus terminal. We thought it would take 30 minutes. Well, turns out our bus's route took us on a tour of the entirity of Cartagena, and we finally made it to the bus station 2 hours later. That was only the beginning of our troubles. Once in the bus station, we were quickly convinced of buying tickets that would take us "all the way to the entrance of Tayrona." Perfect, we thought. We gave them our money, threw our bags below the bus, and found the last empty seats. Two and a half hours later, the bus stopped in Barranquilla (Shakira's home town), and everyone but us got off. We still needed to get to Santa Marta and Tayrona, we thought! The bus driver came on the bus, told us that we needed to switch busses. So we ran down to get our bags, and he told us they had already moved them. We ran to the other bus, and the conductor tried to shuffle us in the bus. We said, "No! But what about the backpacks?" And they just insisted, "They are there, they are there, we already put them in." As a general rule, things in Latin America move a little slower than normal. However, this was one of the few times when everyone seemed to think that time was really important. So we got in the bus without having seen our bags. Then, we spent the next 3 hours convincing ourselves that our bags were not actually under the bus, and that we would have nothing but the clothes on our backs and the passports/money on our person. We convinced ourselves that we would be writing home to explain that we were silly gringos who had been taken advantage of in a very clever way. Well, we finally arrived in Santa Marta, and once again we did not know whether or not to get out. The driver told us he would take us all the way to Tayrona, like we paid for originally, but it was late and dark, and we didn't want to be stranded at the entrance to a national park that we assumed would be closed. So we got off the bus. We walked to the luggage compartment, hoping to see backpacks but expecting the least. But then, wet from rain and shaken by travel, the three packs appeared, one by one. We stood right there on the road and silently celebrated. We also promised to be a little more careful with our bags and a little more trusting of people who had been so good to us in the past. A learning experience :)

4) Okay last story. It's a short one. When we finally found a hostal in Santa Marta, we headed to our room, noticing that there was going to be one more person staying in the room with us. As we were unpacking, Steven complained of having lots of splinters in his foot, so I gave him my knife so that he could dig them out. I left the room. I come back, and Steven says to me, "A woman came in the room. She took one look at me with a knife in my hand, grabbed her bags, and walked right out." I died of laughter. And the best part is, we ran into this particular woman multiple times after this incident, one of which was ON THE TRAIL at Tayrona national park. We had a hard time containing ourselves.

Hope all is well wherever you are!!! Love you and miss you! Will post pics soon.

Anne Marie