Hasta siempre!!!

My my, how sad and neglected this blog must feel! Well, finally I found the time for a final update before signing off for good.
So what has the last month offered? Well, I wrapped up work at UniBoyaca. We had a goodbye bbq with all the other profes in Paipa on a farm of a friend of a friend, a guy whio has travelled all over the world and has a remarkable resemblance in appearance and mannerisms to Captain Barbossa from"Pirates of the Carribean", who keeps horses and has a lovely little farm house. So that was a good time- lots of roasted chicken and plantains and potatoes and avocados. Then Mile and I went to Duitama to visit our wonderful friend Connie, who gave us acupuncture treatment in her clinic.
So let´s see, I wrapped up classes at the end of May, and went to San Gil for a couple of days, where I stayed with a couchsurfing contact, Andres, a really nice professor of electrical engineering who lives in a little cabin in the country surrounded by mango and orange trees and the most noble little black lab I´ve ever met who accompanied me every time I arrived or went to town. Of course, San Gil is lovely as always. i went on a tour of Cueva del Indio, a giant cave with vampire bats and a 5 meter jump at the end into a river where you swim out of the cave. I served as traslator to a vacationing family from Austin, TX. Then off to spend as many hours as possible at the waterfall of Juan Curi, which remains for me the most beautiful place on earth, swimming in clear pools surrounded by huge trees and orchids.
Then back to Tunja and quickly off again with Milena to the llanos. A great four days, although lots of time spent in buses. We enjoyed the heat, the humidity, the vast expansive views (finally a break from mountains- you can even see the sunset!!), and the most delicious grass fed beef you can imagine. We also ate amazing pinapples and learned that they don´t come from trees, but from a cactus-like plant on the ground. Who´d have thought? The only complaint- it has rained a lot the last night and the return bus ride to Tunja passed through some zones with lots of washed out highways way up in the mountains, which meant over 4 hours of extra delay waiting for them to repair and let us pass. But, small price to pay.
Then it was back to Tunja to clean up my apartment, pack up my things, say my last goodbyes, and off to Bogota for Milena´s visa date at the embassy. We were really nervous, but she got it!! Which means we can spend the summer together in Missouri. Hooray!
Then the final session with my wonderful Irish music friends in Bogota. And I wastesd two afternoons running around every corner of Bogota looking for an open Citibank to transfer my money to my US account. After a ridiculously complicated process, I finally finished, and then recieved a call two days later that the transaction was cancelled because we put one piece of information wrong. Ugggh!! F""king banks!! Oh well, I´ll figure that out when I get back to Bogota.
But where am I now??
Well, I just finished my first week on a farm in Manizales, in the coffee growing region of the country. It´s been nice. The farm is run by Cecilia, an older lady with lots of chutspa (no idea if that´s spelled right), her sister, and a few other campesinos who help out. It´s located way up in the mountains with a nice view of the city. They about 2 acres planted with coffee and bananas (all the bananas i can eat), along with other veggies, mandioca, corn, and animals. My main job has been taking care of the two goats (=delicious cheese!), and chickens, and other odd jobs like harvesting coffee, digging trenches so the rain doesn´t wash out the crops (there´s been several strong downpours), and climbing up the orange trees to pull off moss, orchids, bromelias, and other parasitic plants. That also meant destroying the housing on ants who like to build their nests there, and who have an amazingly strong bite for their size. That was entertaining, haha! Legs covered with little bites is a small price to pay, though, for fresh air, amazing views, delicious food, and lots of time in the afternoon to read in a hammock and play guitar.
So yeah, I could say a lot more, but you get the idea. Looking forward to another week in the mountains eating lots of bananas, and then the return jouney to Bogota and to the US. I can´t believe that 2 weeks from today I´ll be at my brother´s wedding in San Fransico. So soon! I can´t wait.
So, be well all! My blessings from this wonderful country Colombia, but also excitement to be back and see everyone soon!!
Until then...
(PS- all the typos are due to a crappy keyboard and spellcheck in Spanish).

wrapping up!!

Hey all!
Can´t say I´ve been as consistent as I should with the blog these last few weeks, but you get busy and . . .
Anyhow, things are good. Nothing earthshaking. Things are winding down at UniBoyacá. Tomorrow is my last day of class!! And then just a couple weeks of grading exams and tutorials, and I´m free!! My weekends are all booked up with day trips and plans. In June, with work all over, I´ll be doing a llanos tour with Milena, going to visit friends in Villavicencio and Villanueva, both lovely, hot, flat, humid places with lots of good rivers to swim in and tasty food to eat. A good break from Tunja, which has been rather cold in the last weeks. Last week the band gave our final concert at a high school at night with chilly breeze and zoop- yet another cold for me!! Number 4, i think? Oh well, one last round of coughing and nosebloing to wind down the year. That´ll make vacation and hot climates even more amazing. Plus, better to get sick now then on the farm in Manizales in june, right??

What have I been up to?? Well, lots of odds and ends. Finishing up gardening classes at Colegio Country. We planted spinach, lettuce, chard, and cilantro, which are starting to slowly pop out, and this last week we´ll do a cheese making workshop. MMM! Good thing I can get fresh milk close to my house.
A couple weeks ago a friend of Milena invited us to her farm in Moniquira for the sugar cane harvest. That was quite an experience: driving on a bumpy gravel round deep into a valley full of cane. Watching the working harvest with machetes, pile it onto mule trains and haul it back to the mill where they press it, pour the juice into giant cauldrons, and boil it until the bricks of brown sugar they call panela here.
I´ve been juggling the last Portuguese classes with French classes 4 hours on saturday afternoons. I enjoy it, but it´s a pretty long 4 hours. The teacher is cool. A young girl from Bordeaux. She was happy that Sarkozy went a la merde!! I like French and pronounce well, but I wont get to learn too much in five weeks. Just the basics like letters, numbers, greeting, and a few verb conjugations.

So I´m busy busy maing plans for travels, wrapping things up, preparing for my last big goodbye house party with live cumbia bands and all. I´ll send an update your way soon!! Stay tuned!!

a typical day in Tunja

 Students of Colegio country working on our compost project.

 Just a typical neighborhood fruit store- everything from cabbage to papayas, guava, mangos, etc.

 Scenes of rainy season in Tunja. Noah gets soaked, and that's not venice, but rather a flooded parking lot behind my apartment.

 My desk!! And view from behind the university.

 My office, with colleagues.

 What a goofball professor!

 My humble abode, the second floor on the far right, and inside.

new tatoooooooo!!

It's a mayan woman harvesting corn, and it says, in Maya, ya'ab pahtal, meaning "abundance is possible". She looks chubby in the photo because of the angle, but i like it.

Semana Santa and other ramblings!

Oops- a few more weeks have zoomed by and I haven´t done an update.
So what has Noah been up to these days? Let me try to remember everything.
I believe the last post was Iguaque, that lovely park in the mountains near Tunja. The next weekend we went with the exchangers to another site near Tunja, the "Desert" of the Candelaria, a famous monastery with Brazilian dominican monks. I was expecting a very austere setting complete with sand dunes, a tumbling piece of brush, and monks doing Gregorian chant. You know, something out of an old western in New Mexico. After walking a good way we arrived to find that it isn´t a desert at all, but a rather green strip of land in the middle of what might be considered desert, and while it has some lovely churches and adobe arquitecture, the monks are very normal, even boring, people, despite their cool robes, and that the whole operation is fairly commercial. They sell knicknacks and charge you for a tour of the courtyard and museum. And when we asked, one monk explained that it used to be a desert, but that the minks had greened it up with irrigation, and that, and I quote: "not all things are literal; it´s more of a spiritual desert." .... riiight.
But anyway, there is a nice river nearby where we reclined for a while and ate tasty arepas baked nearby. And then Milena and I hurriedly made the walk back to town in an hour in order to catch a bus so she wouldn´t miss her English lesson with a young student.

What else? Oh yeah, Saint Patrick{s day was quite epic. I went to Bogotá to play with the Shamrock Wings, the other Irish band in the city that are much more cool and laid back than Espiritu Celta. We played one at one bar riday, and another Saturday. Complete with two bagpipers (a German girl, and Felipe, resident Scottish culture nerd and quite a character, whose house I crashed at). There was the greatest dark beers the country has to offer on tap, and I also played a bluegrass set with a girl from Boston who i met through the band who sings really purty, and another girl from Boston (coincidentally) who is way cool, plays the irish fiddle and works for Witness for Peace. The two of us checked out the botanical garden and were excited to find huge demonstration gardens with all sorts of veggies in raised beds, water colletion systems, and fruit trees. Definitely going back there soon!

And then this last week was Semana Santa, Holy Week, which is taken more seriously here, complete with processions, endless prayer services, and a week of vacation! Woohoo! So Milena and I, both with colds, headed for warmer climates. There was a conference on English teaching in Pereira, inthe heart of the coffee producing region of Colombia, famous for beautiful rolling mountains and hills covered with plantain and coffee trees, and pretty colonial mansions. We stayed with Ancízar, a couchsurfing contact, and his fun family. While Milena went to conferences, I wandered around, and went to a workshop with Ancizar where i learned to play different drums used in traditional cumbia style (awesome!), and traded ideas with a great classical guitar player that hands around that foundation. The last day, we grabbed a bus up to an area an hour outside Pereira in the entrance to a big national park, but when we arrived it started puoring rain- and I mean pouring!! The rainy season is just starting here. We stopped to have lunch thinking we´d have to go back, but thankfully after an hour it cleared off and we hiked up and enjoyed beautiful mountains, first covered with little patches of farms, and then pure jungle with a big river running down and trees with cool vines and flowers.
Next stop was Cali, the third biggest city in the country in the Valley of Cauca, famous for sugar cane, world champion salsa dancers, and major drug cartels. We stayed with another couch contact, Angélica, a way cool Afro Colombia student of history (nerdy and well read like us!!). We talked a bunch in her apartment, soaking up the blazing heat of the city, wandered around the downtown, and ate typical food like chantaduro- a fruit that looks like a little pepper, but has flesh like a chestnut and tastes like a cooked carrot. Weird but yummy. The next day, we took a bus up into the mountains, follower the crystaline River Pance, where caleños take a break from the heat. We hiked up through jungle into a spot in the river with deeper pools, swam around and snacked, and then wandered down for another bumpy bus ride back to the city. Amazingly, we actually didn´t going out salsaing in Cali. A crime!! Thing is, there aren´t very many clubs open on Monday and Tuesday, and we were short on money, but we did go to a good slasa spot in Pereira, and we downloaded a buch of Angélica´s music to take back with us.

And now, after yet another long bumpy bus ride through mountains, we are back in Bogotá visiting Milena´s family. Today we lazed around, made tamales, and watched cheesy movies about jesus (a Semana Santa tradition), and tomorrow off to catch some street theatre from the huge festival going on right now in Bogotá, and then back to Tunja to rest and recharge for the last 2 months of work.
And that´s the news!! Good night and good luck.

Crops in the hills near Pereira. Cool graffiti on a wall in the bohemian district of Cali. Playing in the fountains in Pereira.

mi barrio

This is a nice shot from the hill behind my house. Having some mates with the Argentine exchangers. My house is near the whiote building right aove my head. Good perspective shot of day to day life in Tunja.

Iguaque and more!!

Well hello again all. Two more weeks passed and gone and many more things to tell. Classes are keeping me busy as always, especially now that the first round of exams and presentations are here and the students start to freak out. But we`ve been able to discuss a lot of interesting subjects- histroy of the British Empire, Free vs. Fair Trade, Foxconn and sweatshops, the US intervention in the Phillipines, etc. THe Cinema Club is going well- two weeks straight of good attendance. Last week I showed "Smoke Signals" and people really liked it. THis week: "Into the Wild", and other titles in the series are "Sicko" , "SUper Size Me", "DO the Right THing", "Milk", etc. So hyped about that.

But more importantly, things are really taking off with environmental projects. First, this week we start construction of the compost pile at Colegio Country, and the kids are excited to learn. There`s already another possible colegio where I could start another project, but for now, to do this well. Then, last week, there was a showing of the documentary "Rio Bogota" about contamination in said river (Jesus it`s bad- everything from heavy metals to raw sewage that goes into that poor river and every time there`s money to try and fix it, politicians rob it). But it was really inspiring first because a bunch of environmental activists came from Bogotá, and also because they show the lake up in the mountains where the river is born with its beautiful pure waters and mosses and misty air. Anyway, I made a lot of connections, including for an event- Canto al Agua- an international festival of music, indigenous rites, and activist workers related to protecting and honoring water- and I was inspired to visit and real páramo. A páramo is a high altitude ecosystem (above 2,800 metres) with swamps and unqie vegetation and an essential source of pure water that is threatened by the slow advance of mining and agriculture. Colombia happens to have over 50% of the páramos in the world.

Anyway, I set out this last sunday to visit one of the most beautiful in the National Park Iguaque, a couple hours from Tunja. I went with Milena and the new exchange students- who are really awesome people- two from Mendoza, a girl from Chiapas, 3 from Colima, Mexico, and a Bolivian that is the most good natured, quiet guy you could imagine. So, you take a truck up to the entrance and from there, it`s 3 to 4 hours climbing up the mountain (up to 3,600 metres!) through dense forest and then rocky cliffs up to the Laguna Iguaque, a sacred body of water that is wrapped up in mythology and named after a chief of the Muiscas who fled there from the conquistadores. The air is amazing, misty and fresh, and crystal streams with moss run down between huge trees with different types of orquids growing from their branches. BUt it`s a steep, rocky, muddy climb, and while I didn`t take it too hard, for some of the girls that just brought sneakers it was tough. Upon reaching the lake, you can feel the power of the site: we sat down to eat bread, cheese, crackers, oranges on the banks, watching huge clouds of mists come swirling down from the mountains. I brought some herbs to burn as an offering and played the low whistle, which was neat because it echoed just like you might imagine. On the way back, it started hailing just as we were climbing down the rockiest part, and that meant slipping and slidding and being completely soaked and muddy by the time we got back down, but well worth it, obviously. The pictures are from there.

And that`s the main adventure of the week. In the next days I will be working on compost, watching Colombia and Mexico spar in world cup qualifiers, planning a forum at the university about new laws that will allow more coal mining in the mountains near here (booo!) and various other projects.

Oh, and Milena and I are having our 6 month anniversary! Wow, those months have gone by fast! The idea is flowers, dinner, maybe a serenade. All is great with us, although she`s working 45 hours a weeks for shitty pay at an English instituute, but only for 2 more weeks- and the last day we`re going to both go and humuliate her uppity boss as a parting jab, hehe.

So, blessing to you all, and more soon!

and the update!!

So . . .

WHat have I been up to the last few weeks? Well, not too much. Back in classes of course. Working quite a few extra hours preparing stuff, but classes are good. I`ve been able able to introduce a lot more content about geography and history. Let`s say the students didn`t get much of that in high school, so a lot of catching up on the history of the British Empire, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, good stuff like that. Talking Fair Trade and such in the upper level business classes. Of course, always frustrated wishing the students`level was higher; it`s tough to talk about those things when a regular newspaper article is full of unfamiliar words for them, but paso a paso. . .

But besides that, my projects are starting to come together. The band is back in full swing, out first show last week for the new class of freshmen was great, I sang `Mais que Nada` and wqe have a lot more percussionists this year- a drummer, great conga player, etc. I`ve been playing a lot of Brasilian tunes with them, ironically, seeing as how one might think it would be stuff in English.

Then there`s hope on the horizon for compost. Turns out a friend got hired at a small bilingual private school that has a lot of land and money and they want me to come and give classes and I proposed building a compost pile anbd using that as a base for English classes- nice and hands-on. SO, the possibilities are wide open there. This week I plan the first visit to see what`s feasible. And there`s a student group at UniBoyaca related to environmental stuff and we plan to help a small recycling company get a foothold in my neighborhood- getting people to separate class, cardboard, etc.

Then, there`s the pure satisfaction of having been here a while and slowly discovering good things like the fact that there`s a huge farmers`market a few blocks from my house every weekend where I can get all sorts of fruits and veggies (though the organic-ness varies and isn`t always certain since the farmer isn`t always the one selling the goods). But I can get basil there, which means pesto!!! I`ve already made 3 batches and got Milena addicted. Smear it on bread, pasta, your finger, whatever. I can also get real eggs there- from chickens that ranged free- since most eggs in stores here, while a bit better than US hormone-antibiotic caged slop, do come from large industrial chicken houses whre that kind of stuff is starting to catch on, sigh!! And a new exciting discovery- a farm one block from the university with free ranging cows (in that case Colombia is wonderful- all cows range free, the feedlot hasn`t made it here for large animals), and they sell jugs of milk every morning right fresh from the udder. Milena and I got a gallon jug and made delicious cheese (just simmer and add vinegar) with rosemary, and promptly ate the whole huge block. But nice to know I can get more whenever I want. Yogurt is next on the list.

Oh boy!! Cus the yogurt you get in stores here is watery and too much sugar always.

And that`s pretty much what`s new here. Enjoying music, thinking about travel plans for Semana Santa (spring break, effectively). Also taking a Colombian culture class at UniBOyaca, which is really good so far- learning a lot about indigenous groups in Colombia these first weeks. The Muiscas, the main group that inhabited the area of Tunja and Bogotá has a lot of archeological sites, but no direct descendents. However, there are new communties of mestizo who are reclaiming Muisca identity and relearning the language and rituals, so looking forward to visiting them.

Oh, and my brother Josh is getting married in July, so i looks like it`ll be straight to San Francisco and back to como by mid´July, hopefully with Milena, for a precious month before it`s of to North Carolina (come on and raise up!!- take your shirt off . . . oh, nevermind).

So, happy February. Hope winter goes gently in the states, though not looking forward to April and May here when the rains return. But can`t complain about early October temperatures year round.

Nooz and tatooz!!

Here's some photos of me, Mile, and my new tattoo. It's of the Irish peasant and land reform revolutionary Michael Davitt and reads "Tir ar son na ndaoine", which means roughly in Irish "The land is for the use of the people".
Tomorrow a full update!!

maldito el tiempo que se acaba!

Oh my goodness- home at last in Tunja. I arrived this afternoon after an all night bus ride from Valledupar to Bucaramanga, and then 6 more hours to Tunja. The cold is not so good- I`ve had to make lots of tea with lemon and you know I`m gonna sleep like a rock tonight!

Well, well, what can I say about the final week of travels. Many beautiful places. Let`s see, when last we spoke I was on the way to the Sierra Nevada, to a small coffee growing town called Minca, specifically. I went with Will and Rachel and as soon as we arrived, we headed straight to a swimming hole, a half hour walk up into the jungle on a gravel road. The river was beautiful, huge rocks and deep pools where we could throw oursleves off 20 ft. rocks and land gently. SO that was lovely. We stayed at a hostel run by a british dude that was up on a hill surrounded by coffee and plantain trees and with an unbelievable view all the way to Santa Marta (an our below) and the sea. The next day we walked up another trail to another waterfall next to a shade grown coffee plantation, where I bought a bag of freshly ground beans. The walk was great- following the river, passing some enormous trees with big vines hanging of them, seeing big woodpeckers and ant hills built onto the sides of trees the size of a mini refrigerator! That afternoon we caught a ride back down to Santa Marta, bid fairwell to our kind host Camilo and his family, and headed to the crossroads to catch a bus to Riohacha, capital of La Guajira department, our next destination. From there, the next morning, we joined with Rachel and another ETA Diana to go to the famed Cabo de la Vela. Getting there involved a 3 hour ride in the back of a truck with a dozen other people, including a Wayuu (indigenous herders that are the main population of the semi dersertic Guajira) woman with her 4 adorable daughters, one of which m,ade the trip on my lap fast asleep despite the joloting bumps. We finally arrived and what a place!! Cabo is a bay where sandy flats meet bright blue ocean and there are beaches where you can walk out 300 meters and still be just up to your waste. It is a very popular destination these days, but luckily we arrived just at the end of the last 3 day weekend holiday, so things were pretty relaxed. In any case, it`s a pretty isolated location with little fresh water. All that`s there is a strip of shacks (just years ago it was just a tiny Wayuu fishing village nobody had ever heard of), and huts with chinchorros (big hammocks that are the main accomadation). So we wandered along the beach out to the lighthouse, watched the sun set, watched a full moon rise over the water, and fell asleep in hammocks at the edge of the beach (although a few Colombian tourists in their trucks blasting vallenato down the way all night broke the peace a bit). The next day we decided to go to a similar though even more isolated beach area called Punto Gallinas, the northernmost point of South America. That involved an even more harrowing 5 hour truck ride, this time with an open top and incredible bumps, so much that I stood up most of the way so as not to bruise my arse, although we also had to duck thorny bushes too. But again, when we arrived, we realized why it was worth it. Even more spectacular beaches, white sand dunes, and nodoby around except for the occasion Wayuu family hut and of course goats everywhere among the straggly vegetation. We spent 2 nights with a large Wayuu family with a view of the bay, and again in chinchorros. The second day we splurged on lobster, which is not too expensive and soooo delicious! Mostly we just lazed around on various beaches, collecting shells, body surfing on the waves, getting stung a bit by small jellyfish, and reading and stargazing at night. By the time we took the boat back to Cabo on Thursday we were all just sort of in a trance by the beauty and isolation of the place.

Then I went into return mode. A long riude in various cars back to Valledupar where I spent a night with Natalia and family, and the next day gathered dozens of the last of the mango harvest off the roof of the neighborhood church, guided by a short, scruffy, laid back priest who sent us home with a bucketful! One last dip in the river Guatapuri and then I caught the all night bus that brought me back to TUnja! I`m about to meet with Milena, so things are swell, except for being exhausted and a bit stuffy nosed. But I`m ready to settle down a while after so much being in transit. Cheers!! Stay tuned for semester 2 from UniBoyacá!

un toque de viajero

Well well, another few days have raced by, and many adventures!
Let`s see. I think we left of on the second day in Valledupar. The third day there (I stayed longer because I liked it so much) I did an epic bike ride (12 km) on a little country road to a small village called La Meza where there was a community of indigenous Arhuacos. The ride was hot and I burned the top of my knees and was bright red when I arrived. Well worth the ride, though. Down a gravel road from the main strip there was a small resguardo of Arhuacos, just about 20 houses surrounded by their fields of plantains, papayas, yuca, and cattle. The houses were beautiful, built with earthen walls and huge hatched palm roofs. There were justt a few young people around, but they were willing to let me have a look around and answer my questions. Then I checked out the river, another one with big rocks, clear water and deep pools, good for diving. The next day my friend Nata and I went to a little eco-park near the river that had lots of reused things like tires and phone booths converted into playgrounds for children, and also a series of pools where they do massages and mud treatments (they smeared our faces with mud and it left our skin looking nice).
Let`s see, so from the lovely Valledupar, I headed to Cartagena, the tourist hub second only to Rio de Janeiro in South America, the ancient port where the gold came out and the slaves went in. I had my doubts about going, knowing it`s very touristic, but I thought, hell, gotta go, you just sort of have to.
And . . . it was as bad as I had feared. I stayed in a packed hostel with lots of Argentines, which was fun. But let`s see, how to explain Cartagena? Really, you have to speak of 3 Cartagenas. You have the historic center, surrounded by stone battlements, with castles, churches, and colonial houses with big balconies full of flowers. That part is maybe 20 acres, pretty, packed with tourists, and rather expensive. Then there`s the part with beaches and huge shining high-rise hotels. Also packed and expensive. Then there`s all the rest of Cartagena, which is basically a giant, sprawling slum with trash in the streets, poorly built shacks, big time drug trafficking, etc. The poorest places I`ve seen in the country. And you can feel it in the air. Just an unhealthy energy in the air, partly because of the overload of tourists, and partly the festering inequalities. So, I spent half a day wandering in the historic part, saw some nice museums, then the afternoon wandering through the packed beaches, and then deciding to get the hell out as early as i could the next day.
That took me to my next stop, Santa Marta, also an historic and touristy city, but with a completely different vibe! Santa Marta is much smaller, much more relxed, and has much prettier beaches and the mountains of the Sierra Nevada right behind. I arrived in the afternoon, met up with Will, a fellow ETA, and we wandered around the bay. They took us out on a motorboat ride past the port, and then we wandered about the sleepy city, enjoying seas breezes. Today we went to Taganga, a famous fishing village and beach a half hour down the coast. It was beautiful, but packed on the larger beaches. We ended up on a bit less crowded beach, swimming in the bright blue water, which was cool and refreshing, and lounging in the shade. Unfortunately, since last night I`ve been having stomach troubles and loose stool (I blame street food in Cartagena), but I`ve been taking it easy and drinking lots of fluid and yogurt, so with any luck I`ll be better tomorrow. Tomorrow our friend Rachel arrives and the plan it to head up into the Sierra Nevada, where there are crystal streams, and indigenous villages, and after that to the huge desert beaches of la Guajira. So stay tuned for the latest from those exotic destinations. Good night, and good luck.

parrandeando el año nuevo!!!

Happy 2012 all! Sure to be a wild year whether full of catastrophes or the coming of a New Age or just the same old shit. I´m in full travel mode, going on a week and it´s been a wonderful ride so far. Let´s see, I´´ll try to be brief and cronological:
So, Christmas was in Bogota with Milena and the family. A lot livelier than Christmas in the states- spent all Christmas Eve making tamales, desserts, and then in a huge, packed mall looking for clothes and furniture for the family. We went to mass- oops, we arrived late and it was over- so back to the house to stuff ourselves, drink wine and aguardiente, and dance, before the fireworks and all at midnight.
Then I hit the road. From Tunja up North, first to San Gil, which is sort of the adventure sports capital of Colombia. It´s in a mountain valley near Chicamocha Canyon, which is nearly as big and as pretty as the Grand onem, and the climate is waaay warmer than Tunja. I stayed in a little hostel with a nice Australian botanist couple, Elise and Andrew, or Roo (which fit, the guy was tall, lanky, bald with dreadloacks in back and a big chin that evoked a kanga). The city is small and pretty except for the omnipresent motorcycles that go on all night and zip ar ound corners unnervingly.
Day one was great: first to th most beautiful waterfalls I´ve ever seen, careening down from a mountain and surrounded by hills with sugar cane planted. At the top the fall is maybe 100 feet and there´s a pool neck deep to swim, but the constant spray of the falls in wearying, but down below there were more fall, ith pools and big rocks and huge tropical trees. Ahh, gorgeous!! Then in the afternoon I said, screw it, let´s go paragliding. Roo had experience so I elt confident. We ended up with a company that took us in a packed bus to the top of a hill in the middle of coffee farms (all shade grown so from above it looks like forest) and to this peak with a view of the conyon below. And up I went, about a 20 minute fly. The problem was a front was coming in and the wind was really strong so they had a hard time land back on the hill. When I went up it started pelting rain toward the end, and we had to try to land fast cus that gets hairy fast. It was great. I was nervous because you´re up there with just a cushion and straps under you and the pilot ostrapped to you. My muscles were definitely sore from having an iron grip on the straps, but I managed to not get queasy like others. I would like to go again now that I´m more relaxed and could enjoy it more. Anyway, the rain came but not everyone had gone so the company wanted to wait for it to clear so as not to lose their money. We spent an hour or so drinking coffee under a canopy until just before sunset it sort of clear and they took some people up through the mist. But- oops- the mud road back down was all washed out so our bus had to wait for us below while we slopped through 3 km of mud back don the hill in the dark, which sounds rotten, but it was actually really nice, with the air and the corn fields quiet and dark around us.

Well, what else? The next day I just went to a pretty colonial town of Barichara and then on to Bucaramana, the capital of Santander. I arrived at the house of Luz and Alfredo, a sweet older couple, couchsurf hosts, that own a bar and kiosk. They live in the ritzy southern neighborhood of Floridablanca, which felt a lot like Miami- their housing unit including high rise apartments, a spa, sauna, pool, salon, b-ball court, and coconut trees. Pretty cushy. Anyway, I took advantage of the pool but feel kind of enclosed. the next day Luz took me in the car around Bucaramanga, a nice university city in the mountains. They were so generous and it was inspiring, although it was funny to observe some of their hypocresies: treating me, a well-off foreigner to lunch, dinner, beer, treats, etc., but refusing to give a few pennies to the Matachines (poor kids who dress up in clown suits and ask for money at stoplights), complaining about how people drink so much when they own a bar and licor store, etc. Oh well, no one is perfect and I certainly can{y complain.

ANd now I´m in Valledupar, the capital of Vallenato and almost to the coast. Thaqt involved an 8 hour marathon trip in a little bus with a nice driver who told me all sorts of stories about the areas we passed that had flooded or had avalanches, a crazy 2 hour car trip with three gruff costeños that I couldn´t understand at all and blasted music and drove a good 80 mph in a clunker, then another bus. But I arrived in time to join Natalia, another couch contact, and her family to celebrate New Years, which involved a roasted goat, dancing, and at 12 am running around the block with a suitcase (to have luck in travels) and hugging neighbors. Today we spent the whole day around the river in Valledupar, which is a beautiful crystal one with deep spots where you can jump from high rocks. It was packed wall to wall, basically the whole city there, and people selling ice cream, coconuts, mango juice, sausage, everything you can imagine. Tonight we´ll go dancing and then tomorrow to a nearby indigenous Aruaco town and then onto a bus to Cartagena,

Oh, and did I mention there are mango trees on every street, including the patio of my hostel. People here actually spend more time complaining about getting hit by the falling fruits than they spend eating them, but they are delicious!! Hundreds of free mangos? I must be in heaven!