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!
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