Beaching it in Colombia

June 16th
Today we woke up and Scarlett was sick with a sore throat. She went and got medicine and then laid down in the hammock. She, however, was a trooper and we took a boat ride to a beach that you could only get to by boat. We had a good time in at the beach; such a good time that I didn’t put my second or third coat of sunblock on, so I am a little red. Sherrie and I went snorkeling for $10. This was my first time snorkeling and for anyone that hasn’t tried this before it is a strange sensation. First my nose was a little big for my mask so I got a little water in my mask and water up my nose. I also felt a little panicky as I had to breathe out of my mouth. However, I picked it up pretty quickly and was able to calmly swim. I thought it was amazing to see all of the brain, black, fan, white and tree coral. We also picked up sea anemones and there was this animal that looked like a flower and when you would try to touch it, it would suck into a tube. I would swim down the 10 or so feet every time to touch these animals to watch them suck their flower in. There were tons of different fish that would glow blue, yellow, black and white. It was a cool experience. The highlight of the trip was when we went to a huge coral in the shape of a moose antler. We then came back to the hostel and swam in the pool to get all of the salt water out of all of our crevices and noses. We got fresh blackberry juice and listened to the Rastafarian skinny black bar tender with dreadlocks sing to Motown, rap and Alanis Morissette while he made our drinks and while we waited for our food. He is the epitome of cool with his dreads and carefree attitude. (He might have smoked a little too much pot though because it takes either a real confident person or slightly high person of any gender to sing like that with Alanis. ) I laughed pretty hard as he wailed away with her high-pitched tones. Life is good and I hope to be less inhibited like the bar tender so that I can enjoy life the way I want. However I think that I am doing a pretty good job of enjoying life so far. I am pretty afraid of responsibility right now because doing whatever the heck I want feels pretty darn good.Peace out

Taganga aka "little Israel"

June 15

Today we grabbed a taxi. Our driver was named Franklin and he was really interested in what Utah was like and asked me to send him pictures of Utah. We also discussed the origens of regaton, Spanish rap with a latin twist. We then grabbed some empanadas and fruit juice and hopped on a bus. They played “Man on Fire” which is a film about kidnapping in Mexico with Denzel Washington and Marc Antony (J Lo’s Husband). We then got to Sa nta Marta and took a taxi to Taganga to our hostel Divaganga. We have a swimming pool, hammocks, and an awesome restaurant. Sherrie and I went to the beach while Scarlett hung out in the hostel because she wasn’t feeling well. This is an interesting town where many of the bars have signs in Spanish and in Hebrew. Lots of Israelis come to this town after serving their mandatory military service. So I fit right in. It isn’t the prettiest beach and it is more desert than tropical, but this place has a cool feel with laid back lifestyle. As you walk through the dirt streets there are houses with elaborate speaker systems in front of their small homes playing competing salsa and merengue songs at discotech volume while sitting around talking with friends and family. I am surprised that most people aren’t deaf here. I really like the afrocolombian culture here and they are incredibly kind. I am going to go listen to my lectures on my MP3 player on the hammock under the stars and by the swimming pool. I love Colombia

MUD VOLCANO!

June 14th, 2009

Later yesterday evening, I went back to a grocery store that also sold paintings. I ended up buying a copy of Botero’s Mona Lisa which is a depiction of Mona Lisa if she were about 50 pounds heavier. It is pretty funny and cost me $25. We then went for dinner and had steak with cheese on top and then to a café where I got a brownie with an ice cream scoop of dulce de leche on top. It was awesome. We then came back to the hostel and crashed.
We woke up this morning and we went on a tour to a small volcano that is filled with warm gray mud about 40 minutes outside of the city. We went swimming in the mud and got massages. It felt like walking in pudding, but we couldn’t feel the bottom or even sink. All we could do is skim along the top. The volcano was so full of people that it was hard to get around. We then went to wash off in the lake next to the volcano. Old women from the community would wash us down. We all got buck naked in the lake and they then washed out our swimming suits. I was a little shocked at first but it was a good thing because I had so much mud in my pockets in the swimsuit that I bought from the D.I. We then got back in the bus and then the bus driver backed into a car. We ended up spending about an hour waiting as they fixed the situation. We then ended up going to the beach and swam while they fixed a fish lunch for us. We came back and got cleaned up. We then went to a church up on a hill overlooking the city that took the place of where the Indians would worship a goat. Sherrie and Scarlett took a picture with the same sloth that Scarlett took a picture when she visited Cartagena a few years ago.
We then came back to see the inquisition museum and the gold museum which were both closed because it was Sunday. We then went to a fancy Italian restaurant, which had fantastic food and great atmosphere. We ate by candlelight, the two ladies and I, and they had wine and I had tap water. It was excellent and $10. We then went and had dessert in the town square on cobblestone streets surrounded by lanterns. Two guys played guitars and serenaded a couple by us and then a group of local kids were street performers did some typical Colombian and Afro Colombian dances for tips. The people who live in the north are descendents of slaves and had some great moves. We had a great time telling embarrassing stories and laughing. We then came back to the hostel and are watching movies. What a great day.

Love in the Time of Cholera, Cartagena, Colombia

June 12 and 13, 2009

We woke up this morning at 9am in San Gil. We had one more day than we expected in this sweet town because we decided not to take the long road to Cartagena by boat and decided to take a night bus. We first went to the touristic village of Barichara, which was a 40 minute bus ride. We got out and saw the village for about 10 minutes and realized that it was a waste of time because although it was pretty it looked too polished. Everybody told us it was worth going to, but we thought that Villa de Leyva was prettier. We went to the main church and decided to get back on the bus and go back to San Gil. We then got some lunch in a run-down restaurant and then took a taxi to reserve our tickets for our night bus ride to Cartagena. We then took the same taxi to a free water hole. It was a series of shallow waterfalls. The local kids were there because they just got out of school. I ended up talking to three 14-year-old boys who had a crush on Scarlett and Sherrie. One of them told Scarlett that she looked like a model. I just laughed. One of the kids was white and his mom had left him in Colombia so that he could be “Colombian” with his father’s parents. She was Spanish and living in Spain. He said that he was made fun of in school for being made of milk and he said he felt discriminated against. They then got our emails. I just laughed thinking that it is kind of creepy for them to have a 29-year-old pen pal; Scarlett ended up giving them a fake e-mail. We ended up walking the mile back to our hostel and passed by some more waterfalls. We showered and then went and got pizza and bought a tres leches dessert. There was a drunk guy at the pizza place that really wanted to talk to us and buy us beer. This has been the only person that has been annoying in Colombia. We then got on the bus. I sat by a kid going to Baranquilla (the birth place of Shakira) to go work in a store. I thought that it must be better money because it was great weather year round where we were and the coast was pretty hot. The girls then whipped out the tres leches dessert and we ate it on the bus. I ended up finishing it off and getting a stomach ache. They also cranked up the AC so everyone was mummified with blankets. I ended up putting my arms inside my shirt and jacket and wrapping my shirt around my head in order to prevent hypothermia. We watched a sweet movie about a illegal immigrant from LA-turned soccer star in England. And then we watched some sweet Colombian music videos. We then tried to sleep. I had to turn my body every 1 hour to keep my body from freezing. I ironically slept well. We finally got here in Cartagena at noon after the 14-hour ride. Cartagena is an amazing city where the book and movie “Love in the time of Cholera” takes place. We got a crazy taxi driver who talks a million miles an hour and doesn’t pronounce all of his consonants. We laughed most of the 20-minute taxi ride with him. We are staying right in the heart of the colonial district in Cartagena. Some of these buildings are hundreds of years old! We then took a walking tour through colonial streets where the girls bought some clothes and paintings.

Villa De Leyva and San Gil Colombia

June 10 2009

Today we woke up in a beautiful hacienda in colonial Villa De Leyva. It was on a hill overlooking the beautiful military barracks, which made it very safe for us to walk around. This morning, we ate huevos pericos, which are scambled eggs with tomatoes and onions, and hot chocolate, rolls, and fresh squeezed orange juice. We then met up with up with Raul, an older gentleman who retired from his computer technician job to become a tourist/horse guide. We took a romantic horse ride that went first through the cobblestone streets of Villa de Leyva to the pozos azules, which were blue pools in the middle of the desert. We went swimming in the cool, bright, blue water. I was excited because I could still do a back flip. The owner of the pools - who usually charges $2 for the entrance and for swimming - after talking to the ladies, decided to let us swim for free. He said that he has never had any problems living there except that he has made enemies of his neighbors because they were jealous of his land. And one day they fired their guns on his land. He said that he lived alone and was happy to talk to us. We then climbed back on our horses. Sherrie was the most experienced, so she got a black stallion named “god of the wind,” which was jealous whenever Caramelo, Scarlett’s horse, would pass. So Scarlett and Sherrie were constantly riding close together. And one time it wasn’t just the horses that got frustrated; Scarlett pushed Sherrie out of the way even though it wouldn’t make the horse move out of the way. Our next stop was El Fossil, a museum built around a huge fossil of a dinosaur. We took a tour. We then hopped back on the horse and went to an ancient indigenous phallic garden and observatory of the stars. The Spanish missionaries called it “Little Hell” because of the enormous sculptures of penises. The indigenous thought that when there was no shadow from the sun that the sun had come down to fertilize the ground and it was time to plant. We then rode off to a mud house styled after Gaudi type architecture. We then went to lunch and had steak and salad for $3. We then took off and went to the beautiful colonial city of San Gil, which is warmer than the cool southern part of Colombia. It is a city with extremely steep streets and colonial buildings. We found when we got here that the place where we had reservations only had a room for one person, so we moved down the street. We are staying in a hostel dorm with 3 other people in our room. Luckily nobody snores. We are also happy with the place where we are at because it is quieter than the original place. Although there are no drinking games here.We woke up this morning and went to the hostel where we had our reservations and we made our plans for the day. We went to a 75 meter (200 feet) high water fall where the girls went swimming and I rappelled down the face of the waterfall. It had rained the night before so there was tons of water running over me. Luckily the rope was 13mm and doubled so I could let go and stay in one place and not fall. We met a nice couple from New Zealand who were traveling for 9 months. She is an artist and he is a writer and wanted to see South America before they had kids. They were great and went with me to rappel. It was her first experience and it was quite the experience. Paul would be proud that I went first. When we got down, the girls were a photo shoot and a French couple passed by that had horrible Ghana body odor that you could smell from 20 feet away and outside. Sherrie threw up in her mouth. We then headed back to our taxi.We hurried back so that we could go paragliding. We didn’t have any lunch, so we picked up some potato chips and juice. We headed up to the mountains through tobacco farms to a peak overlooking farms and a huge canyon. We went tandem with the guides. The ladies went first and had a great time. Sherrie did some twirls and down spiraling and Scarlett got motion sickness. I sat and talked with another Colombian tourist that was waiting his turn about the political situation in Colombia. And we laughed about different things. When it was my turn, I tied my camera to my arm. I lifted my feet up too early and the guy who I was tandem with, Cristian, laughed. It was really cool being up miles up in the air and being able to see the patchwork landscape of the farmlands below and the canyons and mountains. I went for twirls and recorded it on my camera. One time I forgot to record so my guide took me up to go again. I also got motion sickness on the way down and was praying not to vomit on the people below as we started to descend. The girls said that I was as gray as a gray ghost when I came down. I kind of regret not vomiting on everyone below because that would have been pretty darn funny. We then came back to the hostel and ended up talking to an Australian couple who went on the Ciudad Perdida and told stories about how the guides would take you to the cocaine fields to see how it is processed as it is in guerrilla country. Because the guerrilla make money off the tourists they protect them but if the tour guides don’t pay them their cut, they shoot the guides. We also talked to a couple from New Jersey who were starting med school in the fall. It has been a great couple of days and now we are going to party as we have one more day in San Gil.

BOGOTA COLOMBIA

Hello Everybody,I don't know if mom and dad got the last email that I sent to them to tell them I was alright so can somebody verify with them. Also let me know if you don't want to get these emails because it doesn't hurt my feelings if you feel like this is spam.We got into Bogota on Sunday night after I was bumped up to first class again. I thought of all of the flights that I didn't want to be in 1st class it was this one because I didn't want people to think that I was rich also the pizza factory dough is probably made out of potatoes because I was pretty gassy the whole flight. My stomache hurt so bad, I felt like I had date gut. When we got to Bogota. I was a little bit nervous but my nerves were calmed by how friendly everyone is here. It was also nothing that I expected because I had to get out my jacket because it was so cold. Sherrie and I went to our hostel and when they buzzed the door to let us in, I pushed a little too hard and flew down the flight of stairs. It was a great entrance. The place we stayed was a hostel with travelers from all over the world. We stayed in a room with three beds and a shower that would turn on when you would turn on the faucet on the sink or when the people downstairs from us would turn on their sink. We used the three blankets on our beds that night because it was so cold. We ended up talking until 1 am and had a hard time getting up the next morning. The next day we wandered around the city. We went to the main city square where there were thousands of pigeons and old women selling corn to feed them "toppins a bag." It was a huge square built by the spanish conquistadores and housed the court building that was taken over by the guerrillas in the 1980's where they killed 100 people and the supreme court justices. It was a cool place. We also went to a free museum that was donated by Bolero who paints portraits of very obese people, He repainted the Mona lisa and the last supper with fat people. There were also a couple of Picasos. We then went to Montserrate which is a cathedral on the top of 500 foot cliff on one of the mountains that surrounds Bogota. You have to take a Gondola to get up the cliffs. We met up with some colombian born USA ers who wanted to know how we felt in Colombia. We told them that so far we haven't had any reason to worry and they reassured us. We then went down on the gondola and I listened to nun talking to a soccer star from Africa about his life in colombia.We went and had arepes which are a type of tortilla made with a special flour. the man who owned the restaurant had a great time teaching us about the typical Colombian food. We also bought things for Scarlet's birthday (she was the one that was going to get married and the reason we came down, but called it off) We went to go pick her up from the airport because Sherrie had told her the wrong day that we were flying. Scarlets dad came also. He and her cousin drove us back to our hostel. He was a little concerned that we were staying in a hotel for only $7 a night (they are a well off family) and her cousin and he couldn't understand why we would want to travel the way were traveling. It definitely a cultural thing that I think falls more into European than American to back pack in South America. We finally found our hostel (I don't have the best sense of direction given that I took Sherrie to the same square 3 times and not on purpose) Today we went and helped Sherrie buy an emerald and bought our tickets to get back to Bogota from Cartagena. We then took a nice bus to la Valle de Leyva where we are now. It is a colonial city that is all white buildings and cobblestone streets in the Andes. We are staying in a great hostel and are going horse back riding in the morning and then off to San Gil tomorrow to do some white water rafting. We are relaxed and happy and definitely safe as there are police and military people every where. Fortunately I think that this is going to be a very relaxing and uneventful trip. I am traveling with two vvery attractive girls and people are always checking them out and then leave them alone when the see me. I am pretty intimidating