Punto de encuentro (Point of encounter)

Besides being our favorite country so far - the people, the landscapes, the ease of getting around on and high quality of the public transportation (no dilapidated former school buses at 300% max capacity passing other buses on blind curves, etc.) - Colombia was also a fun part of the trip because we met, and met up with, new and old friends.

The ultimate frisbee team Tim played with at the beginning of December was a really great, friendly group of people, and the Colombians he played against were warm and welcoming. Tim traded frisbee jerseys with a Colombian player who later invited him to play with them in a tournament elsewhere in Colombia in January (we didn't end up going).

In Medellin we grabbed coffee with an English gal named Liz that we met during our first few days in Guatemala at Earth Lodge. She is living in Medellín as she prepares to buy land nearby to open her own hostel.

Then we spent two weeks with my mom and the Colombian fam in Bogotá. Two days after my mom flew out, we took a bike tour of the city and ran into our friend Hannah totally unexpectedly on the street. She was with some Australian guys she has been traveling around with, and we got to see the "muy bien" (very good) tattoos they got on their right butt cheeks in person. Australians love to party.

In Santa Marta our hostel roommate was an Englishman, Steve Martin, who had also volunteered at The Bubble in El Salvador a few weeks after we were there, so we got caught up on what Gloria and Mario have been up to.

Finally, my friend Jess from Bozeman flew to Cartagena to hang out with us for a week, and we had a super fun time, despite all of the semi-consensual back massages and crab meat consumption at the beach (the beach vendors have some very aggressive sales techniques. They even knew from poking my shoulder that I'm "very tired" from all of the not-being-gainfully-employed I've been doing). We also got to have dinner with Ross and Kirsa, buds from Bozeman, who were also in Cartagena at the hotel next door to ours... coincidentally!

We were sad to leave Colombia, but know that we will return someday. All of the planned and unplanned meet-ups there gave us an extra good feeling about the place, which was already awesome to begin with. We are now in Costa Rica with Tim's parents for 10 days. The meet-ups never stop!

Tim, Jenn and Jess in the mud volcano near Cartagena. The mud is very dense so human bodies are super buoyant! This mud pool is 23 meters deep and you don't need to tread. It is impossible to sink!

Jenn and Jess in Cartagena.

Bike tour along the walls of the old city. Cartagena is surrounded by walls to protect from pirates!

Steve Martin

Quitting your job to travel is not a very common thing to do in the US. But what we've found since being outside the US is that people from other countries do this all the time. Many foreign companies even allow their employees a leave of absence to pursue travel. We met a British guy back when we were in Honduras in October that was granted a 22 month sabbatical from his France-based engineering firm. At the airport last week we met a friendly Belgian traveller who told us that everyone in Belgium gets to take a cumulative year off over the course of their career (in addition to their already staggering amount of vacation time). This guy was taking his year off all at once to travel through South America. Just the other day while spending our first night in Santa Marta, Colombia, at a very budget hostel, we met a guy named Steve Martin... no, not the comedian/actor. Steve is a British guy that has been on almost the exact same trip as me and Jenn. He started in August in Guatemala and has been working his way south ever since using all the same travel tools: HelpX, WWOOFing, and Couchsurfing. He even worked at The Bubble (see post from October 14, 2016) in El Salvador about three weeks after we were there! Hardly anyone that we've met has spent time in El Salvador, let alone worked at The Bubble with Mario and Gloria. Having encounters like this with Steve and other people from different nationalities helps us realize how interconnected the world is and how fortunate we are to be having this experience... especially as Americans. (We've also learned that our US-centric use of the term 'American' to mean someone from the US is flawed because we're all Americans. There are dozens of countries in America, North and South. We're all Americans). 

We are approaching the halfway point of this adventure abroad and can't wait for the impending, unusual connections that will likely be made in the coming months! Maybe we'll even run into Steve Martin again. ¡Quién sabe! (Who knows!)

The most delicious fruit of Colombia. Dragon Fruit has a ton of crunchy little seeds that compliment the super juicy flavor.

Enjoying a sunset from the balcony of the apartment. Jenn's cousin Marta (who we stayed with in Bogotá) has a sister that owns this apartment in Santa Marta. She gave us the keys when we left Bogotá. Colombian hospitality is the finest!!!!!

Bogota - Family for the holidays

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Tim and I are writing from sunny Santa Marta, where we're resting up after a whirlwind couple of weeks in Bogotá with my mom visiting our Colombian family. Tim had the ultimate immersion experience, as none of our relatives speak English (but a few speak some German, go figure).

My grandmother was born in 1913 in Lenguazaque, a small town about three hours from Bogotá in the mountains. She was one of the seven children of Michaela Poveda and Buenaventura Corredor. Her closest sister, Bernarda, whom she also resembled, had nine children, the cousins with whom my mom is closest and in the most contact. On this visit, we spent time with five of Bernarda's children, their children, and their children's children (some of whom have children, but we didn't get to meet any this time). Feel free to quiz Tim on all of their names.

Christmas Eve, or La Noche Buena, is the main event in Colombia and most of Latin America. We were told to arrive between 7 and 8pm, so this being Colombia, we got there at 9:30, and still not all of the guests had arrived. There was a countdown to midnight, similar to our NYE, then all ~30 guests hugged each one of the other guests and wished them a Merry Christmas. Afterward, a few of the grandchildren "sang" to and from whom each gift was, including gifts from Papá Noel, with everyone cheering and clapping as each gift was announced. Around 2am we dug into the main course, a roasted pig. Tim was served more since he was the tallest person present.

Tim and I were both in a weakened state when we arrived, me with a bad cold, and Tim with some other... traveling related issues. Not to worry though, as at each family visit I was told a couple of beers would clear the flu right up while being served a bottle of Poker (a local, cheap  brand) and half my body weight in chicken, rice and avocado. Since Colombia possesses 10% of the world's biodiversity, there were also elderberry bushes growing in my cousin's apartment complex, right on the middle of the concrete jungle that is Bogotá. I used the berries to make a tincture from scratch, a more tried and true remedy in my opinion.

We also took a short trip to San Gil and Barichara, two colonial towns a couple of departments northeast of the capital. That region is known for its fried fat-bottomed ants, a local delicacy. They taste a bit like cracklings.

On the day my mom left, two cousins accompanied us to the airport and sat and visited with us for a couple of hours until it was time for her to check her bag and go through security. In the past, up to five or six relatives have come to hang out at the airport with us. Tim was baffled anyone would take an hour and a half-long bus ride to hang out in an airport with a departing relative for two hours when they could be doing something else, so it was an interesting cultural experience that differs pretty wildly from our more individualistic customs in the US.

We capped off the Bogotá leg of the journey with a bicycle tour through the city on Sunday during Ciclovía, a weekly event that has been going on since the 70s. Several major thoroughfares are shut down to vehicle traffic so people can walk, bike and rollerblade for miles through the city. We ran into our friend Hannah, an Aussie whom we lived with for two weeks at our homestay in Antigua, Guatemala back in September. We've also managed to meet up with Hannah in Honduras and just missed her in Nicaragua, so it was a crazy coincidence to encounter her on the streets of crowded Bogotá on our bike tour.

In one week my friend Jess from Montana comes to visit us in Cartagena, so we'll have more to report at the end of January. Besos y abrazos!

Our arrival to Martas apartment. She hosted us in her home for 2 weeks!

Christmas Eve with Hector (and many others)

Christmas ham

There was salsa dancing until 4am on Christmas morning!

Visting cousin Bernardo and his family

Delicious dinner at Hectors apartment

Visiting cousin Silvestre

We took at three night trip to a neighboring department, Santander. Only a 6 hour drive through the Andes Mountains. This was a hike on an old trail from the village for Barichara to Guane.

The sunset view in Barichara.

Barichara is known for its hormigas culonas (fat-bottomed ants). Yum! (not really)

Visiting cousin Lucrecia at the farm in Lenguazaque, 3 hour drive from Bogota.

City lights of Bogota from Monserrate.

Bogota bike tour. Lots of awesome street art in the city.

Bogota street art