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It´s exciting to be in a new country!! And even better to pick up your Mom at the airport and explore a little of it with her...We met up in Quito and were off to a town a few hours south called Baños. Baños is located at the base of an active volcano, and it is a beautiful setting for riding bikes around and checking out the beautiful scenery. I lost count of how many gorgeous waterfalls we saw on our bike ride ...We cafe hopped and shopped, and chatted about everything. From Baños we hopped back up to Quito and met up with A. We explored the Old City of Quito and then went the the Equator!! There is a museum and monument there with an actual painted line on the ground to tell you your latitude and longitude. We couldn´t resist taking some corny pictures straddling the line between the hemispheres...
Since we were cramming a lot in in one week, we then went north a few hours to a town called Otavalo, which is where I am now. There is a really great market there on Saturdays, and we had just enough time to check it out. What a great market!! So many beautiful crafts- sweaters, blankets, purses, hats, jewelry...Oh, my! The products were hand-made in this region, and often you could see people at their stand knitting more wool hats or scarves. We could not get over how beautiful the fabrics were, and how cheap everything was...It was a bit painful to not be able to purchase gorgeous blankets, tableclothes, and other things for decorating my home-since I don´t even have one! I did manage to find myself some a few little things, most of which I sent home with my mom. It would almost be worth it for someone to buy a plane ticket and come to the Saturday market at Otavalo just to outfit your home and fly back with a new bag of goodies.
It was so fun to have my mom here, to catch up and to just spend time with her. I like that she gets to see that I´m doing well and am happy being on the road, but having someone from home with you is just so nice and comforting at the same time. It was so fun to have my mom fall in love with the non-U.S. things that I have become so accustomed to, like the people that get on the bus at random places and sell food and drinks. This has been happening in most of Central America and here in South America too, and I think it´s a great idea. Just picture, you left early in the morning and are on a long bus ride. Three hours into the trip you start to get hungry but are not even close to your destination...No need to worry, someone will get on selling chips, ice cream, peanuts, banana bread- you can always find something to get you through the trip! Why can´t we do this in the U.S.?! Well, I know why-but I think we should rethink that policy.
My mom is always up for anything, and we had a blast! I was so happy she came for a visit. So, if anyone else is interested, come on down- I´ll find some great things for us to see!
Right now I am in a town called Ipiales, close to the Ecuadorian border. I plan on moving into Ecuador tomorrow, but had to stop here to see the beautiful Las Lajas Sanctuary. It was built in a gorge, spanning a river, which makes the whole setting quite beautiful. I spent a nice couple of hours wandering around it and admiring the scenery. Apparently many people come here to make religious pilgrimmages and there are many testaments to the miracles that have occurred here. Placques line the walls surrounding the cathedral with people giving thanks for their miracles. Even not considering myself not very religious, I still found this very moving...
Oddly, there were a ton of military at the cathedral, but not in an official way. They all raced down the stairs and lined up in front of the church. I could not figure out what they were doing until I saw them all file into the church-I guess when you are in the Colombian military they make you attend church too! I spent a little time talking with a very nice Colombian family and another Colombian girl that was learning English. Colombian people are so friendly and curious, so it is always fun to talk to them. Even with my not-that-great Spanish we still managed to have a nice conversation.
I have spent the last week travelling on my own here in Colombia, and it has been very fun and interesting. Tomorrow I will head to Ecuador, where my mom is coming for a visit and I cannot wait! I have had the best time in Colombia and am looking forward to Ecuador!
Especially when we get to do crazy things like bungee jumping, paragliding, and rafting...For unbelievably cheap prices! We went to San Gil, an up-and-coming mini adventure town that offers all this great stuff...We went bungee jumping for $12.50! I was scared out of my mind to bungee jump, but I watched Adrian go first, so that made it easier. I saw that the equipment worked fine and he was still in one piece, and then I was ready to go. I just forced myself to jump off that bridge-and screamed the whole way down! My heart didn't stop beating like crazy until about 15 minutes after I was back safely on the bridge. Bungee jumping was so scary to me that any other "extreme sport" seemed tame-like the paragliding. Paragliding was so fun, and not scary at all. You are standing on the ground with the guy, strapped in, and then all of a sudden you are flying like a bird. It was pretty tranquil up there taking in the beautiful scenery. It got exciting when the guy would drop the paraglider into a spin-it was just like a roller coaster! I got to check two things off my life's to-do list. Not bad.Right now we are in Bogota-and damn-it's cold!!! It's 8661 ft. above sea level, so it is not hot up here. Quite a shock to our systems that have been lounging in hot temps for the past 8 months. We actually have to go out and buy a few articles of warm clothes. So far I only bought a hat, but I need to get a warm sweatshirt and some more pants...We will be going to a lot of high elevation places from now on South through Ecuador and Peru. Bogota seems like a pretty cool city, there is a ton of museums and parks and cool things cities have to offer. Today we went to the Botero Museum, named after probably the most famous Colombian painter (Fernando Botero Angulo). He's got a bit of a strange style, but I think the paintings are kind of amusing. They call them "Fat People". What do you think?
