Springtime and Reminiscing

Hi all my faithful followers who probably haven't been following because I haven't been posting! Now that spring is here, I am constantly pulled back to where I was last spring... what I was doing, who I was talking with, what I was looking forward to. Though this spring is very different from last spring I feel like still have a lot to look forward to.

Enough about sappy life stuff, most of you are following me because you want to know about my travels. I have been reunited with my best friend growing up, Brittany, and we have decided to make a post-graduation trek this June. That's right, June... which is next month! We had originally hoped to do something extreme, like visit Dominican Republic (which would be amazing of course) or Belize (also somewhere I realllly want to visit), but we are probably going to settle for a style of travel I have never been super keen on-- a cruise. This cruise will be in the Caribbean, departing from Miami and visiting Key West and Cozumel, Mexico. It's not absolutely ideal, but for what we're paying we're getting a lot.

I am planning on doing more traveling this year, though the locations are still yet to be determined.

I'll keep you posted with my graduation information soon so you can all be up-to-date on my life and when travels will fall into place.

But in the mood of reminiscing, I have to include some inspiring photos from my travels last summer for you all to enjoy:

Angie, Sebastian, and me in Bogotá at night

The beautiful hills of Briceño, Colombia

Rooftop view of Salamanca, Spain from the old Cathedral

Beautiful and bright architecture on a building exterior in Madrid, Spain

...catch me later :)

Catedral de Sal

Oh hey there. It's been a while, I know. I've been far from the internet for quite some time, but found some time to sneak in a little post to remind you all that I returned from Colombia almost 4 weeks ago now! Time flies sometimes!

Down to business, this post is about my visit to the Salt Cathedral in Zipaquirá, a town just about 30 minutes north of Bogotá. I went with Zayrho, his mother Adriana, and one of her friends. It was the first time being there for all of them, even though Briceño is just a 15 minute drive away! First of all, "What the heck is a salt cathedral??" is probably on your mind. This is a place that is unique to the entire world-- on of a kind. I watched a video that explained all about it while I was there, but basically, this underground giant pocket of salt was created by the movement of the earth due to tectonic plates, after the ocean had receded from the area (hence the huge amount of salt). When miners looking for emeralds (las esmeraldas in Spanish) and gold in the area, they discovered that all of the earth in the area was made of salt. They began to excavate through the salt, creating tunnels, rooms, and passages. Eventually, someone decided to build what is basically a cathedral with an altar and everything underground in this place. The coolest thing is that everywhere you look around you there-- up, down, to your left or your right-- it's carved and chiseled salt. There was a little bit of marble every once in a while, of course which was brought in later, but basically everything else was salt. Here is what the walls looked like around the tunnel where there was a lot of moisture and water running:

Another thing that was super cool about this place was the story that was told as you walked through the passages, on your way to the altar. The story of Jesus' passion was told in 15 stages along the way. Each station had a cross of some sort, either carved out of or made out of salt, that were supposed to visually represent that point of Jesus' passion. This was my favorite of the representations:

There was also this very famous reflecting pool a little passed the altar way down underground. It's almost hard to tell if this is a mirror, water, or glass that shows something down below! The cool part is that it's only a couple centimeters of water that allow this effect to occur. So cool!

Now for the altar (really hard to get a good picture of because of the lighting in there!). By the way, they actually hold church services in here every Sunday and perform wedding ceremonies here from time to time:

And in front of the altar is this beautiful marble carved replica of Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam... kinda reminded me of our trip to Rome!! :)

I'll see what else I can scrounge together about my trip to Colombia to share with you. Keep posted and cross your fingers that I can keep my motivation up! hahaha I also have a life update that could be worth putting on here for those of you interested in my travels. More details to come. Until then....

Catch me later :)

Welcome To The Jungle

The title gives a small hint of what I'm going to tell you all about... Villa de Leyva, a beautiful town a few hours North of Bogotá, was the destination for me and the De San Vicente family a week and a half ago. This place is amazing! After a long and windy road, the car kicking up some dust, we arrived at our hotel, called Hotel Getsemaní. Here's a before picture, when we stopped for lunch along the way (and you can see the wonderful family I got to live with for 2 weeks... From left to right: Zayrho, Me, Mauricio, Lirkhanna, Zharim):

And here is a sneak peak at Hotel Getsemaní:

So back to that title... if you want to see what the jungle in central Colombia looks like, here you go!

So what fun adventures did we have in Villa de Leyva? Well let me tell you. We started off by taking a walk around, looking for the eco-travel agency that offered tours through the nearby jungle. We found an... odd... fellow who gave us the schpeal about the tours and about what to expect, though I couldn't really follow everything that was going. We decided that we would disembark the next morning at 10am for... well, I wasn't sure yet. I knew we were going to some waterfalls and that was just about all. We continued on our walk, had dinner, and visited the plaza, which is actually the largest plaza in Colombia. Here is us there:

After dinner, Zayrho and I headed out for some wine at a Spanish themed restaurant/bar and became all nostalgic about Spain, then headed back to Gestemaní fairly early for a good night's sleep. I had no clue what the next day would hold.

We had breakfast around 9 the next morning then headed back to the eco-tour agency to head out. We met our tour guide and followed him and his comrades into the jungle, about a 20 minute drive outside of Villa de Leyva. When we arrived, we immediately saw our initial adventure... zipline down to where the river and waterfalls were. Each of us took turns flying down from the hill we were on, meeting down at the bottom. What a blast!! Once we all arrived at the bottom, our guide led us to our next adventure... repelling down a beautiful waterfall! Once again, we each took our turns down and then hiked back up. Here is Mauricio on his way down:

After we all had our turn down the waterfall, we continued on to our third adventure... a hike through the jungle, along the river to visit three more beautiful waterfalls. Here's the whole family together (Adriana, Lirkhanna, Mauricio, Zharim, Me, Zayrho) at waterfall number 2:

We continued on to waterfall three, then headed back to the hotel for a quick shower and dinner (which was absolutely delicious in another restaurant in Villa de Leyva). We were there just for the weekend, but it was a great bonding experience and an extreme adventure for all of us.

Catch me later :)

Exploring Bogotá

I definitely have yet to see even the smallest percentage of this huge city, Bogotá... with 12 million people, this city has about 20x as many people as Seattle! It's the capital of Colombia and it's clear by the size and amount of people everywhere. I've had the chance to explore some of the city, walking around in the streets, eating in various restaurants, visiting museums, listening to music here and there, getting my groove on, and more. I wanted to give you a brief tour of what I've seen with a few photos and descriptions.

This photo is of a reservoir outside of a restaurant that we had lunch at. It's actually outside of Bogotá about one hour (North), which we came across on our way to Villa de Levya (a post to come about that beautiful place soon!). The restaurant sat on this reservoir, where they caught the trout, trucha en Español, that we enjoyed for lunch. There was also a farm with animals such as chickens, roosters, and a llama, which surely supplied some of the food that we enjoyed during that meal:

For those of you who read my last post, Salsa at Galería Café Libro, you'll recognize this vaguely. Zayrho and I had a great Salsa night here last week, dancing, drinking mojitos, and taking in the true Colombia Salsa style. It's on Calle 93 in Bogotá, a place that's fun and super nice and clean for Bogotá:

On a day excursion in the city with Carol and Hugo (a wonderful, fun, and sweet couple close to the De San Vicente family), Zayrho and I enjoyed some beer and coca-cola at this intimate little bar, Merlin, where we enjoyed some live music by candle and firelight. It was a beautiful little place with everything made of wood and fun knick-knacks:

On the same day excursion, we toured Bolívar Square that is said to represent the four powers of Colombia, one on each side: The Palace of Justice (Supreme Court), The National Capitol (Colombian Congress), Vase House (Independence Museum), and pictured here, the Primate Cathedral/Holy Chapel. Why Bolívar Square? Simón Bolívar was a huge political independence leader of the early 19th century in South America. Bolívar led Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Panama, Ecuador, and Peru to independence and is honored in all of those countries. You go, Simón!

What else to see in Bogotá? The world famous Museo del Oro (Gold Museum). The history at the Gold Museum is incredible! I learned about the many indigenous tribes of Colombia (before Spanish conquest) and the stories of the tribes being invaded by the Spaniards. My favorite story is one that you might be familiar with: The Lost City of Gold. El Dorado, anyone? As the story goes, El Dorado, the chief of the Muisca tribe, covered himself with gold dust and rowed out to the middle of Lake Guatavita (in Colombia) to sacrifice a ton of emeralds and gold to the indian goddess Guatavita, as was typical for each new chief of the tribe. The story evolved as the Spanish and other Europeans became more greedy to find the gold, turning into a whole city made of gold under the deep lake. They even attempted to drain Lake Guatavita to find the treasure. Though many pieces of gold jewelry and more were found at the bottom of the lake, the Lost City of Gold was never found. Here is a nice little piece that the museum held (oh, and D.C. is the equivalent of A.D. or C.E. in English):

After a long day exploring the Gold Museum and walking around, we stopped for Chocolate (which is hot chocolate to you and me) and a few deserts. I found that even though I love most all Colombia food I've tried, I'm a little bit more picky about the desserts. They are almost always super sweet and too much for me to handle:

Remember my night of the Aguardiente that I mentioned in my second blog about Colombia? Well, this is that night. Here is me with Zayrho and Sebastián at a little blue bar in Bogotá, enjoyed a group playing live music (just a little group, playing at the table next to us and singing), lots of dancing, and drinking of that little bottle, the orange one on the table behind Sebastián, that led to my incredible awful hangover the next day. At least that night was really fun!

Here is an outside shot of the Museo del Oro (I think I described enough above):

This is the view from top of the hill in the De San Vicente's neighborhood. It's so beautiful! Situated on a golf course, which you can see down at the bottom with the little houses, this neighborhood in Briceño is surrounded by beautiful hills. Did I mention that the elevation of this city is around 5,000 ft? Well, that made for a heavy-breathing walk to the top of this hill... whew!!

More to come of this beautiful and inspiring city...

...catch me later! :)

Salsa at Galería Café Libro

Learning and dancing Salsa (and other Latin styles) was one thing in Salamanca... here it's the real thing! Well, at least Colombian style. Last week, Zayrho and I headed to Bogotá for a concert of the Salsa band La Conmoción. Amazing!!!! There was a cover to get into the Salsa club called Galería Café Libro, but it was well worth the 15,000 Colombian pesos each (which is only about $6 in the US).

We enjoyed some appetizers, mojitos (yummmmm... remember that Salsa comes from Cuba, and so do Mojitos!!), live music by La Conmoción, and lots of dancing. Here are a few pictures and a little video treat for you, so maybe you can feel like you were actually there:

And finally, what you've all been waiting for... the video! Galería Café Libro presents, on September 22, 2010... La Conmoción

Soooo much more to come, now that I have time since I've finished all of my Spain summer quarter homework and have plenty of time for blogging! :) ...and I have a lot to show about beautiful Colombia!

A special shout out to my Dad on his birthday! Happy birthday, Dad!!

...catch me later :)

First 5 Days in Colombia

I gave you all the DL on my first day or so in Colombia, but much has happened since. I know I promised pictures soon but I have had a problem with uploads... I'll get it figured out soon, hopefully tomorrow!

So of all of my "goals" for this trip, the ones I think I have achieved so far are trying tons of authentic Colombian food (which is super easy because La Gordita makes me three meals a day that are all super authentic and sooo delicious), and achieving one of my worst hangovers ever from a Colombian liquor called Aguardiente. Whew! Not only did I not like the taste (I just drank it to go along with "Bienvenido a Colombia" thing... tasted like black licorice.. bleh!), I hated the effects the next day. Unfortunately I drank it the day before I spent the day walking around Bogotá, taking a 30 minute bus ride to downtown, and visiting the Museo del Oro (Gold Museum). I was able to recover by the evening with lots of café, postres, y sandwiches.

I've met some pretty amazing people here so far and all of them are so welcoming to me. I kind of feel like I'm cheating because most people my age speak some English, and to make me feel comfortable they speak in English to me and Spanish to each other. I think I have to buck up and tell them to only speak to me in Spanish. It's nice that they want me to feel welcome though.

I've also noticed that there is a lot of US culture here, especially in Bogotá. The music, tv shows, stores, movies, and other things like that are often also from the US. Also, I find myself calling myself "American" which is normal for us to say, right? Well, here it's pretty much rude to say that because everyone from North or South America is an American. So I am from the US, or a "Gringa"... which makes most people laugh when I say.

Tonight we're headed back into Bogotá for a night of Salsa. It should be very fun! I'll try to get those pictures uploaded soon and will have more stories to come. I love Colombia! :)

Catch me later :)

Bienvenido a Colombia

After 12 hours of traveling, I finally landed in Bogotá around 8:30pm local time (2 hours ahead of Seattle, 7 hours behind Spain). I was hit hard with the Spanish of the people working in customs, asking me if I was carrying more than $10,000 worth of cash or products, what business I have in Colombia, and a few more things. I finally made it through and was greeted with a huge smile from Zayrho on the other side of this guard rail. His house is pretty far from the airport, just north of Bogotá off of the North Highway. The town he lives in is actually called Briceño, but it's about 16km away from the North part of Bogotá. I was so nervous as we pulled up to his house, knowing I was about to meet this family that I will be living with for the next two weeks. Other than the initial shyness (which is typical for me) I was able to whip enough Spanish out to chat a bit with Zayrho's mother, cousins, brother, sister, and nanny (oh, and the nanny here is kind of like live-in maid, but Fran has lived in the De San Vicente home for close to 25 years and is part of the family). It didn't take long until there was some tequila on the table, which we cheersed many times to my arrival with, followed by the most delicious shots I'd ever had, called Sangrita. It's kind of like a bloody mary but is different, though I honestly couldn't tell you how, exactly. Shortly thereafter we found ourselves eager to move around... we left the kitchen and moved to the living room and turned on some excellent Salsa music.

Now, this whole time I'm thinking this has to be typical of the De San Vicente family... grabbing the bongos and cowbell and playing along with the Salsa, dancing all over the hardwood floors, drinking tequila and sangrita, laughing so much that we achieved an abdominal workout for the day, all until 2am... but later came to learn that all of this was very rare and it was a special moment for welcoming me into the house. I had so much fun! Dancing with Zayrho once again (which felt like we were never apart for one month, it was so natural), Dancing with his 13 year old brother, Zharim, and cousin Andy. Well, we had an amazing time, finally heading to be between 2 and 3am.

This morning was also great. The breakfast that Fran (the nanny, the kids call her Gordita... Little Fatty, a term of endearment here.. haha) made me was so delicious... homemade bread, fried eggs, a latte (or café con leche for those who are so inclined), and fresh made orange juice. After breakfast I went on tour of the neighborhood where the family lives, a beautiful housing development that is unlike anything I have ever seen in the US. The houses are on a golf course that sits in a valley between all of these hills and mountains. We went on a driving/walking tour to the tops of the hills all around. It is amazingly beautiful! The weather is very similar to Seattle, though, which is nice for a country that is near the equator (but Bogotá is at an elevation of around 5000 feet... whew, talking about losing your breath while walking up those hills!). Later we went to a nearby town called Sopo to buy traditional Colombian deserts and eat them in a plaza. We went for coffee afterward (and yes, Colombian coffee is as amazing as I had built it up to be... sorry Spain, Portugal, and Italy.. Colombia wins!) and then headed home to relax a bit.

Now this is probably the most detailed post you're going to get while I'm here, so eat it up! I'll post again soon with more fun things I've done, seen, and learned (and pics included next time... promise!).

Catch me later :)