Less Than an Hour Outside of Bogota...

Now that our time in Colombia has a much-sooner-than-expected end date, Tim and I are trying to cram in as many trips to our wish list destinations in our final months as we can. Colombia, the so-called "Land of Contrasts" has so much variety to offer visitors, it's hard to choose where to start. Should it be Leticia, in our little corner of the Amazon? The "Zona Cafetera" and the heart of the coffee-producing country? Perhaps Medellin, a city of parks, colorful birds darting about, a proper Metro system (which we aren't allowed to use) and great museums. Maybe El Cucuy National Park, an easy 11-hour drive from Bogota (sarcasm noted?) which I've heard described as the secret Andean gem of South America. Or there's the tropical island paradises of San Andres and Providencia. 


Unfortunately, each of our wish list spots involves an airplane and an overnight stay. And our movements are restricted by topography and security concerns. The Andes surround us, making driving more than a few hours outside of Bogota difficult at best. In fact, due to the infrastructural-challenges, shall we say, I've been told that it costs less for a cargo shipment to come from China to the west coast of Colombia, than for that very same shipment to get from that port to Bogota. 


Lest we forget that this is still a danger post, as there was a terrorist attack just 10 minutes south of our apartment last week that took the lives of the driver and bodyguard of a former Minister while his armored vehicle was stopped at a red light. The blast left dozens injured in a bus that was stopped alongside the motorcade. It was the first attack of this type in central Bogota for quite a while and was a rude reminder that there is still a very active and dangerous insurgency in the fringe Departments that occasionally spills over into our Big Brick City. 


So... after my lengthy preamble, I will say that we chose to head to the mountains above Bogota, to the area around the lovely town of Guasca. Despite the light rain that set in as we headed up La Calera to the mountain plateau above Bogota, and the steady overcast and 63 degrees that accompanied us throughout the day - it was just perfect. With a free map given to us by a friendly tourist-agency woman at her roadside booth, we decided to head off the paved road to find a nature preserve, a little cafe for lunch and then a historic chapel in the middle of the hills before ending our tour in the town of Guasca. We'd visited there before and were enchanted by the quiet and welcoming feel of the hillside town. 


Let me now give props to our Ford Ranger for carrying us up the rutted, pot-holed, slippery clay Andean dirt roads. And let me apologize to my liver and kidneys... it was quite a rough ride that infrequently let us hit second gear. But traveling at 6 mph let us see just how lovely this country is. 


The nature preserve folks turned out to be busy taking a group through their property, so we only stopped long enough to learn this. Next we headed across the hills to look for the cafe noted on the map. After getting "red barn" directions from a farmer alongside the road, ("He said we should look for the waterfall and then curve right." "Waterfall? I thought he said we'd come to a crossroads and go straight!" "The map doesn't show this road coming to a T-intersection! Now where?" "Are you sure this isn't someone's driveway? I think this looks like a driveway!"), we finally found the entrance to Cafe Huerta.  Created by a so-called "eccentric gringo" from Texas 20+ years ago, the cafe, bar, restaurant and inn was an amazing find! It felt as if we'd just stepped into a 19th century Irish cottage, with low-timbered ceilings, a coal-burning fire, fresh roses at every table and small-paned windows offering views into the central courtyard garden. We knew it was a good sign when we pulled into the driveway to see a chef buying fresh leeks and other vegetables from the back of a farmer's truck. I was figuring that lunch would be a quick soup or sandwich, but instead we had what amounted to an anniversary-or-special-occasion full lunch. It started with a small skillet of warm cornbread and a shared bowl of garden salad with homemade buttermilk dressing. After that I moved to a fillet of beef wrapped in bacon and soaking in a cream and blue cheese sauce (please don't tell my coronary system...). Mmm hmmm... As we left, we noticed the framed excerpt from "333 Places To Visit In Colombia Before You Die." 

Preparing to be stuffed!

Cafe Huerta Grounds

Dining Room - Cafe Huerta

Inside the Capilla

Capilla de Siecha

With full bellies, we headed back to the roads to look for the Capilla de Siecha. We found it standing in a manicured pasture overlooking the valley just below. Seconds after pulling the truck into the adjacent field, the caretaker appeared to greet us and request the $1 admission fee (for both of us). He told us the chapel dated to the 1600s and walked us through the perfectly white-washed interior and upstairs to a little balcony. His sheep were responsible for the tidiness of the pasture, and were still grazing with their lambs on the grounds. Next to the chapel were the ruins of another building of the same vintage. He said (something) about them taking off the roof and letting the place fall to ruin, but I didn't fully understand what he was telling us. And you reach a point where asking someone to explain it again in other words just gets tiring for the poor narrator.

The friendly caretaker and guide

Resident among the ruins

Finally we turned up towards Guasca, encountering a young boy and a very broken bicycle on the road. We offered him a ride home and tossed his bike in the back of the truck. We drove him (Andres) into the town and dropped him off where we figured he'd either get a walloping for accepting a ride from strangers, or nobody would believe him that the gringos with the blue license plates picked him up in their weird American camioneta and drove him home. 

After that it was time to head back to Bogota...

Cartagena in Color

On Friday the Ambassador called all of us who worked on the Summit of the Americas into one of our large conference rooms to have a wrap-up thank you session. We piled into the room and found tables and buckets of "toasting" material: a few wine bottles, bottles of beer, juice and soda. It was just a few weeks ago that we were in this same room for our final Summit countdown meeting, where he gave us a pep talk about how well the preparations were going; how important our roles were to properly represent the Embassy to Washington, and the US to our Colombian hosts and, of course, to the rest of the Western Hemisphere. Everything was still exciting and stressful in equal parts.

But yesterday, with all the answers  already in our heads as memories of "how it all went," the group was naturally more lighthearted, more relieved, and probably feeling pretty proud. We assembled with our chosen drinks and the Ambassador began to speak, starting by complimenting us on the work we all did on the President, the Secretary, a handful of CODELs and other cabinet-level Secretaries' visits. This was his seventh Presidential visit during his career, and he noted that this one was by far the smoothest... even with the "scandal." Because the Summit was, despite evidence to the contrary in most of the press, much, much more than just the Secret Service's shenanigans. It was our President and 30-something others talking, for great uninterrupted lengths of time, about matters that concern this entire hemisphere. It was about the incredible potential of Latin America to the US. It was our President, doing more listening than talking, learning about what Latin America is growing into. It was about granting land titles to Afro-Colombians; about bi-laterals, about tri-laterals, about women's entrepreneurship, about electrical interconnection for the entire hemisphere, about business opportunities for all of us, a bit about drugs and yes, even about "what are we going to do about Cuba?"

It was really exciting, and yeah, the shivers of pride to be here in the midst of it all came over me more than once.  For as much as it's easy to complain about the stress level in the preparations, the unending demands, the long hours, the wee hours, the last-second changes and, yes, the "scandal" - when it's all over and we can reflect on what was accomplished - it's certainly all worth it.

Without further sentimental babbling - I'll now wrap-up the subject in pictures:

Putting out the welcome flags

Cartagena fruit lady and her beautiful dress

Typical buildings in the old walled city

Now THAT'S a flower arrangement!

Local guys playing checkers



The pastel colors and flowering balconies are enchanting

Clock tower at entrance to the walled city

Batallion of women police from all over Colombia in Storm Trooper gear - way cool!

Look - it's the President arriving!

Tough, yes - but a lady at the same time

Row of artisan shops

Shadow cat

Beautiful details everywhere

The Four Green Fields - St Patrick's Day Out of Bogota

First - Happy St. Patrick's Day to everyone out there!

 Today, in honor of St. Patrick's Day (and because it's the Saturday of a three-day weekend here), we headed out of the big brick sprawl and into the countryside to see some of Colombia's own green fields. On the drive out of Bogota, we listened to Irish traditional music and it got me thinking about the similarities between the two countries. Besides the obvious, the lush green landscape, I also thought of the histories of the two countries. The Irish speak of "The Troubles," and the Colombians of "La Violencia" - each a casual term for scars on their historical time lines. But today, as we rose out of the Sabana and over the mountain pass to the northwest of the city, past roadside grills, flower and fruit stands, cows in belly-high grass and small flocks of hens pecking in farmyards, the only thing "violent" that I could see was the way the Andean peaks burst from the valley floor in utterly vertical faces. The highway wound along curving cliff sides, and occasionally a portion of the road would be barricaded off after giving way to gravity and dropping off the side of the mountain. As we crested the pass and began descending towards the town of La Vega, the climate changed instantly. The green became more tropical and even over the music and the road noise, we could hear birdsong and could feel the humidity and warmth setting in. We dropped over 3000 feet in altitude and into the La Vega valley.

Once in the town, lined with stores selling inflatable pool toys and tourist hotels advertising swimming pools, we followed faded signs towards La Laguna El Tabacal. We'd read that it was a great spot for birdwatching and seeing all sorts of tropical flowers lakeside. The drive up to the laguna was only 7 kms, but the road hair pinned along the walls of the same mountain faces that we'd seen from the top of the pass. In one spot, an entire lane had given way and the other lane (the one we were on), was on its way to being undercut and washed away as well. The sign next to the gaping hole warned drivers  simply of, "Hundimiento" (dip, or sinking).  So  you can imagine what I was imagining when I rounded another corner and saw a sign that actually read "Peligro" (danger).  The road alternated between pavement and gravel many times, rising and dropping as it conformed to the unstable landscape, in places it appeared a pure miracle it still existed at all.

But the views were amazing!

We finally arrived at a pic-nic area with parking in a field for the laguna visitors. There were two mom-and-pop parillas (grills) offering the ubiquitous roasted chickens with criollo (baby) potatoes and sausages, plus a small camping area with somewhat soggy young campers cooking over their campfires. We ate our pic-nic lunch and bought the entry tickets and a little bag of fish food and headed up a stone-lined path for the lake. Immediately we could see brilliant yellow, red and blue birds flashing through the tree tops, and could hear cricket-like songs of tropical insects of some sort.

The Laguna El Tabacal is just a small lake filled with tilapia who swarm the lake edges, obviously well-used to the little paper bags the visitors bring full of fish-food pellets. We picked our way along the sides as far as we could until we came across an impassable rock wall and had to turn back. A light sprinkling rain started, but the tropical canopy was dense enough to keep us dry. We walked past bamboo groves (In Colombia? Yeah - I know, that's what I thought, too) and hillsides covered in massive philodendrons. Only two hours outside of Bogota, and a 100% difference in environment.

It was only fitting to spend St. Patrick's Day among the green fields (and in keeping with the day's patron saint - we thankfully saw no snakes).  I'll let the pictures below do the rest of the storytelling.

View from the road

Stems of tropical flowers

Laguna El Tabacal

Flower salesman

Lovely family and their puppies

Yeah - no kidding!

A new friend we met along the lake

NOT a snake!

We're Finally Licensed!

First of all, I'd like to say welcome to any readers who've found us here from the careers.state.gov homepage. Hello!  They just added us to the official blogroll, which is kinda' cool. Guess I'd better proofread a bit more carefully from now on out.

So, after waiting for our truck to make its way from Seattle to Bogota (about three months) and then watching it sit on the Embassy lot for  another two months awaiting its dip plates-  we're finally legit and have our very own vehicle in our apartment parking garage. While Tim and I don't plan to use it much for regular commuting, we've been looking forward to taking some weekend trips, or even just day trips, to explore the area. Last Saturday we started by heading up into the mountains of La Calera, the eastern spine of Bogota. I've been looking at this vertical barrier for months now, watching the car lights on the one road as they wind their way up into...? I didn't know. I've had daydreams of what it must look like "up there," and finally got to see it firsthand.

We found beautifully green and rolling (sometimes very steep) countryside with farms, sleepy small towns, fancy developments with golf resorts, roadside grill restaurants (parillas), weekend homes for Bogotanos and historic towns complete with legends of gold-filled lakes (El Dorado in Guatavita).

Let me show you around a bit:

Nice local gentleman taking it easy in Guasca under the umbrella-trees

How many shades of green?

Roadside restaurant - vegetarians beware, it's a carn-fest here!

"Protect him - It could be your son!" to remind us not to run the cyclists off the road.

Uhhhh... what? Any ideas?

Approaching Guasca

So it feels great to have the liberty of a vehicle again. We even went grocery shopping and it didn't involve a taxi or a heavily-laden 20 minute walk with the grocery bags and their tourniquet effect on my fingers. Seeing new horizons has a rejuvinating effect, too, reminding me of what a beautiful country this is instead of just the big ole' brick city that I see everyday through the windows of the armored van. We even had the truck windows open for fresh air! And were able to play music we loved as we drove!

Ah, the forgotten pleasures.

Although we visited the plaza of central Guatavita, quite a tourist attraction, we didn't hear the whole legend nor hike up to the gold-filled lake. That'll be for another weekend adventure.

In the meanwhile, it feels so nice to be normal again.

Estamos acostumbrado a...

We are accustomed to...

For better or worse, we are now used to the following:

• Looking both ways before crossing a one-way street
• Hedges of blooming star jasmine that stop me in my tracks with their amazing fragrance
• The best home-made lemonade ever, with mint or coconut or just plain (it's green - there isn't an actual lemon in the country)
• Pulling out my cedula (national ID card) for the simplest, even cash, transactions
• Massive thunder storms and gulley-washing rains
• El trancon! The traffic!
• No warmer than 67; no colder than 50
• The flowers and plants that were blooming in July are still blooming in December
• Thinking about what time of day it is before greeting someone (buenos dias, buenas tardes, or buenas noches)
• Heavily armed soldiers on the street corners, under every overpass and in front of any building with a gov't official living inside
• Scented everything (for example: vanilla-scented trash bags, cinnamon-scented floor cleaner, pine-scented toilet tank tablets)
• Seeing street performers stacked three high juggling fire batons in front of the line of cars at the red lights
• The nicest malls with the best food courts I've ever seen
• Beautiful leather goods, especially shoes, boots and handbags
• Military funerals in process each time we walk by the chapel at the batallion near our apartment and realizing that these young men are still losing their lives fighting guerillas/FARC/narcotraffickers every day 
• No bugs
• Appreciating the breaks of sunshine all the more when they come
• Getting second looks in stores and on the street for being a gringa; having store owners call out the teenager who speaks English from the storeroom when they see us walk in
• Chit-chatting with the friendly porteros (doormen) and doing our best to understand what the heck they're saying
• Realizing that we're on a different continent
• Christmas starts before Halloween
• Buying OJ, milk, sour cream, mayonnaise and ketchup in a bag
• Delicious fruits we'd never before heard of or seen
• No national (functional) postal system!
• In general, people wanting to try to speak English with us, as they can
• Every radio station playing latin music (really?)
• Sun rising and setting at the same time all year

Looking forward to adding to the list!

Toby Shows Off

Subtitle: I think my cat has been reading my new wall map

Identification:
Me - me
Toby - Housecat with too much time on his paws

So, I heard you tell one of your friends that you still don't believe my full understanding of what's going on, and you think I'm just sitting on the bed all day. But you're wrong. I do listen, and when you're away at that place you go everyday, I've been busy. Ease off with that scooper for a sec and just LOOK at what I've done for you:



Wow! That's pretty accurate Tobe. I apologize for underestimating not only your English comprehension, but your map-reading skills and - quite frankly - your aim. Let's just compare and see what our readers have to say:

 Just tell them to please notice that I've rather specifically "pointed out" Bogota, too.

Well you sure did, but you did so by peeing on our future home, Tobe. I don't think that's very good manners to our hosts.

They will recognize and appreciate fine art when they see it.

I'm tired of trying to please you; I'm going back to bed.