Dressing the Part

When in Silvia.... dress the part. About 1.5 hrs away from Popayan is Silvia, a small town that is most well-known for the local Tuesday indigenous market of the Guambianos who wear their traditional handwoven blue dress while spinning wool. The market is not touristy, but the tourists come for the photo opportunities as I clearly did.


When I arrived, the town had police crawling through the city checking IDs, patting down guys for guns, inspecting buses and just looking quite menancing until I spoke to them. They regularly patrol the towns and this just happpend to be the day they patrolled Silvia. They explained that their presence ensured safety and gave people a sense of security. True, I felt secure with an entire town full of machine gun and grenade toting police men. Although I wanted to see the grenades in their pockets, I decided against asking since they looked quite busy, but they did graciously pose for pics with me.

In the afternoon, I joined a Chiva bus tour of the Guambiano region. Children came out to greet us and even sang to us at the urging of our tour guide. My favorite photos are always of children who usually look quite inquisitive.

Case of the Missing Toilet Seat

Toilet seats are MIA in Southern Colombia. In restaurants, hotels and public bathrooms, toilet seats are a rarity. I have my conspiracy theories and I wonder if the FARC is somehow responsible for the kidnappings. Or maybe the added step of adding a toilet seat is just too much trouble for people and the rim of the toilet works just fine as a seat. Normally, I never actually sit on a toilet seat in a public restroom and have perfected the squatting technique that is necessary for survival, but to not have a toilet seat to sit on in your own hotel seems rather odd. I worry that small children might fall in and drown. Well, whatever the reason for the missing toilet seats, the locals don't seem mind or maybe they just don't know what they are missing.

The toilet in this pic is from a theatre house I visited and is not exactly the cleanest, but those in the hotels are really clean but just missing the seat. By the way, in Latin America, you have to put toilet paper in the trash and not in the toilet or it clogs it up. Yes, it is gross, and I just try not to look in the trash. Overall, my level of tolerance for many things has increased greatly.

Hot, Hot, Hot

Everything about Cali, Colombia is hot; the sun scorches, the dance floor sizzles and the women are on fire. The rumors are true. The women in Cali may just be the most beautiful and the salsa dancing is an obsession as is the plastic surgery. Despite lacking the obvious, a pair of heels, just one left foot, and a dress that barely covers my ass, I hit the salsa clubs anyway.

The first club, Tin Tin Deo was packed with salsa experts. I felt a little out of place since I arrived alone and everyone else had come with a partner. But after befriending a local woman who salsa'd with me on the dance floor to show me the basics again, guy after guy asked me to dance. They could see that I obviously sucked at salsa, but yet they still asked me to dance. They twirled me in every which direction and back again. I believe that you can be the worst dancer out there, but if you are with a guy who really knows how to salsa, then it doesn't matter. After awhile, I finally ran into the couch surfing group I was suppose to meet, but I only had an hour left to dance with them. Unfortunately, the clubs in Cali city proper close at 2am. And so to truly dance the night away, you have to go about 20 min outside of Cali to the clubs that close at 6am. So that's what I did the next night.
The next night, I partnered with Julia from NY and Lady, that's really her name, from Colombia and we went clubbing in the Menga district to TiTiFeRu. Apparently, it's best to go to these clubs in a large group with an equal number of men and women because the women get jealous if their guys dance with other women. Despite this, we chose a ladies night out. TiTiFeRu is where the beautiful congregate although after awhile, they all kind of looked the same; tall, skinny, long straight hair, lots of cleavage, and perfect smiles. I think if I had come with guys, they would have spent the whole night gawking. Instead, Lady, Julia and I just danced the night away to the rhythms of Merengue, Regatone and Salsa.

On another night, I joined up with a local guy from Couch surfing and we went to watch a dance show. The dancers really wowed me with their flexibility, creativity and high energy. At one point, 2 guys bent this woman's back in the air til she almost folded in half and I literally thought they were going to break her. Seeing the cultural side of countries is my favorite part.


Before the dancing, I checked out the local bars and cafes. I especially like this bar full of kitsch stuff with each room decorated in its own artsy theme. And on another night, I dragged some tourists out to a bar with a 9 piece live salsa band.

Other than the night activities, the day activities are rather boring. There's not a lot going on in Cali by day. Their zoo is rather impressive and I especially liked these strange creatures that look like shrunken head idols. I never did find their nametag and so I'm still unsure what they are. The zoo even had a Bengal tiger whose paws are as big as my head.
When not visiting live animals, I visited the cat statues in the cat park. I petted a couple but none of them purred. I walked around the city, visited the museums and received a facial. I could have received a full body sculpture for less than $1000 with every piece of cellulite drained from my body, but figured the facial was good enough.

Popayan

With a multitude of white-washed colonial buildings, I immediately lost my sense of direction in Popayan and walked in circles until my sense of direction decided to rejoin me. Despite its cute and quaint nature, Popayan remains unaffected by the tourism that is growing in Colombia, although I did stay at the first hostel to open up here. Very few tourists come to Popayan and if they do, only as a stopover to get to San Augustin and Tierradentro. I expect this town to grow in tourism once the infrastructure is in place given the many day trips that can originate from here. I rather enjoyed the sleepy town feel and spent a couple days just relaxing from all the killer bus rides over the last week while catching up on my blog.

Ancient Burial Grounds and Cool Statues

If you can stomach a 7 hour bumpy bus ride that makes you want to pee the entire time while your kidneys rock to a beat all their own, you will be lucky enough to see underground tombs with colorful designs, ancient statues carved out of volcanic rock and the picturesque scenery of San Augustin and Tierradentro. Within these two towns lie the essential elements for a new Indiana Jones movie or just good sightseeing.

Since I wasn't sure if I would hit both towns given the poor road conditions, I chose to go to Tierradentro first, the less touristy of the two. Throughout the hills of Tierradentro lie tombs where people buried their dead. Not a lot is known about the people and tomb raiders stole many of the artifacts. Stone steps lead down into each tomb that occasionally has colorful artwork in shades of red and black while others are just plain, but cool nonetheless.


While sightseeing the tombs, I came across a group of 20 locals from Cali who are all studying tourism. When they saw me, they immediately started taking pics as though the roles somehow reversed and I became their tourist attraction. I guess they don't see many Japanese American tourists and everyone wanted their picture with me. They were all so friendly and they once again reminded me why I love Colombia so much, the people. They wanted to make sure that I had a good impression of Colombia so that I would tell others to visit their wonderful country. So, go visit Colombia. After I left them, I hiked for some 6 hours and visited every tomb in the area.
The next day, I took the 5:30am bus, switched a couple times and eventually made my way to San Augustin to check out the mysterious volcanic rock statues. Little is known about these statues that sometimes accompanied burial sites. I think that instead of annual pumpkin carving contests, these people host volcanic rock carving contest and then just leave them lying around year after year.

To view these statues, I walked through a cool jungle where each had its own display. The rest are scattered in the hillsides and so I rode a horse to visit the rest.

So Over Bus Travel...

When I evaluate how I've spent my time over the last year, I can honestly say that most of it has been spent on buses. I may have lost months of my life on public transport going from one place to the next because I was too cheap to buy flights.

On each bus, I usually encounter some sort of animal whether it be a chicken, bird, cat, dog or even a guinea pig. People crowd the rest of the space and I just try to blend into the scene. Since I'm usually the only foreigner on the bus, the locals take great delight in helping me get off at the right stop. Sometimes the entire bus cheers me off so I know I can't get lost.

What has become a typical travel day, I took an hour bus from Montanita, Ecuador to Puerto Lopez, then switched to an overnight bus to Quito and arrived at 4:45am. I took the 5:30 am bus to Tulcan that took 5.5 hours, switched to a taxi to get to the border, crossed the border, took another bus to Ipiales, switched to another bus to Popayan that took 8hrs. After 29hrs, I arrived at my final destination in Colombia. En route, I took a quick detour to visit the Santuario de Las Lajas near Ipiales. The church was built into the valley to memorialize the appearance of the Virgin there in the early 20th century.

A Little Bit of Paradise

Upon arriving on a Sunday afternoon in Taganga, a small fishing village, I immediately felt the urge to leave. Herds of locals crowded the small and dirty beach and music blared from the restaurants on the sand. What I thought might be a quiet ending to my trip proved the opposite. I hopped on a boat the next day and headed to inside Parque Tayrona located on the Northern coast of Colombia.

Parque Tayrona is filled with jungle, beautiful beaches and the ruins of the Tayrona Indians. When my boat hit land, I immediately claimed my hammock, my bed each night located on a small hill overlooking 2 inlet crescent beaches and chilled out. I spent the next couple of days floating around in the water since I really don't like to swim, watching the sunrise and set, reading by candlelight at night, listening to the waves crash below my hammock, and laughing under the full moon with Andries, a South African who oddly managed to see the same shapes in the clouds that I saw. A perfect bit of paradise without the city chaos. Unfortunately, I can only chill for so long and needed to get back to civilization after 2 days.

I returned the same way that I came, but the boat somehow transformed itself into the death boat that jumped across the turbulent ocean back to Taganga. I unwisely chose a front seat and found myself bouncing up and down and nearly off the motor boat. Overall, I survived the boat ride, but my back didn't. Despite my pain, my frugality steered me into buying a 20 hr bus ride instead of a 1.5 hr plane ride back to Bogota. Of course, I later regretted that decision. Thankfully, Victoria let me stay at her place when I returned to Bogota.


On the same night that I met German, the politician, in Cartagena at a bar, I also met a couple of wonderful people working for USAID, a US government agency that provides international development support around the world. I loved chatting with Victoria. Three years ago, at the age of 34, she left the US and decided to live in Colombia where her father was born. She gave up her life as a real estate agent in Manhattan and decided to start over because she was not happy. Now she is totally in love and married to a Colombian, about to start her own bar business and completely happy.

Interestingly, Victoria tells me that Colombians often ask people "estas contenta?" meaning are you content or happy whereas one of the first questions an American will ask is "what do you do for a living?" as though a job completely defines a person and their level of happiness. I think that most Americans would say "no" to the Colombian question because they are so busy trying to keep up with Jones. Being surrounded by poverty during most of my travels, I try to keep my perspective and am thankful that I am at least healthy. I, like many, have lost a ton in the stock market, but it is only money and we do have better opportunities in the US to keep ourselves above the national line of poverty than we would in many other countries. Although the state of the economy may determine when I must return to the US permanently.

After a nice evening of conversation, Victoria invited me and Lucy, the Brit, over for breakfast the next morning at her Dad's place overlooking the city. I loved the views from the top of the building! Victoria and I met up again in Bogota and spent an evening attending an opening of a new fashion store, salsa dancing at a nearby club and drinking up at Mark's, another USAIDer, gorgeous flat. Fun times indeed.

My time in Colombia has now come to an end, but at least I have met some extraordinary people, learned a little more about this phenomenal country and people, and created friendships I know will last. I am now back in LA for my 5 year MBA reunion.

Romancing the Stone

Cartagena is the jewel of Colombia for its cobblestone streets, old Spanish style homes painted in various colors and the massive wall that entrenches the beauty of the city. Cartagena often saw its city attacked by pirates and therefore the Spanish built forts and walls to protect their land. The beauty and timelessness of the city still stands and the city is now listed as a Unesco World Heritage Site.

I spent an entire day getting lost in the narrow streets while enjoying the romanticism the city exudes. At night, I even took a horse drawn carriage with Lucy, a Brit at my hostel. Although, often my enjoyment would be interrupted by a tout trying to sell me something. Cartagena is different from most Colombian cities in that tourism has flourished and the authenticity of the city has taken a toll. Hat, sunglass, CD sellers crowd the streets and bother tourists all day long. I'd close my eyes and imagine what the city must have been like before the touts took over and during the 16th century in its heyday. I then drift away in my imagination only to return to find I am being followed by a line of different sellers.

To escape the touts, I went to visit the Volcan de Lodo El Totumo where the crater is filled with mud that is suppose to provide health benefits for the skin due to the numerous minerals. I walked up a steep set of stairs to get to the top of the crater in order to jump into my waiting mud bath. Due to the consistency of the mud, I floated in the bath along with numerous others crammed into a jacuzzi sized crater. All my numerous mosquito bites stung from the mud and I am still waiting to see the health benefits in action.

The next day, I went out to what I thought would be a hole in the wall bar near my hostel in the poor area of town outside the city walls. Strangely enough, a beauty queen with title sash, the recent ex soccer coach for Colombia, and German Varga Lleras who might very well be Colombia's next President showed up at different points in the night. Of course, I had to meet German and he insisted on a cheek to cheek picture, which I happily obliged. ;-)

German is the grandson of a former Colombian president, popular with the people and is second to the President in the government as I am told.
Surprisingly, he didn't seem to have a bodyguard with him even though an assassination attempt was made on his life last year. People tell me that he is the only person to stand up to President Uribe who is known to take down his enemies. I always had a positive image of Uribe, but locals tell me that he is corrupt and hopes that German will run for President. German seemed very personable and during the night, locals often went up to him to tell them what they thought of the government and German easily engaged in conversation and made time for everyone. I can't imagine this same scene in the US.

saying goodbye

After volunteering for the last month with the daycare center, I finally had to say goodbye to the kids and just when I had learned almost all their names. 60 kids gave me big kisses and hugs on my last day. They even made me a cute thank you card with their thumb prints, while the teachers gave me a bracelet and earrings as my farewell present. I had a difficult time leaving them all since they have all meant so much to me. I have to admit though that I had my favorites like Orlando with his ever running nose, Kevin the bully who is also the most conscientious worker and loves to help clean up, Wendy with her quirky and constant smile, Sophia who is just a darling, Diego who has some social difficulties but is the sweetest child ever, Daniella the super star singer, and Juan who always gave me a kiss hello each morning. I miss them already. I also miss the teachers and cleaning staff who always kept the place so clean; they even washed the teddy bears and hung them to dry.

Sadly, I could not take any photos of the children at the orphanage due to privacy issues. However, I will remember each of them and I'm glad to know that a few of them are headed to happy homes shortly. I found teaching English a challenge, and at the same time so rewarding when I felt like I had made breakthroughs with the kids. Another guy is continuing the teaching and I hope the kids continue to learn. They all gave me hugs goodbye and didn't want me to leave. I so enjoyed learning from them.

I could not leave Medellin without saying goodbye to Virginia's family as well. I dropped by and dropped off some photos I took of the family. They are all so kind and hospitable and Virginia's grandmother spent some time giving me a Spanish lesson on the different words in Spanish for "great". Afterwards, I dropped by the hostel to say goodbye to Max as well as a couple others. Finally, I said goodbye to Luisa and thanked her for her hospitality with flowers. The night before, we went out to my new favorite hole in the wall salsa bar to celebrate my last day in Medellin. I crashed and burned on the dance floor again, but still had fun. I finally created a wonderful social group only to leave the next day.

If I had to chose a place to stay put for awhile, Medellin would be at the top of the list for the sincere and friendly people, great weather, excellent transportation, and fun nightlife. I must move forward though and so now I am in the North on the coast.

Coffee Farms

I'm still way behind on my blog and may just leave out a lot that has gone on in my life or write the clift notes version later. A couple weeks ago, Max, an Italian guy at the hostel, and I went to Salento in Zona Cafetera, the coffee lands. We took an 8 hour bus ride down south. I never realized just how lush and beautiful the landscape is here until that moment. We passed through so much greenery, rivers, and hills and I became dizzy from all the criss crossing through the mountains.

When we finally reached Salento, I immediately took a great cup of coffee at my hostel. The next day, we met up with some other tourists and hiked on through Valle de Cocora, a valley full of wax palm trees. The whole region seems so peaceful and serene and the perfect place to retire. We spent hours hiking and enjoying the beauty of the land while interrupting the beauty often with our discusion of American politics and the upcoming presidential election and our solid fear of Sarah Palin... but I digress.

In the evenings, we checked out the local night life. We played a game in which we had to throw weighted metal balls into a box of mud and hit one of the triangles with gun powder sitting on top of a metal ring. If I hit the triangle right on, it would blow up. I found the game to be loud, obviously. We then hit a local pool bar and stayed there for the rest of the night. We split up into teams of America vs Rest of World in which I, and another American teamed up against an Israeli and a Brit. The other pairs also played America vs Rest of World, of 2 Americans vs an Italian and a brit. America won 2 out of 3!

The next day, we hiked for a couple hours to Emille's coffee farm. I thought I met Juan Valdez himself when a little gray haired man appeared out of the bushes and greeted us so warmly. He then spent the next hour explaining all the intricacies of working a coffee farm. I honestly don't remember all the details, but I enjoyed the tour.

My last day in the coffee lands, I chose to just rest, chill and read a borrowed book from a woman at the hostel. All my friends and my family do not think I am able to relax since I am always on the go, constantly multi-tasking and involved in way too many activities. I made a conscious effort to slow down for the day. I found a durable hammock overlooking the valley and set up camp for the day. I watched as cows roamed the fields, horses grazed right by me and the clouds greeted me in their various forms. I also finished the book that day, 3 cups of Tea about how one man persevered to set up schools for girls in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I love reading non-fiction books about ordinary people who do extraordinary things; they inspire me, fill me with hope in humanity, and confidence that one person can make a difference in the lives of many. That night, I took an overnight bus home-content, inspired and rested.