December: 4 months and going strong!

Hello again, cyberworld! December turned out to be a spectacular month! We had only a few weeks more of school to finish out Semester 2 until the holidays arrived. Although you do realize that Christmas decorations had been up since about September, right?? Oh the Christmas decs here...ridiculous! All of the malls (which of course there's one on every corner) had crazy flashing lights, trees made out of lights, tin Christmas trees, slides and jungle gyms for kids to run around in, etc. And all the apartment complexes in my hood were decked out to the nines with flashing manger scenes, reindeer that from my vantage point from the balcony looked like they were humping something, and flowers and Frosty the snowmen set on arrythmic lighting schemes. It was a sight to behold everyday, jajaja!

Well, come December 17th, our holiday began. That first week of break, Jeni, Nicole and I set out for the region of my birth--Santander--where I instantly fell in love with the people and climate. After an 8 hour busride, on December 20th, 2011, I finally stepped foot on the soil of Bucaramanga for the first time since I was 2 years old!!! Amazing. The second we got out of the cab and into the care of our hostel hosts, Don Jorge and Dona Marta, I felt at home. We spent a day or so in Bucarmanga, exploring the sights--the Municipal Center, Casa del Libro, and el Parque del Agua--as well as took a trip out to the famous Cañon de Chicamocha, which is supposedly bigger than the Grand Canyon (see my pictures on Facebook). We took a nearly hour-long air gondola ride through the canyon as well as explored some of the other attractions at the park. Then as we were leaving the park at closing time (around 6pm) the staff and police invited us to parttake in the traditional holiday time meal that apparently the staff shares every day or so. Then we hitched a ride on the side of the road in pitch black night back to B/manga (and made it safely!).

On the 23rd we headed back to Bogota to be in the city for Christmas. On Christmas Eve-day, Jeni's host mom Maria and her friend Piedad hosted us for a late afternoon lunch. That evening Michael, Jeni and I just hung out at my place drinking a bit and chatting, and I was able to get in contact with friends and family through Skype. On Christmas Day, Michael made yet another incredible meal for us (as well as a couple of our North American and Colombian friends), this time being pasta al forno, a traditional Italian Christmas meal. It was delicious! All in all it was a very quiet and mellow Christmas with good friends and good food.

On the 26th, Jeni, Maria and I headed out to Mesitas, a town about 2 hours east of Bogota where Maria's friend Piedad has an apartment that she let us stay in. Mesitas also has a very warm climate and very friendly people. We were there for about 3 days just hanging out, and frecuenting a nearby fince where Piedad's friend Sandra has some connections. The finca had a nice pool and amazing outdoor firepit where we cooked some carne asada, papas saladas, and platanos fritos one afternoon. Then on the 29th, Maria, Jeni and I tried to head out to Cali to visit some of Maria's family (who actually live in Buga), but when we got to Girardot, the place where we would have to change buses, everything was sold out! Thus, we were faced with the dilemma of either staying in random Girardot (where it was HOT AS HELL...yessss!!!) or going back to freezing and boring ol Bogota. Guess what we decided?? Yep. We stayed in Girardot.

Maria and I managed to talk to a guy in the terminal who had a book on local hotels so we scored a pretty good deal at Hotel El Oasis, just outside the main drag of Girardot. The hotel had two pools, some decent food and beverages, and our room had air conditioning (which although I'm not a fan of, it definitely came in handy this time around). The first day in Girardot, Jeni and I decided to go to the main strip and just have a few drinks and food in the blazing heat while exploring this not-so-small but very random city that we ended up in. The second day, our good friend from school Mark came along and we proceeded to hang out for the rest of the trip (4 days total) by the pool or in the downtown area drinking rum and cokes and beer. On one of our days we also decided to do the touristic thing with Maria and take a trip to the market and take a ride on the Rio Magdalena, another one of Colombia's ridiculously polluted rivers. And NYE's??? Oh my, the most random of them all! Mark, Jeni and I ended up just hanging out by the pool all day, running into another teacher from Montessori--Alejandro--- mistakenly ordering two HUMONGOUS pizzas off the street, and counting down the last 30 minutes of 2011 in a vacant lot across the street from our hotel. It was definitely the most uneventful and most random New Year's I've ever had!!! But it was still fun in a weird way. And yes, we ate the traditional 12 grapes from our empty lot (here they eat 12 grapes and make 12 wishes for the new year), drank a shot of rum, watched the fireworks show all around us, and fell asleep around 1:30am. Oh, Girardot. The most nondescript place that I will never forget! Especially since I have a collection of bug bite scars on my arms and back to remember you by. Sighhhhhhh....

After our interesting time in Girardot, we headed back to Bogota for a day to do laundry and chillax. Then on the second, Jeni and I were off again...this time on a 17 hour bus journey to the North, to a beach town called Santa Marta. Santa Marta was also nothing spectacular, but again the weather and vibe was definitely better than Bogota. Since we were arriving just after the high season, it was still a bit hard to find places to stay so Jeni and I had booked something before leaving Bogota, not knowing what to expect. Since the place we booked for the 4th, 5th, and 6th wasn't available for our first night (the 3rd) we had booked at another hostel. Upon entering the place we realized it was not for us--one bed, a toilet that didn't flush, and a rinky-dinky little fan. The room definitely reminded me of Peace Corps, but since I was on vacation (and Jeni had never done PC) we decided that we deserved a bit better. So we headed off to the other place that we had booked just to see if by chance they'd have something open (and to make sure it wasn't the same as this first place). The moment we stepped into La Brisa Loca(as it was called) we were like "Yea. This is much better!" The place had a pool, an upstairs bar/restaurant and a rooftop patio to sunbathe and hang out. Miraculously they did have two beds open in the 12 person dorm room, so we sucked it up and stayed there for one night before they moved us to our suite for the next three nights. The suite was AWESOME! One full bed and another bed up in the loft, which was fun getting to because of a precarious latter hanging on the wall (I slept up there of course).

Well, we ended up becoming good friends with the bartenders at the hostel's restaurant/bar.  We pretty much stayed in the hostel most of the time drinking, eating, listening to music, sunbathing, etc.  We did venture out a couple of times to the beach and took a quick trip to a close-by town called Tanganga with a friend we made at the hostel. We also found a great Tapa's spot there, surprisingly.  All in all, I liked Santa Marta except for the fact that the ocean was pretty polluted.

So we headed back to Bogota on the 8th to be back in time for school to start the following day.  All in all, my vacation was pretty awesome.  Hanging out with a few of my favorite new people and getting to see a few parts of my country.  Hopefully over the next few months I'll be able to explore more.

That's all for now, folks!  ¡Feliz año nuevo!