17 de octubre 2016
Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
This past week was October Recess - a full 10 days sans students (with 2 professional development days interrupting the middle of the week) - and my fantastic boyfriend Noah came to visit! He was supposed to arrive late Friday night (7 de octubre), so I stayed up past my bedtime (I've been going to bed recently around 9 or 10 pm...one of the fine benefits of having to be at school at 6:30 am) to wait for the taxi to pick him up from the airport. I was sleepy yet excited!
However, it turns out he missed his connection in Bogotá (not an uncommon experience) and the next flight wasn't until 6 am the following morning. So, after chatting with him (until his phone died... Bogotá has got to get some outlets!) and making sure he had a safe place to sleep and a ticket for the morning flight, I re-ordered the taxi and went to sleep for a few hours.
Thankfully, he and the luggage all made it safely the next morning (8 de octubre)! The taxi drove me there, waited for us, and drove us back, all for $50,000 pesos (let me know if you want his number, he's very reliable)!
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| Made it safe and sound! We're both more than a little bit sleep-deprived, but so happy! |
Later in the afternoon, after a day of napping and otherwise chilling, we headed out to find Jesus. Or is that Jesús? In any case, we took a taxi out to El Santísimo, the tallest statue of Jesus in Colombia, and depending on whether or not you count the height of the base, possibly the tallest statue of Jesus in the world (yes, taller than Christ the Redeemer). El Santísimo is 33 m tall, 37 if you count the base. Christ the Redeemer is 30 m tall, 38 if you count the base. (Noah doesn't think the base should count.)
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| We took the teleférico up the mountain - Noah felt like we were entering Jurassic Park. |
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| This guy? |
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| I hope I'm not acting holier-than-thou. |
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| Not the way to heaven. |
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| Hey everybody! |
After our descent, we caught a light show projected onto a fountain, which was actually pretty cool! They synced up the music with the movements of the water and the colors and the images and it was just fantastic!
Not my video, but the only videos I took were less than 10 second Snapchats.
You'll just have to come see it for yourself!
We ate dinner at a restaurant with a clear view of the Holy Armpit, and got to watch the light show a second time while we ate. We then made our way back down the teleférico and back home to get a good night's sleep.
9 de octubre
Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
The next day, we decided to walk around Floridablanca, in an area I'd been meaning to explore but hadn't yet had the chance. We stumbled into a dimly-lit small-aisled market, with people selling everything from candles to fruit to meat to tools. One vendor had an entire pig skin hanging out to dry. After holding our noses for a while (all that raw meat doesn't smell great), we walked back out and continued our explorations. We eventually ended up finding the Botanical Gardens (Jardin Botánico Eloy Valenzuela). I had heard great things, so we went in!
There were of course many beautiful plants, but perhaps the most exciting thing (to me) was the wildlife! They had an aviary FULL of beautiful parrots, a pond full of ducks, and of course TURTLES wandering everywhere free-range.
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| WHAAAT. Check out this dude. |
After the botanical gardens, we went in search of Obleas, a traditional Santandarean snack that is essentially a wafer sandwich. Traditionally, obleas are just filled with arequipe, a caramelly-dulce-de-leche sort of thing. I ordered the Amor a Mil, which is filled with arequipe, cheese, guanabana, and strawberries. It was tasty but didn't stay together well, so I ended up eating most of the fillings with a spoon. Noah got the Amor de Tres, which is filled with arequipe, cream, and pear. He really enjoyed it. We then stumbled upon a town square with a market going on, where many people tried to get us to buy more obleas, ice cream, bracelets, or photos. We declined and headed on home, quite pooped from our adventures.
10 de octubre
Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
Unfortuantely I had to go to work on Monday, but afterwards Noah and I had a bunch of people over for dinner (homemade tacos!) and board games (thanks for sending me stuff Mom and Dad!). Everyone had a great time and really enjoyed the tacos. We finally got some spicy in our system! (Spice is not very common here.) After eating and chatting and vying for the cat's affection, we played a couple rounds of Sushi Go Party and Cards Against Humanity, and (to my knowledge anyway) everyone had a grand ol' time.
11 de octubre
Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
I had to go to work again on Tuesday, so Noah was left alone for much of the day once more. Luckily, he became fast friends with Lulo and she enjoyed napping on him. After work, Colombia was playing Uruguay, so Noah and I joined a few of the other teachers at a bar to watch the game. We were told to meet at Saxo Pub (an Irish pub, I think), but it turns out Saxo was gone and Das Leben (a German pub) had taken its place. So we were quite the worldly group I suppose. It was a pretty exciting game, and the two teams ended up tying (empate).
12 de octubre
Bucaramanga, Santander, Colombia
On Wednesday, we decided to adventure to downtown Bucaramanga and see what there is to see. We walked around El Centro and bought some fruit from the market, and dodged all the people that were jumping out to try to get us to buy whatever they were hawking. We saw a guy blowing glass on the street and watched him make a swan, which was pretty cool (and only $5,000!).
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| You don't see that every day. |
We checked out the painted hormigas, and Noah had his first Colombian hotdog! ...He wasn't impressed and it may have also been his last Colombian hotdog. Luckily, we also found a place with empanadas and big ol' fried potato balls full of stuff (Papas Rellenas), so the night ended on a good note.
13 de octubre
Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
Thursday was Noah's last full day in Colombia, so we spent it mostly eating empanadas and doing other very Colombian experiences - drinking fresh juice, buying coffee and aguardiente, and drinking water out of a bag.
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| Not as easy as I make it seem. |
Many things here are served in bags - water, milk, ketchup, jelly, mayonnaise...you name it. More environmentally friendly! We also tried the Colombian soda Pony Malta, which it turns out is disgusting (to my students who may be reading this, Noah says Dr Pepper is WAY better. I don't even like Dr Pepper and it's way better than Pony Malta).
We had gotten word that a chiva trip was in the works, so we headed back down to Bucaramanga with a bag full of beer to make Noah's last night a great one. There were only 11 of us, but we still had a BLAST!
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| We're adorable. |
14 de octubre
Palonegro International Airport, Lebrija, Santander, Colombia
We woke up before the sun to catch the taxi to the airport for Noah's early-morning flight. He was able to get in one last empanada at the airport, though, being airport food, it wasn't the greatest. We had a mild freak-out when the departures board turned from en sala (turns out that means it's boarding time!) to cerrado while we were eating, but luckily all was okay at Bucaramanga's tiny airport and Noah made it on the plane and safely through all his connections.
