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Cartegena

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Cartegena here we come!

Well we're officially starting week 5 here in Colombia. We're finally leaving in the morning for Cartegena! We'll be there for 4 days returning on Wednesday afternoon. There are tons of families here getting sentencia ranging from 7 weeks to 3 weeks. We've been getting fat on celebration cakes! It seems as though things are moving quickly in the courts these days. I have a feeling we could be home before Easter:) But you never really know....

Monday night Kurt and I went out to Bogota Beer Company after the kids were in bed. The staff took our baby monitor while we imbibed a bit. Good beers and my gin and tonic was delicious as well. The free Aguila beer here at the hotel was getting to us. Can you say Miller Lite?

We went to Parque 93 on Wednesday for lunch with some other families. Gotta love el Corral Gourmet hamburguesas! It's been a pretty quiet week here. There's a new family here from Ham Lake so we went to Maku and Jacques bakery for a treat. They serve Baileys in their coffee:-O

Caio from Bogota
Smooch
PK

The Human Petting Zoo AKA The Botanical Garden

I know Kurt already posted something about the BG but please indulge me a moment. You all know how I love a good story no?

The BG is a fine getaway in the city of Bogota. Everything is lush, green, blooming and smells great. We were with 2 other families so I realize we must have stuck out a little but I guess I didn't realize how much;) As we were walking around a group of senior citizen approached us. A few of them came up to do the traditional fawning over the children, blessing them, telling us how cute they are. You get the idea. Then more come over and then more come over. Suddenly it seems we're surrounded about 25 Colombian surrogate grandparents. We're all chatting with them. It is custom here to greet someone with a "buenos dias" (between breakfast and lunch) a "buenos tardes" (lunch and dinner) or buenos noches (you get the idea) they greet you back. You ask how they are. They say fine thank you and you? You respond, say thank you and then you can ask some questions, get directions or what ever else it is that you want to say. Any way we're starting to get the idea they want to stick around a bit when their tour guide shoos them away NOT before taking a few pictures with us mind you.

It is a cute exchange, our group laughs and remarks how friendly they were and we move onto the Butterfly exhibit. There we have the honor of having one of the Colombian military accompany us. I think the just of what he said was that he was "at our service" God knows we weren't going to squoosh any butterflies but whatever. When in Colombia right? The exhibit is beautiful. There are tons of butterflies all around. The smell is exotic and my skin drinks in the humidity and warmth of the room.

Our group decides to take a break outside of the exhibit so we can feed babies and children, change diapers what have you when we notice a group of 3 women staring at us, just staring at us. We say hellos but this doesn't seems to satisfly them. Then, of course, more of their group join them and once again we're surrounded. "adoptados?" "our children are adopted." This exchange is more stilted and strained. There are more questions that we try to answer and finally their tour guide leads them away.

Aannnd once again we think we're in the clear when Tracy gets approached by an elderly man round 70 that is clearly smitten with her, her tall slender frame and short blonde hair. I thought maybe she may need help understanding him so I approached but what this man was trying to tell her, you'd have to be a complete idiot not to get it! I decide to stay in case she needs protecting instead! He leans into her, she backs up a bit, he leans in a bit more, she backs up again all the while informing her that he's been to the US, CA in fact and has MANY children (I think implying a still quite virile man!) so being "novios" (sweethearts) with her should be no problem!

What a complete riot! We all had a good laugh at that one. And so ends another day in Bogota.

Smooch
PK

Villa de Leyva

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Stupid Slide.com! I was trying to make some slideshows (please check out some past posts) and I left my email on the site and then next thing you know all these emails came pouring back into my inbox for some GREAT deals on Viagra. So...I am SO sorry if you were inundated. My apologies.

Villa de Leyva is a quaint town North of Bogota. We started out on Saturday with the Agudelo family. As always it's a joy to get out of town for a while and the Agudelos are a joy to be around. They've become such an important part of our lives, especially Lucy and Mateo, their Colombian Abuelos. It makes my heart sing.

It's about a 4 hour drive to get there. We checked into our hotel and found a restaurant in the town square for some lunch. Then it was onto dessert. Godfrey had to bring us to "the best coffee shop in Villa de Leyva" My thoughts were, "Great! Good coffee." It is a little shop on a corner called "Cafe Don Eloy" It was some of the best coffee I've ever had. I'm not kidding! And the desserts...To DIE for!

We start back to the hotel and it starts raining, so we duck under a tent for a bit thinking it will pass. Godfrey and Adriana volunteered to go with an umbrella and get the car to pick up the rest of us. No sooner than they leave that the heavens seem to open up and there is this incredible downpour! We have to duck out of the tent and take refuge in a shop. It's only about 15 feet away but we're pretty drenched by the time we run to the other building. Now we're really feeling sorry for Godfrey and Adriana! Hopefully they have ducked in somewhere to avoid the weather as well. A little while later Inez decides to call and let them know where we are. When she puts her hand in her pocket she comes out with the car keys! Oh no! By the time they finally reached us everyone was soaked! I couldn't believe the torrents of rain. We could see the rain coming down the mountain like a river. It proceded to move down the streets through the town square and kept right on a going to God know's where.

It was nice to walk around, check out some shops and just relax. Kurt was sick again from who knows what???? So I took Lucy to the Fossil Museum. Evidently millions of years ago the area was an ocean. There is a pretty huge fossil there of some kind of crocodile. Pretty interesting stuff. There was another family from the hotel that happen to be there at the same time we were so we all went together. We also went to an Ostrich farm. I think that was Lucy and Garrett's favorite part.

We had a quiet ride back to Bogota on Monday afternoon. Lucy and Mateo promptly fell asleep in each arm. As I looked down on them sleeping so peacefully my heart was bursting with joy. I am so happy, so content, so lucky.

Our family is complete.
Smooch
PK

Botanical Garden

This weekend we are in Ville de Leva (pictures to come soon) but earlier this week we went to the Botanical Garden in Bogota. I must say that I really enjoyed it. Right now they have an exhibit on butterflies of Colombia where you go into a special part of the greenhouse and hundreds of butterflies are flying around you. They also have dozens of varieties of orchids there, but unfortunately most of them bloom here around December. Despite the orchids not being in bloom, we did enjoy the rose gardens and many other exotic plants and flowers.

Hope you enjoy the photos,

Kurt

Guatavita

This was by far my favorite day trip so far, including our last trip here as well! As always it is great to get out in to the countryside, seeing the farmers work their fields of potatoes. Breathe in the fresh cool air. It is not as lush or green this time around. This region is in a terrible drought. I think they must all be praying for the rains to come!

Freddy is a great tour guide and friend. We hiked up to the first view of the lake. Lucy was a total trooper. She walked most of the way with Kurt helping her along the way if she needed a break. There were lots of breaks! For those of you that have been before, the walk is about as high as Monserrate, around 10,000 feet. We went with our friend Tracy and her son Ty. Ty and Mateo are only 3 weeks apart. It was time to feed the babies by the time we reached the top so we plopped ourselves down to listen to Freddy tell us the Legend of el Dorado. Quite an interesting story of the indegenious peoples worshipping the lake, offering gold sacrifices, complete with Spainards draining the lake 9 feet to look for and plunder said gold.

We then went into the town of Guatavita for some lunch. Freddy took us to a fabulous restaurant where we all enjoyed the 4 food groups;) Kurt had the trout, Freddy had the chicken, Tracy ate the steak and I enjoyed the rabbit! So tasty in a tangy garlic sauce. Tastes like Grouse:)

The town of Guatavita is quaint. All the buildings are white with red tile roofs. There are many steep red brick stairs leading to all the shops and houses.

I've finally had some time to organize and download our pics. I'm hopeful that I can back track and put up some slideshows week by week of our stay. I know we haven't been posting enough pictures for all of you.

Smooch
PK