It’s my last day in Colombia and I have a lot of time on my hands. My flight leaves at 11:30 PM, I’ve done the touristy things on my Bogota list, except for paragliding and becoming fluent in Spanish, but paragliding can’t be arranged on such short notice and Spanish fluency is no more than a pipedream for now.
It’s a brilliant sunny day, so maybe I’ll visit the Bikeshop around the corner and take a bike tour.
In the meantime, I’m thinking of some of the things I’ve really enjoyed in Colombia but haven’t yet mentioned in this blog.
1. Old vehicles
Colombian streets are mostly full of recent model compact cars. Hyundai and Renault are the predominant brands, but small tincan Chevy Sprints are common too. But every so often you come across an older vehicle, especially out in the countryside, especially work vehicles. I’ve seen the most beautiful old dumptrucks (if old dumptrucks can be beautiful), but unfortunately, I haven’t had my camera ready to photograph many of them as they drive by. Here’s a few older vehicles that I have managed to get a picture of.
Later in the Day
The bike tour was much more than I expected, an excellent way to spend my last day here. We started at 10:30 and went until 4, and visited many interesting spots. We went to a chocolate factory, a coffee roaster, a flower market, a fruit and vegetable market, a chicha hotspot (where people sell their homemade fermented corn drink), and we ended it off in a tejo bar. Our tour guide was Mike, a transplanted Californian who is also the owner of the Bogota Bike Company and who’s lived here for 14 years. He had a visitor’s eye for what is novel and interesting, and a resident’s connection to the local community. He arranged for us to be treated to samples all along the way. We had samples of chocolate at three levels of purity, we drank wonderful coffee, we tasted about 10 exotic fruits that we don’t normally find at home, and then stopped in a tejo bar. Tejo is the Colombian national sport, where you throw disks at a patch of clay in which there is a circle of paper targets. Each folded paper holds gunpowder, and if you hit a target, it explodes. It’s like horseshoes or lawn darts but the explosions make it much more exciting.
Also, throughout the afternoon, Mike wanted to talk about Mennonites whom be had encountered in Paraguay and Bolivia, where he had previously worked as a journalist. He was already quite knowledgeable but had many questions, so that made for interesting conversation.
Now I’m finishing packing my things and waiting till it’s time to take a taxi to the airport and start my journey home.
Hello WalterJohnHans,
I’m not sure who you are but I suspect you’re that fellow who no longer “makes out the light”
Herzliche Gruesse,como esta mon ami? I had coffee with Jake a week or so ago and he was good enough to send me the link. By all accounts you have had an excellent adventure. It’s been fascinating and a lot of fun to share it with you. You’re a good story teller, perhaps a side gig as travel writer will keep your synapses sparking at the level we all so desire to maintain. You really jumped in with both feet – the mountain bike trip – daring and foolish for a man your age. You might have crashed into a tree or an undiscovered stash of ‘c’ and gotten powder up your nose. Hernias can be caused by sneezing. The euphoria that was evident in your face after your two-wheeled plummet down the mountain was a sure sign to me that I was witnessing, not only the spirit, but also the veritable reincarnation, nay, resurrection, of “Super Walter” [aka Supe] – perhaps a spectre from the past you no longer wish to revisit, but heck CBI was a grounding influence in my (our) life, not so much in the classroom, but surely in the dorms. I took in the death seminar that my cousin Rick and Angie were a part of and thought it went very well. I looked in vain for your face in the audience – little did I know that you were occupied with life experiences at the time. Angie is coming out here next week (which no doubt you know) and we look forward to visiting with her and Jake. He is overburdened with work, but I hope he can afford the time for a visit and a meal. I’m sure you have detected the strains of envy in my words and so it is my turn now to subject you to some of the trauma we have experienced here in E-town as you luxuriated in salubrious climes. It has been 40 years since we have had a February this cold. We longed for days when it warmed to temps of -15C – few and far between, but we’re stalwart folk out here, so we just took it. It is snowing again today, adding to our 2+ feet of snow on the ground. The only saving grace is the sound of the snowblower that my neighbour guides with the surgical precision of a scalpel along our front walk. Truly, there are still good people in this world. Well enough odious blather. Soon enough I’ll be complaining about mosquitoes! Thanks for sharing your excellent adventure – great pics by the way. Enjoy our sojourn into spring – Hans