April 29, Bogota, Colombia

It has been awhile... lost track of days... and spending time studying and review for Spanish class!  Interesting to be on the receiving end of lessons!

It was tough leaving the hotel this morning, it is such a comfortable place. Funny as the owner talked to me more on my way out the door than he has the whole time I have been there! Still a great place, Hotel Nueva Granada, Santa Marta!

1 1/2 hour flight to Bogota, arriving about 11 am. Wow, what a change.... from 32 degrees and 80% humidity to 19 and very low humidity! The hotel is near the airport and has a free shuttle, I have a very early start tomorrow.

I got settled in and then caught the bus to the Museum of Gold in the historical centre. Interesting, as the bus system here is just like a train. They are buses but they have a dedicated lanes for the route! You enter the bus at about 5 feet off the ground from a terminal. Very efficient! It only took about 20 minutes to get to the city. The return trip was more interesting as the the bus was packed. I actually got pushed into the bus as the woman behind was not going to wait for the next bus. There were not many people getting on in the next few stops... good thing.. but there was lots of room by the time I got to my stop.

The museum is huge! 3 floors of displays and artifacts. Lots of gold with some silver, copper and even platinum items. It is really a super place. They also have some videos. One very interesting one is how a pre-Hispanic culture had learned to flood irrigate land in the center of the country. They used river water... but today the dikes that have been built just cause flooding! I ran out of steam after about 2 hours and headed back to the hotel.

Dinner and to bed!


April 28, Santa Marta, Colombia

I went to the Quinta de San Pedro Alejandro museum today! It is where Simon Bolivar lived for a while, but seems to be it was when he was sick. He died in the house. The grounds are beautiful and the 17th century Spanish house is great, although not as big as I thought it would be. Lots of rooms, but only 1 bedroom. Kitchen, bathroom, smoking room, chapel, dining room. The site used to be a sugar cane plantation so there are still some buildings left for the storage and crushing of sugar cane but also the making of rum. Interesting. There are also a few art galleries. One interesting one showed the lives of some indigenous people in the area. Also large hall dedicated to Simon Bolivar. The street leading up to it seemed to have the America's country flags, Canada and the US included.

The grounds are very dry as there has not been much for rain, but I did see a few birds and the best part was the number of iguanas! They were all over..at one point the ground seemed to move with them. Some were at least 6 feet long, nose to tail.

Back to the hotel, swim in pool and drink up some of the free coffee!


April 27, 26, & 25, Santa Marta Colombia

Much of the same..walking the beach, swimming and of course 2 hours of Spanish in the morning. It is difficult but I just need to spend more time with it.. We seem to have covered a lot of ground... Just have to see how useful the basics are!

April 24 Santa Marta Colombia
No class today, so drank way too much coffee at breakfast! I was going to go to another city and look at the beach as I had been told by many people that it is very nice. But there was some thunder and a few drops of rain, so I ended up just walking around Santa Marta. I actually found some street I had not been on. I also walked along the beach... and as it is Sunday the place was packed with families. Their day off. They were not bothered by the rain... although it was not much, the sidewalk never even got wet!

April 23, 22, 21 & 20, Santa Marta, Colombia

I guess I was more exhausted than I thought, it took a couple of days to recover. I did not do much, other than walk a bit on the beach and swim. On the 20th I was able to find a Spanish language tutor so for the next 3 days I was having 2 hours of Spanish lessons...... very difficult... but the tutor's approach is good. I just need to practice! But still having a lot of trouble understanding some people as they speak very fast.

One night while walking along the beach promenade 3 high school students interviewed me for their English class. Very interesting as they had a prepared list of questions. But the introduction was done in Spanish. They made a video of the interview, but It took a few takes of the camera before they were happy with the result. The questions they asked were similar to the ones that I had just learned in Spanish!