Travel Blog Posts
May 7th 2012
We left Saturday morning to Santa Marta, a 4 hour bus ride, to meet up with Stefan and Willie for my nice, long weekend off. After a confusion of sorts on where we were supposed to meet up with the boys and losing my phone in a taxi, which Juan Manuel immediately jumped on some motorcycle to go chasing after the taxi in a sea of taxis in order to try to get my phone back (but returned with no success, the motorist wouldn´t drive fast enough); we all decided to head to Palomino, an hour and half past Santa Marta. I felt really bad since Juan Ma was only coming for the night since he had to be back to work on Monday, but he said he was ok with going so much further than ... read more
April 20th 2012
With this working 6 days a week while maintianing a social life, i´m not going to be updating the blog very much -besides, now it´s everyday things so I don´t think they´ll excite you too much. But do keep checking every now and then for a new entry! So I´ll try to give the highlights in short: 1) My bday. Yamile threw me a surprise bday party, complete with a bakery-bought cake, on the rooftop of blue house hostel along with my blue house family and few other friends. The girls there had actually offered the rooftop to me the day before for my bday, and Yamile must have sprouted this idea once I had told her in shock that they wanted to open the place up for me. It was sooo great and Yamile is ... read more
March 24th 2012
Wow Karma works fast! My last day at the Blue House Hostel was the 13th. Since then, the other three staff members left within the same week and the place has gone down the drain. The girls are not paying their employees, and if they are, they've cut their pay without notice, and the amount is not enough for these women and their families to survive off of. Two weeks have gone by and they haven't been able to fill the rooms nor hold down a new cook down, they're barely hanging on to the new cleaning lady. At the moment, they're in the process of converting the cafe into more of a diner/hang-out sorta place. I don't think they know what will be come of the hostel part yet, especially since they can't get any ... read more
March 10th 2012
I was stoked to be starting my new job and life in Cartagena. I definitely needed to get out of Ibague, and I had already fallen in love with Cartagena. The job description at this super chill hostel I got seemed unreal, but it was just that:unreal. Upon my arrival to my new home I was quickly slapped in the face with a very different job than what I had agreed upon just a week and half prior. I was supposed to come and work the bar and reception of this hostel I stumbled upon and fell in love with starting at 4pm each day and end about 10 or 11pm, depending on how busy it is. I was to get a room, food, plus a very small amount of cash each month -peanuts really but ... read more
March 2nd 2012
And so my time at Manos Amigas/Lets Go Volunteer has come to an end. I’m so blessed to have met each and every single child as each one has touched my heart. They’re incredible groups of children, all so strong and so positive in the least desirable of conditions. They’ve confirmed my belief that you don’t need things to be happy, it’s just those around you and the experiences you create that make life whole. I thought it would be extremely difficult to leave these children, but I think it helped that I needed to leave for my new job in Cartagena almost as soon as I got back from my 2.5-week danger vacation. During that time, I was able to gain distance from them which has made it a bit easier to say good-bye to ... read more
Playing With Fire, Over and Over Again
Published: February 25th 2012South America » Colombia » Cartagena » Sogamoso
February 25th 2012
The coastal vacation started off with plans to spend soaking up all the joys paradise has to offer but turned out to be quite a crazy, death defying adventure. We basically found ourselves constantly playing with fire and somehow only coming out with a few burns. I seriously don’t understand how we survived them. Carrie is another volunteer from England and had planned to travel to the coast on her last few weeks here in Colombia, it was the perfect chance for me to get there as I’ve been itching to go since my arrival. Plus the past few weeks have been filled with pointless, various drama with the administration here at the organization, which has caused much unneeded stress; ie they tried to charge me double rent (they’re constantly trying to find a way to ... read more
January 25th 2012
So I’m a bit behind but I’m going to try to give you the highlights: 1) Jane (proounced Jan-eh) got teeth! She was missing her four front teeth for quite a few years now. She’s already an x-crackhead, so she’s crazy to begin with, and without teeth just completes her character. The Colombians can’t even understand her, and we have to interact with her everyday since she’s the cook! Berenice had bought her teeth for Christmas which is how she could afford them. However, I had gotten used to her crazy accent, so now I can’t understand her all over again! But at least I don’t have to worry about meat flying out at me when she tries to use her gums as teeth, which of course doesn’t work and the meat winds up flinging out ... read more
January 18th 2012
Being here for a long time means getting to know the harsh backrounds of quite a few kids that come to both centers I volunteer at. Lots of reality checks and heartbreaks; most of which I've learned in the past month or so. One is about Samuel and coming to find out his father beats him. I've always said since the beginning that I knew something was wrong at home. I thought his father had left, typical of a Colombian father to do, but instead he gives his tiny little boy a beat up face. The other is getting to go to the two girls' home that took a liking to me on Crackhead lunch day (I go to San Jose almost daily now, so I've gotten to know them quite well). It turns out a ... read more
January 12th 2012
Last week, we decided to take the kids from Manos Amigas (my location) up a nearby mountain to one of the waterfalls to ring in the new year. Now this sounds like a grand ol' plan, but this is Colombia here, which means that this plan is really just a tricky situation. I actually almost didn't go that afternoon, since clouds were threatening rain and I didn't feel like going on a really long hike up the mountain, soggy, with about 35+ wet and cranky kids; especailly after my first experience with hiking the mountain (see the Stupid Foreigners post). But I decided to suck it up and go anyway, the kids were just too excited to say no (even though they would have gone without me). What started off as a great plan turned not ... read more
January 11th 2012
Yamile and I escaped super last minute to Cali for NYE. It was Thursday night and she came over to see where we would be off to next. Since Cali is the Salsa Capital and hosts the Salsa Festival from Dec. 26 - 31st (stars attend and huge Salsa bands perform; ie Marc Anthony), we decided that this would be a necessary destination that very weekend. Since we knew everyone else and their mom would be on their way there or at least travelling to spend NYE with their family, we decided to phone the bus companies to be sure we had a chance. After many failed attempts, one company told us that there were two spots left on the 10pm bus that very night. It was just after 9pm and our chances looked slim at ... read more
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