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Published: February 18th 2010
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I was so happy and amused to see my family already waiting for me as I arrived; they made me feel so special. It was Edgar and Senor papi (Luis’s father, Luis SR). They scooped me up and we went home, and I told them all about my troubles and adventure, and Lina (Luis’ sister and med student), help to set up all the medical appointments.
The next morning, Edgar took me to the hospital. I was truly impressed by the Colombian medical facilities!! Top of the line, top of the line! Way better than any Canadian or ANY other medical treatment I had seen anywhere in the world. It really put us to shame and made me feel angry at the Canadian shit system. (I mean I hadn’t actually realized how crap Canadian medical care was until travelling, even care in Brazil surpassed our care.) I imagine the care I was receiving in Colombia was equal or better to that of the best private hospitals in the US; personalized treatment in state of the art facilities, with actually intelligent doctors, and test results within an hour or two, and virtually no other wait times. -and the facility was super,
and the physician even gave me HIS CELL phone number to call for the results and in case of any problems or concerns.
Anyways, being slightly crazy, after the hospital, Edgar went to school, and I went rock climbing to the awesome, top of the line, climbing gym. I “rented” my belayer, which was weird but cheap, and unfortunately they knew I could lead climb so they started me on a 10a. I was out of practice, having not climbed in a gym for about 9 months, and I was weak, having lost about 5 pounds in the last couple days, but despite my difficulty, I was surprised and how relatively easy the over hang climb was. -But I was weak so after my second climb, my limbs were shaking, probably mostly from my fear of lead climbing, and the fact that the dude was using an ATC rather than a gri-gri to belay, and I didn’t know him. I decided only one last climb on top rope, and then just a little bouldering. After all, the stress I had been through the last few days, the last thing I need was to scare myself shitless, pushing myself up
the wall- no that’s ok. Let’s take it easy.
I was pleased the gym had a full sized body bag so I was able to practice my karate a bit afterwards. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any gloves so I ended up bruising my fists (black and blue the next day), which maybe was a mistake, but I was happy because I was able to see the fruits of my labour. Hehehe… No seriously, all my months of practice had produced really strong punches that were actually landing properly. Of course my firsts were bruised, and pinkies bleeding, because the skin could not handle the force, but I didn’t hurt my actual hands, I mean the bones, ligaments, muscles, etc. at all! Which means in a real fight I would not likely brake my hands, even if I break someone’s face. Cool. (Although, I doubt and hope I will never be in that situation).
I was obviously feeling better, and even though I didn’t know if my headache of ill feelings would return, I thanked god for feeling better, and blessing my body with the strength to be able to do things. I was fortunate, and determined to continue
taking care of my body, and take better care of it more than ever before.
Moving along, after the gym I met sweet Edgar, at my new favorite coffee shop, Juan Valdez. Mmmmmmm… After a quick coffee, we went home, stopping at Portal 80 (the mall and last stop on the transmilenio going home, which by the way is the most amazing bus system that works like an over ground subway system, complete with traffic free, private road ways, and gate controlled platform stations- really strange, but efficient, fast, and cool system located all throughout Bogota). Anyways, I was really tired getting to the mall and wanted to go home to hit the sack but we got into a really interesting conversation and talked for several hours before finally going home.
The next day Edgar was a darling to accompany me back to the hospital to drop off “a specimen”, which they processed in half an hour!! Afterwards, I tried to go to the gym but it was closed so we wandered around town, talked, and went shopping. Afterwards, we went over to Julian’s (my new friend, and my first cs host at whose house I had stayed
at when first arriving in Bogota- GREAT GUY). We went to eat my very first XPLAT- a delicious meal put on top of a giant platacone (large flat fried plantain). Then we went to a club and danced all night. It was chevere (means cool in Colombia).
The next day, I spent touring the city, bla, bla, etc. - long story short I got a clean bill of health and boarded a plane to Cartegena, and began a sequence of events that would drastically alter my trip, and my life…
Off to Cartegena!!
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