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Published: April 23rd 2012
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Can you even believe we’re in Colombia already! It seems like time flies faster and faster every time I write to you. Amelia and I couldn’t wait to get here when we heard about how green the country was, because that meant we would have lots of trees to play in. Besides, I just found out some of my family moved here and we get to go visit them a little later on. We first flew into a city called Cartagena, an old Spanish colonial city that still has a lot of the same buildings and even the same big stone wall around it. We even saw a pirate ship that was docked outside! Of course it wasn’t full of real pirates, but it was still really cool to see! We actually got to see it from one of the holes in the wall that were made for cannons to shoot out of when enemies attacked the city. I sure am glad I wasn’t the person who had to do the protecting. I’m a loving monkey not a fighting monkey! We had a really good time getting to see some of the art in the streets. It seemed like every time
Amelia and I whipped our tails around we saw something else we wanted to take a picture of. We didn’t see a whole lot of monkey paintings, but it was still really interesting. None of us had ever seen a city that looked like this, especially one that still had the original defensive wall surrounding it.
We were really happy that the people in Colombia were so nice. I think just about every time we talked to someone they were smiling at us. It’s a good thing Jessie can understand a lot of Spanish. Even though Nate is getting better, I think we’d have better luck with a cat speaking Spanish! Haha, just kidding Nate! He’s doing way better than Amelia and I are. We can only speak English…well, and to other monkeys of course. One of the things we wanted to do while we were here was to go to a small volcano filled with mud. It’s basically a big mud pool you can sit in and cover yourself from head to toe. It turned out not to be a big volcano, but Nate, Jessie, and their friend Sergio had a lot of fun getting dirty and being
completely covered in mud. Amelia could hardly even hold the camera still to take a picture of them because she was laughing so hard. She said, “You guys look like a bunch of pigs who have been rolling around in the mud all day. I hope you don’t smell like them!” Of course they didn’t, but they were definitely just as dirty. That’s for sure.
Amelia and I were especially excited to go to Tayrona National Park where people said we could see all kinds of wildlife. Sorry Nate, you’re going to be hiking with a broken toe I guess. Yeah, Nate didn’t move very fast on those paths with a sore foot, but we were loving being back in the trees and swinging around the forest. The path was really fun to hike and was pretty close to the coast, so we could see the ocean from quite a few different spots we stopped at. The best spot was at the very end where more of the people were lying on the beach. No wonder, the water was blue and there was a nice beach there. Nothing says “come relax here” like amazing water and soft sand.
You can probably guess that we all took some time to ly out under the sun. After a little bit of monkey tanning time, we hiked to the place we were staying at for the night. On the way there we got to see some Titi???? Monkeys. These guys looked like they had white Mohawks or used to play in some kind of rock band. Amelia thought maybe there were all just having a bad hair day, but that’s really how they look all the time. It always makes us feel right at home to see fellow monkeys in the trees. “We’ll be right up guys!” The best part was that they were only a little bit bigger than me. It’s about time I don’t feel like such a shrimp in front of the other monkeys we run into.
With so many places to go and see in Colombia it was hard to decide where to go next. A little town called San Gil sounded good to us. It was full of really nice people and had a nice little park we took a walk in. Not to mention, wait until you see the picture of all the fruit
they had there! We all ate fresh fruit salads every morning for breakfast. Boy were they good! We also went for a little day trip to a little town nearby where we had a little hike and took some more pictures. Medellin was our next stop, but this was a MUCH bigger place than San Gil. After all, we were back in the city again. You probably already know there aren’t going to be any other monkeys in the city, but there was plenty to keep us busy. We all went for a ride on a funicular over some of the more poor areas. We couldn’t believe that they had big blown up photos all over the place. Sometimes it’s really hard to imagine that people live in some of these places. I’ll tell you what, it makes us realize how lucky were are to have the homes we have every day. Even in these areas there were a lot of paintings on the walls. In another part of the city they had some really interesting little sculptures. Of course Nate and Jessie took turns being weird in pictures while Amelia and I manned the camera. Sometimes it’s just as
fun to be the ones taking the pictures as it is to be in them.
Our favorite place in all of Colombia was Salento, a small town in the middle of the mountains surrounded by green grass and trees everywhere we looked. Every morning we woke up and looked outside we felt like we were in a dream. Now THIS was our kind of place. No wonder my family chose to move here. There were enough trees here for monkeys from all over the place to live. Of course it was nice for humans, too. After all, if you like coffee Colombia is one of the best countries in the world to go to. Nate and Jessie love it and even went on a little coffee tour where they picked the coffee and helped grind it up with an old man who owned the farm. I wish I could say I ground some coffee too, but the handle was twice as big as me! Even with me standing on Amelia’s back we couldn’t do it. That’s ok. We were more interested in being in the jungle anyways.
It was actually hard for Amelia and I not
to take off swinging everyday as soon as we woke up, but we waited for Nate and Jessie before heading off for the day. I have a confession to make kids…I loved Salento so much and was so happy to see my family that I decided to stay. Traveling has been GREAT and really happy I got to see so many amazing things and people, but now it’s Amelia’s turn to travel with Nate and Jessie while I stay with my family. Besides, I really missed them and I know you’ll all love Amelia just as much! Thanks for following me through this long journey and get ready for some fun blogs coming up because Amelia is GREAT!
Always your friend,
Wylie
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