Co-LOCO-mbia

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Hola from Colombia! Its been a while between updates and its all been happening so here it goes.....

After wrapping up our joint adventure in South America with a few days in Quito, Tim and I made the big journey to Ye Olde England to catch up with a whole bunch of family and friends, as well as enjoy a bit of civilisation. Its the small things that are exciting, like visiting a supermarket that has absolutely everything you could ever want in it, putting your toilet paper in the toilet rather than in the bin next to the toilet, and using public transport that does not have trashy latino hip hop playing at full blast.

I won't go into too many details of the trip, but I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who made our visit so fantastic with their hospitality and generousity. So a big shout out to Amy and Mark, Nick, Ali and Steve, Jane and Ron, Yarnie, Lucy, JT, and especially Mads who flew all the way to England for 4 days just to see me.....lol.

After a few great weeks it was time for Tim to return back to Australia (boo hoo!) and for me to make the trip back to South America. On my return to Quito I spent an unexciting 2 days on buses to get to Colombia and the town of Ibague. I have been here for the last two weeks volunteering at an organisation called Los Manos Amigos which provided lunches and educational activities for underpriviledged kids. It has been an absolute blast and I have had a fantastic time with the kids, my host family and the other volunteers.

The highlight of the the two weeks has been the folklore festival that has been taking place in Ibague. There have been heaps of events and parades, mostly centring around Ibague's 3 favourite things - music, traditional dancing and bikini-clad beauty queens. Come to think of it, I should probably add a fourth thing to the list: beer, of course!

As part of the festival we organised a big event with all the kids in our program. After days of practising dancing and madly making costumes we all trundled off to an old folks home in a big bus to give our performance. It was great fun with all the kids getting into the swing of it.....not to mention the volunteers! After a few quick dancing lessons myself and my fellow volunteers donned some traditional Colombian garb and had our own two minutes of fame when we danced up a traditional storm in front of everyone there. Needless to say my traditional Colombian dancing left a bit to be desired but I had a great time!

I have another few days here before heading off to Bogota and then onwards to discover the rest of Co-loco-mbia!

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Photos

The red headed Colombian
Getting into the Colombian spirit

Hanging out in ye olde England
Tim and cousin Nick in London

One for the boys
The beauty queen of Ibague in a big parade.

Traditional Colombian Dancers
Another big feature of the Ibague parades

Lunchtime!
Food for the kids of Manos Amigos

Quasi Colombians
Myself and two of my fellow volunteers dressed in our traditional best

The matachins
All the kids getting ready to dance