Taxiiiii

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Hola everyone!
Colombia is supposed to be a reallz cheap country to travel an live in but Ive noticed some unique things that are ruining me :-) For example water. 0.5 litres of water cost approx. 3000 pesos, which is about 1.5 franks (or dollars), knowing that I drink about 3.5 litres per day make this amout quite large. Then the taxi rides.. Taxi is the safest way to navigate here in Cartagena so I only walk on my way to school (20 minutes and I arrive soaking in sweat.. Yummy.. and sooooo fresh). Then we usually take a taxi to the beach and then home for dinner. And then to town again and THEN home :-) So that equals 4 cab rides a day which cost about 5.- swiss franks.
The rides in the taxi are really something else hear. Yes, there are seatbelts but NO there are no buckels to attach them to! And they drive worse than in Italy, if they want, they drive on the sidewalks.. They honk about every 10 to 15 seconds and listen to really loud latin music. Oh, and they sing along to the songs..loudly..even if their songvoice is somewhat.. i would call it unique.. ;-) Most of them try to start conversations of which one really stod out. I had told the taxi driver that I had had private Spanish lessons with a teacher so he said: "Ok, lets continue the lesson here" and all the way from Elins to my house (15 minutes) he (Jose Lopez was his name) taught me Spanish; Differences between words that sound alike, sayings, slang etc.. It was a great lesson! And after we got to my house we stayed in the car for another 10 minutes to finish the lesson with a spanish song, he thought I would understand, he said his daughter was my age (who incidentially also is called Ana Maria) and she liked it so I must like it to :-)
This weekend Im going to go to a really poor part of Cartagena. A Colombian friend of Elin will buy toothbrushes and toothpaste and we will give them to the children there and show them how to use it correctly. Looking forward to seeing another part of the city. On sunday Elin will leave so I m gonna loose a really cool person here :-( So I will go to the beach with my hostfamily (and make them use sunscreen this time..)
Besitos
Anna

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