THURDAY: We arrived in Bogota Thursday morning at 10am CST. Bogota is a huge city of 6 million people, and it's the end of winter right now, so the highs were in the sixties. August is the month of wind in Colombia (lots of celebrations) and there are flags everywhere as a result. We spent most of the day exploring our surroundings, then went out to dinner with our Colombian sister, Johanna, at a really good Italian restaurant.
FRIDAY: We had Friday to do whatever we wanted, so in the morning we girls got dolled up. Salon services are very cheap in Colombia. If you go to a salon for a pedicure and manicure, the equivalent is $6 and $3. We didn't do that, but Johanna's mom sent her personal manicurist to our apartment instead. The girl didn't speak a lick of English, but was a master at her craft! Then we found a salon just 200 yards from Campo's apartment, so we decided to get our hair washed/blown out. Lucia and I took advantage of the waxing too since it was so cheap! I think our blowouts were around $7 each. Crazy!
We then went out to lunch at a nice cafe near one of the large malls in Bogota called Santa Barbara. Jim's cousin Martin was our guest driver, as he's a taxi driver in Bogota and knows where everything is. People in Colombia drive really crazy too, so it helped to have a local at the wheel. After lunch we went shopping, then drove all over Bogota seeing famous landmarks, universities and such.
We ended the day in the government district (Bogota is the capital city) as we remembered the buildings as being really beautiful and wanted to see them again. They were heavily armored by police with big guns, but this time no one yelled at me for taking pictures of them. This is probably due to the fact that Colombia has gotten safer than ever the past eight years, with much thanks to the boatloads of aid the US has provided it to fight the FARC and all of the drug traffickers (which as been immensely successful - we're still waiting for Maria Betancourt to thank the good ole USA for getting her out of the jungle). When we came three years ago the police did not let us take pictures of any government buildings. This time they didn't seem to care so that was nice.
The gang headed home around 5pm, but Jim and I felt like exploring more so we stayed out. We were glad we did because they closed down the streets for a parade, and the entire night was very festive-like. We then took a cab back to the T-zone and ate dinner at a good Latin restaurant. Cabbies are also very inexpensive, as our trip home was probably 25 minutes and cost the equivalent of maybe $6 with tip.
SATURDAY: Today was Sister Maria's big day. She is the reason we went to Bogota, as she was celebrating her 50th year as a nun. We headed to southern Bogota for a celebratory mass that morning. Campo and Maryann escorted her during the processional. The mass was 90 minutes long and 100% in spanish, but we survived. Sister Maria was so happy that we'd come, so that's all that mattered. Afterwards the convent had a celebratory lunch for all the nuns celebrating their 50th and 60th year of service and a few guests. This was nice, as we got to share pictures with some of our Colombian family. This was also the first time Lucia had met Sister Maria, so that was nice too. She was so happy.
Saturday night we headed just outside Bogota to a really cool restaurant with our adopted Colombian family the Murcias. Johanna, her mom Ninelly, and brother Andreas all came. The restaurant was a flat-iron-steak kind of place and was huge! It probably sat 500-1000 people easily. We loved it. Everything went well except a lady at the table behind us indulged a little too much on her cerveza and had to be taken out by EMTs on a stretcher. How embarrassing! Oh wait, she was passed out cold...she won't remember.
On the way home we got to see Military Police riding the back of a truck with their big guns. This is a normal scene in Bogota, but nothing to be alarmed at. They are just keeping the peace and helping to ensure the FARC isn't up to anything crazy like kidnapping, drug trafficking, bribing politicians, etc. :)
SUNDAY: Sunday Jim and I went out for breakfast... at McDonalds. Felt like home. We ate off the regular menu, although they did have a Chinese menu too. We thought it might be Olympic related, but who knows? It looked gross.
This was the day we would head back to the convent (after getting our hair blown out for the 3rd day in a row - the salon owner opened early just for us!) for Sister Maria's special mass. This time mass was just an hour and a small part was in English (woo hoo!) This mass was just for our family, but that means about 65-85 people showed up. Family came from as far as the Venezuelan border, which was more than a 12 hour trip through the jungles/dangerous areas of Colombia.
After mass we had a private lunch in the fellowship hall for our entire family and all of the Sisters. Campo and Maryann organized the whole thing and really went all out. The food was great, and Sister Maria was even surprised by a Mariachi band! She loved that. I brought stacks of pictures for everyone to look through and take. You would have thought we were handing out $100 bills the way people snatched those up! They loved learning about their long, lost American relatives.
After lunch we all headed outside and took family pictures. We took, and took, and took... we even tried to get one picture with everyone in it. Pretty funny (and impossible.) Around 3pm we finally said our final goodbyes to everyone and Sister Maria. We told her we'd come back for her 60th anniversary, and she told us we'd better bring our kids next time. Fair enough :)
We topped off Sunday night by heading to the Bogota Beer Company for dinner. Nothing like a burger and fries to send you off. This was really fun and a good way to cap off a nice vacation.
Monday morning we headed to the airport. There were really long lines, but Campo told a security guard that Jim, Lucia, and I were all executives with Bank of America and were on a business trip, so he took us to the front of the line. Ha ha! We made it home safe and sound of course, and can't wait to go back again in a few years!
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