Colombia Part 1

I ended up going to Colombia for three weeks after leaving Missouri.  It might seem like an odd choice to some, but it was amazing.  I went because Bri knows a man named Enrique from work who is from Colombia.  I have no idea when they first had  a conversation about me going to Colombia, but I think it was sometime while I was still in Iraq, trying to figure out what I would do afterwards.  I know it sounds a little vague, but the point is, I flew to Bogota, took another flight to Cali, where I was greeted by Pedro, Enrique's nephew.  I was shown a great deal of kindness by Enrique's family and don't really know what I would have done without them.  I had an amazing 3 weeks and got to see so much of the country.  I really was lucky to see so much and I have a TON of pictures, I will give you the highlights.

Gorgona-I spent a few days on the island of Gorgona in the Pacific Ocean.  For those of you who have seen LOST, it was sort of like that.  I wanted to go because it was time for the whales to get laid as Pedro informed me, so they would be visible.  He then told me about all of the snakes, and I wanted to go a little less.  In the end, my desire to see whales prevailed.  I flew to the tiny town of Guapi and took a boat on a very bouncy ride to the island.  As soon as we were on dry land someone told us to turn around and there was the first of many whales I got to see on the trip.  It was an incredibly beautiful place.  I got to go on a nature hike in the rain where I kind of wanted to see a boa constrictor...until a pelican flew so close to my head while I was swimming that I nearly had a heart attack-I decided I probably didn't really want to see a snake.  Sorry, no pictures of whales, I was unbelievably slow with the camera.

The Beach

The old prison

On the rainy nature/jungle hike

Drinking from a coconut

Monkey

The Coffee Triangle-Now I am sure that the first thing you all thought of when I said "Colombia" was coffee and rightly so.  The coffee is pretty great there.  I also spent 3 days in what is called the Coffee Triangle.  I got to go to a National Park featuring the Wax Palm, Hot Springs(amazing), and the coffee park.  The coffee park is actually like the Juan Valdez version of Disney Land...sort of.  There were a lot of rides there, but there was also a lot of information about the history of coffee, how it came to Colombia, and how it gets from the plant to your cup.  It was interesting.  The best thing is that the entire area was unbelievably beautiful.  I saw the most amazing clouds.

Wax Palms

Yes, the entire area was this spectacular

Hot Springs

After the Springs

With a "Willy" which is still used to transport people up the mountain

All I need is a donkey

In front of a model of a "typical" house

Me overlooking the Coffee Triangle

Santa Marta-After the coffee triangle, I went to Santa Marta for a couple of days to stay with Tia Lucila(Aunt Lucila for all of you non spanish speakers, another of Enrique's sisters).  She was great.  She was probably the most patient person I encountered as far as my Spanish is concerned.  What you should know is that I don't speak a lot of Spanish.  I thought it improved in Peru, but when I got to Colombia, it was different.  Lucila spent a lot of time speaking incredibly slowly and when I still didn't understand, she would think for a minute and explain again a different way.  Most of the time, I figured out what she was getting at.

People making a bridge...and a buck during a rainstorm

Taganga Fishing Village from above

Fishing Village

Home

After Tasmania-deviling our way through Peru, I went back to Missouri.  It is always good to be home.  I was only home for a few days and spent more time than I should have trying to figure out where to spend 3 weeks outside of the US.  All planning aside, I managed to accomplish quite a bit in my short amount of time there.


I got to see a lot of friends-if only for a little while, spend some time with my family, visit the lake, go shopping, give my beautiful nieces some love, eat a delicious dinner with Bri before leaving KC, cut my hair(well, I had someone else do it), see my cousin's new house and laugh a lot.  It seems I focused on enjoying my time rather than taking pictures, but here are a few.  Lots of Love, M.

The girls and I

New Haircut...check

Two delicious plates of meat for the lovely ladies

Bri and I outside of Fiorella's Jack Stack-stuffed

A Whirlwind trip to Peru

I thought I would be leaving for Laos in early September, so my plan had been to go to orientation, spend some time in Belize, meet my mom in Peru, go back to MO for a little while, head back to Page to repack, and then fly to Laos.  Well, while in Belize, I heard from Georgetown that I wouldn't be heading to Laos until the beginning of October.  I needed to change my plans-but I'll get to that later.  First, Peru.  My mom flew from KC arriving an hour before I did from Belize City.  Upon my exit from customs, I found her sitting on a bench patiently waiting where two very nice young ladies from Miami had left her.  We got some local currency from the ATM and jumped in a taxi.  As our driver ferociously drove us into the Lima night, my mom asked a few times, "Are you sure this is safe?  Are you sure this is ok?"  "Yes mom.  This is fine.  We are totally safe." was my reply while I was thinking, "I have no idea.  I have never been here before.  If we aren't safe, it is a little too late."  Again out loud, "He had a badge, I think we're fine."

And we were fine.  Better than that, we were great.  We didn't have a lot of time to explore the country of Peru, so we focused on the big one-Machu Picchu.  According to some, it is one of the new 7 wonders.  It was wonderful. We spent 2 nights in Lima before flying to Cuzco.  We spent one night there before taking the beautiful train ride to Aguas Calientes.  We had a great time there, a couple of girls took our table at a restaurant, we got into some seriously sketchy looking hotsprings, annoyed the bus ticket lady to the point of her sighing and saying, "Yes lady" and climbed the mountain.  It was grand.  We went halfway back to Cuzco by train, took a taxi the rest of the way, stopped to shop in the lovely town of Pisac, and then spent a night in Cuzco before heading back to Lima.  Mom had an early morning flight, I didn't fly out until night so I took a tour of Lima.

Overall, we had a great trip.  It was a lot of fun and we had some unbelievably good food.  We did a lot of traveling in a short amount of time and spent a good deal of time asking the question, "Do you have my passport, or do I?"  Enjoy the photos.  Love, M.

Mom on the train

At the top

We ran into these guys repeatedly in Cuzco

Belize

As I wrote earlier, Kyle and I went to Belize.   We had a great time.  We spent a couple of days on an island called Caye (Key) Caulker, went to the jungle for a few days, tried out another beach-side town, decided we didn't like it and went back to Caye Caulker.  It was very beautiful and relaxing.  Kyle did a lot of fishing.  I worked on my sunburn.  We took a very long ride on the chicken bus, saw monkeys when we were at the Mayan Ruins of Caracol, battled mosquitoes, and had a great time. I don't have a lot of time to elaborate, but I am going to post pictures.  Lots of Love, M.

Riding on the chicken bus

In front of Caana, the largest pyramid

Me fishing...not catching

Kyle, the shark, and a local boy

Waiting for the sunset

Kyle and his fly-fishing guide, Eloy

The Plan

After spending some time in AZ enjoying the scenery and people, I headed to Washington D.C. for 5 days of orientation.  D.C.  is one of my favorite cities.  I love it.  It reminds me of the fun I used to have there during the summer.  It did not disappoint this time.  I think the part I enjoyed this time the most was the food.  Within a 2 minute walk from my hotel, I had choices for food from all over the world.  I had Indian, Lebanese, Thai, and Sushi to name a few.  It was wonderful.  I also had a really good time getting to know some of my fellow Fellows.  It was a lot of fun.

I spent about 4 hours in Page doing laundry and repacking my suitcase before heading to Belize.  The plan was to spend 10 days there with Kyle, then he would fly back to Arizona and I would go to Peru for a week of vacation with my Mom.  From there, I would go on to Kansas City for around a week, go back to Page for a couple of days to again do laundry and repack before leaving for Laos.  Sounds crazy right?  Well, this was just the plan.  In the upcoming posts, I will tell you all about the reality.  Stay tuned. M.

Leaving Iraq

It seemed like the end of our time in Iraq would never come, and then all of a sudden we were packing our bags.  Yikes.  It is amazing how much stuff I managed to accumulate given the short amount of time and limited amount of space I had.  I celebrated my birthday the day before we left Camp Taji.  We had a BBQ and it was great.  I left on Sunday evening and it took a week to make it all the way back to Arizona.  A week.  We spent a few days in Baghdad, a couple days in Kuwait, a few hours at Ft. Benning, and then I made it.  Here are a few things I remember being note-worthy about the trip.

Location, location, location.  The food in the D-Fac in Baghdad was immensely better than the food in our D-Fac at Taji.  Embarrassingly better.  Is it a matter of location and shipping or a matter of who is living in the area and using the facilities?  Probably a combo of both.  Doesn't matter.  It was great-even the ice cream was better.  I seriously doubt they ever run out of lettuce there.

In Kuwait, we had to go through Customs before heading to the airport.  I remember this from when I traveled in May.  I remember it because after going through the line, written above the door is, "THIS WAY TO FREEDOM."  It struck me at the time as funny, because we turned around and went out the other door to get on a bus.  I didn't understand why someone would go to the trouble to painting that on the wall, if we weren't going that way.  I figured it out when we flew home.  We took what is called "The Freedom Flight" from a base in Kuwait to Georgia-the state.  This time, after going through customs, I walked under the words, through the doors, to an enclosed area...we were in lockdown.  Couldn't leave the enclosed area for a few hours.  What kind of freedom is that?  Just kidding.  It wasn't so bad.  Everyone was happy to be going home.

We landed at the Atlanta airport, got in formation to make sure we didn't lose anyone between the plane and the building we had just walked into, and boarded buses for the ride to Ft. Benning.  I hope I never forget how amazed I was by the greenery of Georgia.  It is a beautiful state I have had the pleasure of visiting several times, but this time, it was the most beautiful.  It was early morning and the sun was coming up.  The sky was incredibly beautiful with great clouds and most of all, everything was so lush and green.  Later my friend John and I were talking about how beautiful it was and he commented on the clouds as well.  I think it is because everything was so gray or tan in Iraq.  There weren't many blue sky days.

After turning in my gear, I took a bus back to the Atlanta airport, got to see my friend Maggie for a bit and flew to Arizona.  It was great to be home.  Love, M.

Mea Culpa

It may be that nobody is reading this anymore.  I don't blame you after the long break.  I am so sorry to have kept you waiting.  I just checked and realize that I am one week shy of a two month hiatus.  It was unintentional, I assure you.  I have been busy.  You will see.  I have tons to write about.

First things first, I have a job.  I am going to be an English Language Fellow.  For those of you who are not familiar with the program, it is similar to the Peace Corps in that it is a program through the Department of State and the idea is that teachers are sent to somewhat austere environments to teach.  It is not as long of a commitment, and I get paid.  The first week of October, I will be moving to Vientiane, Laos for 10 months.  I am unbelievably excited.  I have wanted to be a Fellow since I met one during my training for the Peace Corps in Georgia.  I will work at the National University teaching English.  My project description is very broad and at orientation, we were told to be flexible because it might not be 100% accurate.  As far as the specifics of my job, I will keep you posted.

In other news, I have been unbelievably fortunate enough to do some great traveling while waiting for my departure for Laos.  I have a couple of down days and plan on filling you all in completely.  It has been a lot of fun and I have some great pictures.  Lots of Love,  M.