Our home for 2015, Barranquilla
We are home. After a year in Colombia, a month in Peru and a few days in New York City, I am back in Johannesburg, wondering what to do next. Instead of concentrating on the future, however, I find myself reflecting more on the year that has passed. And I have to admit: Colombia, I miss you. Continue reading
Our two-week escape from the Colombian coast feels like an eternity ago. Well, it really has been ages now, since I’ve been quite useless when it comes to keeping this blog updated. Continue reading
After five days in Medellín, we left the big city and set out for the Colombian countryside. On our two hour bus ride, we watched lush green hills roll past the windows before arriving in the small town of Guatapé. This pueblo is built along the banks of a reservoir, created when the government flooded the area in the 1970s. Apparently, at the bottom of the lake somewhere lies the original town of Guatapé – a casualty of the nation’s hydroelectric power needs.
A two week vacation recently marked the halfway point of this year-long Colombian adventure. It was a holiday that I desperately needed after all the work I’d been doing last semester. Hah.
This trip saw us venturing inland, leaving the costeños behind and travelling to the land of the paisas. We hopped on an early flight to Medellín on June 20th with the low-cost airline Viva Colombia, and flew back from Cali fourteen days later. Stepping off the plane, we were instantly relieved to escape the suffocating heat and humidity of the coast, and from there things just kept getting better. Continue reading
It’s still somewhat surreal.
During orientation, sequestered as we were at an isolated hotel forty-five minutes outside of Bogotá, it was easy to forget that after travelling for twenty-four hours, we had ended up on the other side of the world. We spent two weeks at Hotel Xué Sabana where we brushed up on our teaching skills, got to know some of the other volunteers, and learned a bit about Colombian culture.
escaping stasis 