Friday, May 6, 2011

Monserate.

There is a church atop Monserate, the mountain that towers over Bogotá. We decided to make a pilgrimage up on Easter Sunday (along with every single resident in the city) .  Even though it was crowded, it was worth the trip because the views and gardens were amazing. At least all the rain they've been getting this year is good for something. If you're at all interested in horticulture or if you just like the color green, go to Colombia right now. Seriously.  










Lake Guatavita.

I thought Monserrate was the fairest mountain of them all until JB drove us to Lake Guatavita. The 1.5 hour drive up was stunning (I'm running out of adjectives of praise). It was so gorgeous that I actually fought my fake narcolepsy and stayed awake for the ride, which is a first for me. The story of this lake is like an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess, complete with animal gods, infidelity, and hidden treasure. 






Love these guys!

Puerto Nariño & the Amazon Part 1.

We were in Colombia for 13 days, which was plenty of time to squeeze in a trip to the rainforest. After a short plane ride from Bogotá to Leticia, we scurried to the dingy port where a sketchy looking lady sold us seats on a sketchy looking motor boat.  We sped along the Amazon River for hours, got off at a small port, got on an even smaller boat, and eventually wound up at the Cabañas del Friar where we were greeted by a couple nice people and a smorgasbord of really hilarious animals. 





Puerto Nariño & the Amazon Part 2.

When we weren't socializing with forest animals, we would walk to nearest pueblo, Puerto Narino. It's an ecological community of about 6,000 indigenous people and zero motor vehicles. The epic rains caused heavy flooding so the young people spent every afternoon playing water basketball and sloshing around in the muddy waters. 


All the sidewalks were flooded so they set up an extensive zigzag of planks along the water front.

We were only 3 of maybe 10 tourists in Puerto Narino so it was surprisingly hard to find restaurants  that would feed us. Every time we walked into what appeared to be a food establishment, someone would say that the cook went home, or we came too late, or they weren't really open. Fortunately, we found a fellow named Alfredo who had a river-front restaurant, and since we were his only customers, we deemed him our personal chef. Everyday we would stop by, tell him what time we wanted to eat, and we'd come back a couple hours later to elaborate home made meals with endless fresh lemonade. All for about $3.50!