Sep 2009

You leave one dangerous South American city only to arrive in another dangerous South American city. Before all of you start thinking: “Well no duh! It’s COLOMBIA”, let us set the record straight. Colombia was no more dangerous than any other place we’ve been in South America. In fact, we would say that Bogota was relatively safe until you stepped foot in the old part of town… at night. Following our guide book, we ended up at a hostel in the old part of town. And since we were only staying three nights, we didn’t feel like finding another place to stay when we found out just how dangerous the location was (some backpacker guests had recently been mugged, at knifepoint, just outside the door of the hostel). The truth is, the dangerous location wasn’t the main reason we wish we had changed location. Rather, it was the ridiculous level of CONSTANT noise that the LOSERS (read immature backpacker youth that come to South America to party all night while drinking and drugging themselves into stupidity) staying at this hostel were making. Blaring music and T.V. only complemented the faux-politically-correct American “hippy” couple who decided to loudly vocalize there sex-capades for the whole hostel - two times in the night and two times in the morning. By far, this was the worst hostel (Hostel Sue) we have stayed at during our almost four months of traveling. Angry? Bitter? Noooo!?

Bogota also had us suffering of altitude sickness. At 2600m above sea level, our tummies felt like inflated balloons and K had headaches. The altitude also meant that this city was only slightly warm during the day and quite cold at night. As you can "expect", the hostels had no heat and the beds were cold and damp to sleep in.

Bogota seemed like an interesting city and we could immediately tell that we would like Colombia. The food was decent, the women were beautiful, and the city was lovely. We enjoyed seeing the old part of town and its colonial architecture, however, three nights of very little sleep put us in a bad mood. That mood was only made better by our discovery of the Juan Valdez café (a chain of cafes in Colombia). Finally, great coffee in South America (some of the best coffee comes from this part of the world, but most of it is being exported to North America). We found our favourite drink here: Tinto Cardamomo (regular coffee with crushed cardamom added to it) with condensed milk (cream does not exist as an option!?). Mmmm…. Heaven. We miss you Juancito.

With our plans to fly from Rio to Bogota, Colombia, we had no choice but to return to the scary city famous for it’s da-dada-da-da,da-dada-da (Girl From Ipanema). Let us preface by saying that if it weren’t for the violence this city is notorious for, Rio really does rock. Beautiful hot weather is tempered by the winds coming from its coastal location… many lovely beaches all within spitting distances of lush green mountains… even the poverty adds beauty to this city (the “favelas”, that are homes to many poverty stricken locals, rise up on the steep sides of these mountains/hills).

Once again, the fear of being robbed kept us from going out often. However, we did go to the beach again (lovely), we went out for a night of Tango again (frighteningly awful again), and we did manage to finally go to the top of Corcovado to see the impressive and gigantic statue of Christ the Redeemer. Since we took a local bus to get to the start-off point before bargaining ourselves a deal with a taxi driver, we decided against bringing our cameras. In hind-site (20-20), we definitely could have brought K’s point-and-shoot and we felt pretty stupid being the only tourists without cameras . And considering we weren’t followed or robbed, we wish we had brought Jorge’s camera. However, it was one of many times our mental pictures would have to suffice… and they did. We had a perfect day which entailed sun and clouds, but no low-lying clouds covering the mountain. This perfection was no luck. We actually walked to the beach first to look back at Corcovado to see if the clouds were closing in (virtually every day, the clouds eventually roll in to cover the mountain and rob tourists of their view of the city). This is not a cheap tourist attraction either, so when we heard that some backpackers had made the trip to the top only to have views of clouds, we decided we would make our on fate. Hence, when we saw how clear the view was, we all but ran to the bus stop to make our way there.

This time around the high and low points of Rio converged and were named:

Fidel

Julia

and Garfield who only came out at night when no one was around except K and K’s lap. Garfield seemed to be Julia’s brother. They were, as you can see, extremely adorable and they were the sweetest and most loving animals we had ever laid eyes upon. Fidel was apparently “rescued” by the owner of the hostel from the street, but he was left to be taken care of by K. When Fidel was crying all night after being left alone on the huge patio, who came and scooped him up and gave him a place to sleep in their room? That’s right. K did. When Fidel was crapping liquid puddles (that seemed to be of no major concern to the owner), who was making sure he drank enough water? That’s right. K did. Who spent all their free time petting and loving these animals? Once again, you’re right. K did. Thus after 5 days, you can imagine how upsetting and difficult it was for K to say goodbye to her new-found loves… We seriously would have taken them “home” with us if it had been at all possible and our goodbyes had K in a puddle of tears. They still bring tears to her eyes…