Colombia: the Final Chapter (this year)

I’ve hit the final destination. Until December, I’m renting a room in Bogotá’s historic, colorful, charming yet dirty downtown center, in a neighborhood called La Candelaria. A long hallway connects my room to five others, occupied by one Italian DJ, two Colombian EMTs, and two other girls I have yet to properly meet. With the bunch of them, plus the owner, Blanca, who lives behind us, and another Italian, Miguel, who runs the adjoining restaurant (complete with secret door that connects to our hallway), there is always activity happening, and always music blasting. When my room starts to feel too small, I sneak into the restaurant to hang out with Miguel – the most stereotypical Italian I’ve ever met with his LOUD voice and over-expressive gestures – and his two waitresses. Hopefully picking up some cooking tricks.

I try to avoid spending too much time in my room, because I’m getting what I pay for, which is not much. Since I’ve been to Bogotá before, I’ve already hit some main attractions during past visits – the Plaza Bolivar, for example, and the Botero Museum (both great). Besides tourist stuff, though, just walking around the city makes for a decently entertaining afternoon, especially in my neighborhood. La Candelaria is backpacker central, overflowing with hostels and all their supplementary perks: restaurants, bars, internet cafes, laundry services, etc. This works to my advantage because I have everything I need at my fingertips, and there’s never a shortage of random foreigners to talk to. Unfortunately there’s also no shortage of pickpockets ready to target careless travelers. But I’m not terribly worried.

So far, the best moment hostelworld has yielded happened last Friday night, my second night in town. After the bars shut down, I ended up in a hostel down the street with two Irish backpackers and a Colombian ex-helicopter-pilot-turned-musician. Picture: Four people in a tiny cell of a room. Colombian guy singing and playing guitar, Irish guy joining in on his little Irish flute, both of them improvising, working out the music together as they went. Irish girl and me swaying, humming, singing along to the songs we knew, trying to learn the ones we didn’t. I don’t expect I’ll ever again hear a traditional Irish flute accompany an acoustic ballad sung in Spanish.

This past week, I also got to reunite with a few Colombian friends who used to study with me in DC. One of them took me with her parents to a park outside the city called Panaca – like a glorified farm, where you can see pig races, horse shows, etc, and pet the animals, or even just sit and enjoy the gorgeous mountain view. This is where I got my first taste of panela, made of dehydrated sugar cane juice and used in teas and other sweet dishes, especially in different corn and/or dairy combos. I’m seeing that food-wise, where most Mexicans would use chili, Colombians often use either sugar or butter. Score one, Colombia.

And finally, to bring some productivity to the scene, last Wednesday I started my internship with Witness for Peace. In brief, Witness works on social justice issues in Latin American countries, specifically with relation to U.S. foreign policy. In Colombia, this includes a wide variety of complicated problems that I could spend days explaining. My first day of work alone included a meeting with RECALCA – a coalition of NGOs working against free trade agreements in Colombia, and a second meeting with a woman named Daira who was forcibly displaced from her home in the southwest of the country, and who is about to travel with Witness on a speaker’s tour in the States. She was outstanding.

All together, a good start to what will hopefully be a great experience. I’m excited to see what unfolds!