Coffee Country

After Bolivia, we headed to Cusco, Peru to see that city and Machu Picchu. We had already visited Peru, but left Cusco for later because it was rainy season earlier and the embassy had also been making noise about some Maoist Rebels being in a bad mood. Last time I visited Machu Picchu on an earlier trip, it had been midday and it was packed, so this time we decided to take one traveler's advice and stay in the town at the base of the ruins and get the first bus up at 5:30am. "You will practically be the only ones there", she said. Well at 5:30am, we were joined by several bus loads of tourists also hoping to be the only ones there. Regardless, you can catch the sun rising over the place at that time. It was all very beautiful. If only I had been aware of the smudge covering a fourth of my camera lens. 

The last country on our South American itinerary was Colombia. We've particularly been looking forward to Bogota because my cousin, Mom's sister's son, lives there with his family. He's my age and we have seen each other on and off over the years, but I had never met his wife and six year old son. We had a great visit, and we found that six year olds tend to speak slowly and clearly which was a welcome change from the rapid-fire, no need for spaces between words, Spanish everyone else seems to speak around here. Colombia has had quite the dramatic transformation over the last fifteen years or so and it's much safer than it was. Bus rides between cities that used to be doable only escorted by military vehicles are now commonplace, and we were able to visit cities we wouldn't have before. 

Alex and I doing a little off-road action with my cousin, Martin. 

This place was really interesting, a large mine converted to a chapel. 

Medellin, the second biggest, is one such city. We did a walking tour, and several times our guide would stop us to mention that this clean, modern, square we were looking at where you might see business people having lunch was very recently a real sketch area and a haven for all sorts of crime. Bogota  and Medellin were the most modern, and US-like cities we have seen on this trip with their high rises, big box stores and American retail brands. But nearby are some timeless colonial towns like Villa de Leyva and Solento. 

Cartagena, a Carribean beach town on the coast

Besides drug running and kidnappings, people also think coffee when thinking about Colombia and fortunately that association is still accurate. As I write this, we are in the heart of it, on the west side of the country near the city of Armenia. Coffee plantations are all around. Today we visited a coffee themed amusement park. The theme didn't carry through very consistently, but the first half of the park took you through the whole process from growth through production. I didnt realize that after picking the beans, they must get through two layers of husks before they get to the seed which is really what they roast. After the log flume today, we decided we will have to visit Kings Dominion when we get back. Amusement parks in South America just can't come close to what we have back home. 

This valley has the tallest palm trees in the world, 60meters

Speaking of back home, I think we are ready to come back (little over two weeks). Yesterday, when we boarded a rickety microbus, a couple teenagers also boarded and began signing folk songs accompanied by their boom box as backup. This is of course is one of infinite ways vendors earn money on these buses, but this time we were grouching at how loud they were while if it had been four months ago, we probably would have found it kind of quaint and typically (fill-in country name)ian. We still enjoy what we are seeing, but we have started the "it's nice, but nothing like ..." sort of dismissal. Jaded travelers I suppose. I think part of it is that Colombia just doesn't offer as much for tourists as other places in South America. Somehow recently this trip has informed a now lengthy list of things we want to do when we get home: blueberry picking, BBQ, go to a diner, Thai food, Montgomery County Fair, picnic at Lake Frank, National Arboretum etc. 

After South America, we will have a week at a resort in Acapulco (thank you Living Social), and then a week in San Francisco to go to my buddy's wedding. My next entry will be the wrap up of the trip including the highlights and all the sagacious wisdom garnered. As Ira Glass says, STAY WITH US.