Day trip

I decided that, since it is a long weekend, I would give myself one day off from my studying up on the Tang and Song dynasties (!!!) and my reviewing of unit and lesson plans from grades 1-11. I went with some lovely new friends (introduced to me by my friend Michael, who many of you know about) to a little bitty town about an hour away via winding mountain roads called Choachí. The idea was to get out of the city and down to a lower altitude to warm up a little bit.

The day definitely got off to a very Colombian start. My friend Kelli had talked to the taxi company like three times on Thursday night and twice yesterday morning to ensure that we got a little van taxi since we were five people. At the appointed hour a hatchback showed up. Many phone calls later, Argemiro the taxi driver in a van that looked like a wind up-toy arrived. There was still only one bench of seats, but the size of the "van" permitted a stool to be placed in the back for a fifth person. Anyway, we ultimately had a really lovely, warm day, a great lunch outside, and a long walk through lovely scenery. This truly is a beautiful country. I hope you get to see it soon!



We had not gotten far outside of Bogotá, and had already driven past soldiers stationed along the road, when we pulled up behing a long line of cars at a dead stop. Not surprisingly, it was a military checkpoint. That wouldn't have been such a big deal, except that the word on the street was that the soldiers had found a package in a car that maybe was drugs. The bomb squad also showed up, so I guess that was a possibility too. When our driver looked into it, we were told the wait would be about a half hour. . . or two hours. We lucked out and got on our way pretty quickly.