A colleague today did ask me which I liked more; Mexico or Colombia. My answer was that, Mexico City was the best city out of all of them that I visited, but Colombia's beautiful views and lush nature made it pretty enchanting and a great place to visit. The task of squeezing in everything I could inbetween visits and fairs made for one friggin exhausting trip as well. (When is it not?)
I had to take a cab to the airport and while I was outside waiting, this squirrel ran over my foot and when I flinched, he freaked out and ran up the tree but wouldn't stop looking at me. Can you spot him? He's a boy LOL.
So when I arrived in Mexico City, the cab driver explained to me that even though Day of the Dead was the previous weekend, the celebrations last all month long in Mexico City. So, I still got to enjoy some of it with all the decorations and nighttime festivities and painted skulls.
There also happened to be a Night of Bikes one night, and then the Mexico City marathon another day, so there was a ton happening while I was there!
Hiked down to Coyocán neighborhood to see Frida Kahlo's home, La Casa Azul. I was able to watch the movie on the flight down, just in time!
The Zócalo, which Rob said often had a huge Mexican flag up, didn't while I was there, but there was still a frenzy of activity! Native dances and celebrations and a festival of flowers had it poppin'
Ancient ruins right in the middle of the historic area downtown, and there are bridges and walkways over the archaeological ruins of the temple grounds
I used the Mexico City subway and bus system a lot. Fun fact: it's the cheapest system in the world! I also really like their map method of icons and colors. There was one really long subway station I walked through to change trains, and it was an entire planetary theme with artifacts and pictures and facts of our galaxy and planets. Then, in one turn of a corner, it went completely dark but was lit up on the ceiling and walls with stars and constellations and blacklights. It was really cool!
Spotted in Mexico City. Hope that dog can hang on!
Due to I have no idea what, I was trying to take the bus to a museum before my work event on Sunday morning and before we even went one stop, the police came on and kicked everyone off and I had to just walk the rest of the way. It wasn't horrible since I walked through a very nice park and passed some pretty sights, like this Gandhi statue and memorial
The anthropological museum in Mexico City is seriously TOP NOTCH. It was so impressive and so chock-full of amazing pieces!! I regretted I didn't have more time there but had to skidaddle to my work fair in the afternoon. Still got to see a lot though!
It worked out that I had Veteran's Day as a holiday. Of course, instead of resting and relaxing, I hauled my ass out to the Teotihuacán ruins outside of Mexico City. They came very highly recommended. They definitely were beautiful and impressive, but I preferred the Xunantunich ruins in Belize!
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| Colorful hillside houses on the drive out of Mexico City |
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| Cornerwork was impressive |
After Mexico City came the flight to Calí, Colombia. I have never been anywhere in Colombia before this so I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. It was pretty beautiful though. Everywhere I went in Colombia was lush, and surrounded by hills and low clouds.
But... the first introduction? The drug dogs! Wouldn't expect any less but they were all over, and they got to jump up on the luggage conveyor to sniff all the bags. The dog came up and sniffed my leg and I freaked out LOL.
Below was my view from my hotel room.
I went out to explore a little and on a map there was noted "El Gato del Rio" not far from me, so I went to check it out. I was not disappointed!
That gato del rio was just the beginning! The whole park was a park of cats all colored and decorated in different ways. Good kitties!
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| The cat of all cats LOL |
The day of my work event I didn't go out, but I had breakfast out by the pool and just loved listening to all the tropical sounds. Colombia is the kind of place with lush, rainforest greenery everywhere, with colorful songbirds all around and big butterflies everywhere (as you will later see...) and I was serenading by a blue and white bird that made the morning so nice.
Beautiful songbirds over breakfast in Calí
Our event was the top floor of the hotel with a nice view of the hillside. This hill has three crosses at the top that in the evening are lit up purple (or were while I was there) and is one of the sights of Calí.
Andrea was a former student of ours who helped me at the event. She was so wonderful! I loved having her help and it's always nice to have someone with me to pass the time!
After Calí came Bogotá. It is... mostly just a big ass city. I wasn't so impressed. But, as with Calí, there were lush hills all around that make the scenery quite pretty. And here, their drug dogs (everywhere from the airport to hotels to public streets) seemed to be mostly golden retrievers! I thought that was interesting.
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| A photo from the taxi leaving the airport and headed to my hotel |
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| Ajiaco! Andrea told me I had to get it somewhere. It is a very traditional Colombia soup, very lime and cilantro flavored and it was DEEEELISH! |
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| Morning view from my hotel |
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| Other side of the morning view from my hotel |
So, normally these events I go to are held either in convention centers, expo halls, or, most often, in hotel ballrooms. But, this was a special one. They built us tented spaces in the middle of a park housing a museum, and it was historic, cute and beautiful! Everyone loved it.
Went to the restroom and after I closed the door I noticed the GIANT moth/butterfly in the corner. (Hand for scale). It was huge, with a wingspan bigger than my hand! That stall ended up not having any toilet paper in it though so I left the little guy undisturbed.
Bogotá had a few interesting architecture buildings around... there was a row that looked very German, almost like the Roman quarter in Frankfurt, and then this building too... the bricks give it a German appearance but really it has more French qualities to it. Still, it was interesting to see out of nowhere.
Bogotá was tiring, but I did make friends with some of the other exhibitors. I met a Spanish lady who lives works and recruits for a university in the UK who was cracking me up and showing me the best SNL sketches. She also spoke with Britishisms, but imagine hearing "I've better nick some biscuits" with a Spanish accent. It was crazy! Then, I met a lady from Northern Ireland who used to live and work in South America but was back in Belfast. The whole first half of our conversation on the drive to the venue she thought I was a different recruiter from Canada LOL but we figured it out.
Some evenings, I entertained myself by FaceTiming with Jayna and AJ, Marco Polo'ing with friends and Kathleen and Tawny, or making videos like this to send to people...
...Name this movie!
And after Bogotá was the final stop... Medellín... and boy that's when all my patience got lost!
My flight out (which ultimately was maybe 30 minutes long... you CAN bus but because of all these cities's position high in hills and mountains, it makes it difficult and flying is usually the preferred method) was delayed about 4 hours. No one spoke English. (Good God when will I learn Spanish already?!) It sucked. Then I had issues in the tiny airport and getting transportation to my hotel after all that. It worked out though, so I'll leave that in the past.
To get to Medellín from the airport, you have to drive through an insanely long tunnel (I'm talking 20 minutes long) and then you emerge overlooking the city down in the valley. It was crazy beautiful!
The place was already all decked out for Christmas, and yes, I'm talked frosted pine, holly and peppermints, just like we do in California which is equally ridiculous given our hot, beach environment too.
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| Hotel pool! |
I wandered around my neighborhood a bit in the day before my event. It was, obviously, humid and somehow I really didn't pack very well so I didn't last long, but saw a few things.
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| Big butterfly! Mariposa grande! (See, I speak someeeeee Spanish) |
So after this very long exhausting trip, of course the fun happens on my VERY LAST DAY.
Back in March of this year, during my Morocco trip, I met some awesome recruiters, who I've continued to see on the road. Well Melanie actually followed through on her dream that she told me about while in Morocco, and quit her job and has been traveling South America for the past few months and will continue to do so through next summer! So, it happened that we overlapped in Medellín on my last day. So, I got up early to meet up with Melanie and her friend Lily traveling with her. I had breakfast at my hotel, then walked to their hostel about 15 minutes away, then we walked to the Zoo, then walked to a plaza for some snacks then I went back to my hotel to grab my bag and head to the airport! Here were some of our adventures...
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| Right next to their hostel |
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| I miss staying in hostels! Screw Hilton and Hyatt, I might need to stay in one of these next time. They're so much more fun! |
What kind of dinosaur turkey animal is this??
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| Seriously. WTF is this. Half turkey, half emu, half dinosaur... |
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| I was surprised there weren't more llamas! |
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| Beautiful lion. Yes, it was a little depressing. But, we did see him scratching his paws on a tree and then rubbing up against it like a big ol' kitty. So that was cute. |
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| How are peacocks so dang beautiful?! |
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| Sleeping zorro! |
Monkeys gone wild!
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| Loved the coloring of this royal toucan. Yes, the chainlink fence IS depressing. I know. |
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| The butterfly atrium |
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| More than one butterfly kept landing on Melanie's purse trying to get nectar out of it! |
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| Spotted kitty! |
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| Me being born as a turtle LOL |
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| Almost there... |
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| Hello world |
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| Cool street art |
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| Nearby plaza |
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| These corn arepas ERMERGERD! One with cheese and one with condensed milk. They were everything. Finish it off with sparkling water and- perfection! |
It was also my first time utilizing LAXit, but considering it was like 11pm on a Wednesday night, I had no problems at all, so hard to say if it's a good system or not. But it was fine.
I then proceeded to leave my bag of souvenirs in the taxi that dropped me off, but can you believe I was able to track them down?? Yep, and got the taxi driver to drop them off at my friends' mom's office in Los Angeles. They were not worth the $25 in cab fare I had to pay for that but it was more the principle of getting them back after carrying them so far as losing them so close to the end!
Well friends, so happy to be home for a few months now. Next trip, which is not finalized, won't be until February. I'm excited for this short week to have Thanksgiving, and clean up the house and garage, decorate for Christmas, celebrate my upcoming anniversary (!!!) and chill out after a crazy busy 11 months of 2019 so far!
