Hola chicos,
I have quite a bit to write about in this blog as I just returned from a week-long trip to Colombia! Before I write about that, I want to update you all on my life since my last blog.
End of March/Early April
During the last weekend of March, I got the chance to go to the beach in Jaco! Jaco is one of the most popular beaches that people go to from San Jose, and my friends and I wanted to soak up some time at the beach. As is the theme of this trip, the beach was beautiful and the waves were great too!
I really had the time of my life playing in the waves and soaking up the warm sun. We had a really great lunch too that I enjoyed. I honestly just had a great day overall. We had to wake up very early to catch the bus, but we had just the right amount of time to enjoy the beach to then return back to San Jose.
Last Week of Classes
This week was quite an emotional one if I’m being completely truthful. A lot of change happened this week: many of my friends who were here for 12 weeks (I’m here for 17 weeks) left a week ago to head back to the United States. On top of this, my classes were finishing up, which meant I had several final projects to complete.
It really started to hit me that a lot of my friends were leaving when we went to the final goodbye dinner on Thursday (March 30th). It was our final, celebratory moment for our program to enjoy the time we had together and celebrate the past semester. The restaurant that we went to was absolutely stunning. It sat on top of the mountainside with a view that was absolutely stunning to witness. Enjoy the pictures I took from our dinner:
We all celebrated the last day by going out for a little bit and having fun at one of the nearby clubs. I got to see some other friends who didn’t go to the dinner while we went out, so I got to give them final hugs and thank them for making the time in Costa Rica just that much more special for me.
Once I got back to my homestay, I finished up packing and went to sleep in preparation for leaving early the next morning to Colombia!!
Friday (March 31st)
We left for Colombia this morning! We arrived in Cartagena and spent the afternoon getting ourselves settled at our hostel. We spent a considerable amount of time waiting to get through customs and traveling to our hostel.
One thing I immediately noticed about Colombia was the driving. I thought that Costa Ricans were aggressive drivers, but I quickly learned that Colombia was far worse than Costa Rica. I’d never seen such organized chaos in my life. You could not pay me anything to drive in Cartagena, because I’d be an absolute nervous wreck.
Once we got to the hostel, we went out to dinner and got to meet some of our hostel-mates. More on that in a bit.
Saturday (April 1st)
Today was our first full day in Cartagena, and we spent the day exploring the city and what it has to offer. We first went to a beach that was really beautiful. The locals were telling me how the beach was like their version of Miami, and I could absolutely see why. While I’ve never been to Miami, the buildings, atmosphere, and the weather all seemed very much like what I’ve heard about Miami.
After spending time on the beach, we did a walking tour of the city and got to see some notable landmarks on the tour. The city is super picturesque and was really beautiful to see with all of the old colonial architecture.
After our walking tour, we headed back to the hostel and got ready for our night out. We ended up going to a really awesome rooftop bar that was one of the highlights of the trip. The music was fun, the atmosphere was inviting, and we got to hang out with some of our hostel mates! Here’s a picture of my friends and I at this bar:
I want to take a moment to talk about our hostel mates. They were SO much fun to chat with and were honestly one of my favorite parts of the trip. The first group of people we met were some peace corps volunteers in Colombia who were happening to stay at the same hostel as us. I got to talk with one of them for a couple of hours about their experience, and it was so eye-opening to hear her explain her life and why she chose to do the Peace Corps. After talking with them, I have much more interest in potentially joining and serving, so we’ll have to see where life takes me.
I also want to shout-out the other hostel mates I met: Geraldo from Chile and Pablo from Argentina. I appreciated them both so much because, to be frank, I really didn’t have a lot in common with them. They’re both super athletic/into sports, straight, and very much “bros”. Yet the both took the genuine time to actually want to get to know me. Through my limited Spanish, we were able to communicate with each other and they adjusted the way they spoke to make sure I understood what they were saying. Both Chile and Argentina are known for having some of the hardest Spanish accents to understand, yet they both adapted the way they spoke to accommodate me, and did their best to communicate with me. We also went out with them and they both were SO much fun to dance with at the club. I just have a lot of respect for people who, even with someone like myself who is completely different from them, make the effort to talk with me and get to know me. These interactions honestly just fueled my passion for learning the language and served as a reset-button to help me realize why I decided to come here and spend time learning Spanish. I’m honestly so grateful I met all of them during my trip as they really were the inspiration that I needed to motivate me to practice as I continue to learn the language.
As you can imagine, we had a long night out, and we definitely had a slow Sunday after sleeping in.
Sunday (4/2)
Today, we did one of my favorite activities of the trip: the mud bath. We went to this old volcano that now has a mud bath in the middle of it. It took us about an hour to reach the volcano and we quickly realized, once we got there, that this tour we did was definitely more for locals than for gringos like ourselves. We had to walk barefoot across many pebbles and dirt and climb the splinter-producing stairs to reach the mud bath. It was worth it though – the mud felt so good and it was super relaxing to spend that time in there.
We spent another 30 minutes here getting rinsed off, dressed, and then departing back to Cartagena. We enjoyed the evening having dinner and celebrating the last night in Cartagena before we set off for Medellin the following day.
Monday (4/3)
Our flight left swiftly at 11:30AM and we headed to Medellin – yes, the Medellin that Pablo Escobar once ruled back in the 90’s. We arrived, got settled at the hostel, and then made our way to do an art and graffiti tour in Comuna 13 – a once guerra-dominated-now-tourist location that educates people about the neighborhood’s troubling past and how it has drastically changed over the last several years.
To put it simply, the government came in and killed a lot of the drug cartel head members. The government made peace agreements with other cartels to not bother the neighborhood anymore. After this was done in the 2000s, the government began to pour investments into the neighborhood by implementing escalators so that people living in the hillsides of these neighborhoods wouldn’t have to climb 500+ steps everyday just to reach their homes. As our tour guide explained to us, houses were cheaper the higher up they were, so many elderly folks who were poor would only be able to afford them and were forced to live high on the hillside. Because of this, it made leaving their houses super difficult because it meant having to make the climb back up.
I didn’t know what to expect with this tour before it started, but I was honestly so moved by it. The tour felt so authentic because our tour guide relayed stories from his family that lived through the trauma that ensued for so many years before.
Our tour guide took us to his grandma’s house who unfortunately passed away due to COVID in 2020. He told us the story of how she survived all of those years, and even lost a couple of her sons to the drug gangs. What made me the most emotional, however, was when he showed us a picture from his phone of her back in 2019. Throughout everything that she had experienced – the pain, torture, and the true ugliness of life, she still had a smile. She still was somehow happy, content, and just seemed like the warmest person in the world. After her passing in 2020, the community painted a mural on her house.
The tour also was so profound because it enabled me to see the complexity and juxtaposition of this neighborhood. For example, we passed by a little basketball court where some kids were running and playing, and our tour guide told us that that spot used to be the public execution location – front and center for the entire community to see to instill fear in the community.
Another example of this juxtaposition – as we climbed higher and higher on the mountainside, as I already mentioned, that’s where more and more people who lived in poverty, well, lived. Yet as we climbed, the views got even more breathtaking. We could see the entire city, and even were able to watch part of the sunset from the hill.
It just was so thought-provoking to think about how this community, who had undergone such awful trauma, also had this undeniable beauty to it that, until recently, no one besides the community had ever seen before. This tour truly opened my eyes to Colombia and just made me fall even more in love with the country, and I was so glad I decided to do this tour.
After we ended the tour, we headed back to the hostel and prepared for our long day ahead of us.
Tuesday (4/4)
Today was the day that we had planned our tour of Guatapé, the 2nd most colorful city in the world and the famous Guatapé rock.
We got up very early, and arrived to Guatapé around 10AM to begin our trek hiking up the rock. We didn’t realize it until we arrived, but we ended up hiking over 700+ steps to arrive at the summit of the rock. While we were definitely exhausted from our hike, the views were obviously stunning and amazing to see in person.
We spent a little bit at the top of the rock, and then made our way down before heading to the town of Guatapé. We arrived, and our tour guide told us that the town was actually inspiration for “Encanto”. After seeing the town for a bit, I could definitely see how the town had inspired that movie.
We spent a little bit of time here before we took a boat ride around the reservoir that can be seen in the photos above from the top of the Guatapé rock. We learned a bit more about Pablo Escobar and actually got to see one of his famous estates where he had many parties and such.
After our boat ride, we departed back to downtown Medellin, and recovered from our extensive day of hiking.
Wednesday (4/5)
This was our last full day in Medellin, and I unfortunately was beginning my bout with a cold that is still affecting me a bit to this day. We were all pretty tired and really didn’t have a ton of energy to do stuff, so we opted to explore the city of Medellin by using the metrocable – Medellin’s own public transportation.
If you would have told me that Medellin, in Colombia, had one of the best public transportation systems in the world, I don’t think I would have believed you. But after using it for several hours, and I can confidently say that Medellin has one of the best public transportation systems. It uses a mix of lightrails, trains, and (my favorite), gondolas to transport people to different neighborhoods across the city. We of course had to take the gondola since it seemed super cool, and I’m so glad that we did. Once we reached the final station at the top, we got this absolutely incredible view of the town of Medellin:
I can safely say that Medellin, Colombia, is one of, if not, the most beautiful cities that I’ve ever visited in my life. The city sits in a small valley, but a lot of the city is also built on the mountainsides. You can be walking in the middle of downtown, only to look up and see this absolutely gorgeous mountain with buildings sitting atop of it. It was so lush, green and literally felt like we were in a movie. The motto for the city is “the city with eternal spring” because the weather is always like spring with the greenery and mild temperatures. I couldn’t get enough of just how beautiful this city was, and taking this little tour on the gondola (which was their public transportation) was just the icing on the cake. I took pictures from the gondola also since the views from inside were also stunning as well.
After our time on the public transportation, we headed back to the hostel, had dinner, and packed up to leave Colombia the following day.
Thursday (4/6)
We headed back to Costa Rica from Colombia. My cold unfortunately got worse and I was very glad when we finally made it back to San Jose. I luckily took medicine before our flight, but even so, I was pretty miserable as we ascended and descended as my sinuses were trying to kill me.
Once I arrived at my homestay, I spent the rest of the night relaxing and resting.
Easter Weekend
I wish I had something exciting to report, but I spent the entire weekend recovering. This cold has really made me rest up, as even going on a walk was enough to tire me out and make me take a nap for a bit. I think our travel and my lack of sleep during our trip exacerbated whatever virus I got and my body has forced me to take time to rest and prepare for the beginning of my final Spanish class for April. I start that class tomorrow and I’m sure will have more updates for you all in bit. In the meantime, take care, and ¡pura vida!
Such an amazing experience buddy – so happy you are taking full advantage of your adventure!