We are here in Popayan for the night. Our first night not on a bus for 5 nights! Ben managed to upload pix to Picasa---http://picasaweb.google.com/brimlow.benjamin/SudAmerica2. Hopefully there will be many more to come, but this brings you up to date on some goings on up to the night we left Bucaramanga for Bogota.
Some interesting things about our trip last night/this morning:
-The police stopped us again and searched our bags. There are a lot more soldiers on the road in the Southwest of Colombia. These, once again, are the good guys making sure we are not bad guys. Here is one of our friends......
-A lot more farmland down here in the southwest.
-I find the graffiti in both Colombia and Venezuela interesting. It is usually politically minded or love notes. I would have to say Venezuela had much more dramatically political graffiti, but here is some interesting stuff from today...
Other random information I have neglected to comment on since I am always in such a hurry when Im posting...
-The time difference in Colombia is 2 hours (from CA or WA), but the time difference in Venezuela is 2.5 hours. This is really weird.
-In Barquisimeto, they served us peanut butter for breakfast!!! yaaay.
-Accents are really interesting in both Ven and Col. In Ven, they don{t pronounce their r{s, and in Colombia, they don{t pronounce their d{s. In Colombia, [ratito[ or similar words are said [Ratiko[. In Col, soda pop is gaseosa, but in Ven it is refresco. Sorry about the fact that this computer has inaccesible quotation marks...
-Venezuela has awesome bread.
-The main thing to serve with meals (equivalent of serving tortillas) is the Arepa, which can come in varying forms of tastiness, ranging from greasy-napkin-like flavor to a pancake. The ones in Bogota that we first got nearly turned us off completely because they so accurately fit the greasy-napkin or raw pork rind description, but we soon discovered that homemade ones can actually be very yummy. They can be dipped in soup, stuffed with something that resembles cheese, or eaten plain. It is very funny to hear the people describe their disgust for Mexican tortillas, because honestly they aren{t THAT different.
-Colombian food is SALTY.
-The Prez of Venezuela makes sure everyone remembers who is in power on a daily basis. For instance, hopefully someone will post a pic of the common posters around Venezuela saying SI CON CHAVEZ, or his motto, Patria, Socialismo, o Muerte. It was interesting to come back into Colombia and feel the absence of such a political push for revolution. Some of our group were hoping to get Chavez tshirts but we have not been doing the typical touristy shopping, so we weren{t able to....I think the only thing we bought in Venezuela was bread and water???
-Buses here are VERY cold. They boast of [Fuerte AC[ on the sides of bus and we heartily agree. We had to pack for tropical, hot, humid weather for the Caribean...plus an extra change of subzero-appropriate apparel.
-Oh, and the last thing, just out of interest. THERE ARE NO OTHER AMERICAN TOURISTS. Bob wants to add that dropping off Pedro at the airport, we were the only non-Latino people, and this was in the entire International terminal at that!!! However, its interesting that in Bucaramanga, which is pretty far away from the main tourist drag, nobody really thought it was too extraordinary that 11 gringos were walking thru town.
Ok, that{s all for now. We are having fun, and we are Lord willing heading for Pasto tomorrow for a couple of nights. Thanks for prayers!
1 comment:
Good to know all is well! I just found your blog and will be checking back often for updates. You're in our continued prayers. Glad things are going well, it's always fun to see the pictures when you can!!
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