Trips and Finances.

Andrea and I got back Yesterday from a little vacation on the coast. I found a last second air deal for about a third it's normal price, and during absolute peak season. It's the golden rule of travelling, less planning often means more fun.

Cartagena was once again a beautiful city with really aweful people overall. It was funny when the exact same guys approached me as they approached me two weeks earlier. I was able to stay in Andrea's hotel that was covered by her job, and sleeping in Cartagena is always lovely with ac.

The next day we headed off to the Islands for her work. In the boat, we missed a big sea turle by less than five feet. It would have killed all of us but especially the driver, who works on protecting them.

We stayed at a hotel runs by some natives of the Islands. These people usually die of old age. The owner, 'Cuco', was a 65 year old man, who could probably beat me in every single athletic competition.

The Islands are like the Caribbean you dream of, clean water, friendly people, good food and hammochs. The hotel was like a ranch on the water, with simple huts with beds and hammoch houses. The place is run by a few families, so you can talk to their cute kids or catch the parents gently swinging their babies in the hammochs.

We got a tour of the area on foot and boat from Diego, a guy from Periera(inland Colombia) who works with natural parks there. He set up a pretty cool program that trained the young natives there how to be tour guides for the islands. He described how he had to teach them the most basic things at times, things that tourists would expect but wouldn't come naturally to the natives. Things like not being making people over an hour late, and other things.

At some point during the training, he had some grant money to take them to Bogota. It sounded like an exciting first trip, seeing there capital city for the first time. During our walk around the island, night fell, so we ended up walking back in the dark. It hadn't rained recently so there were no mosquitos, and the tempurature is perfect at night. Everyone we encountered on the path knew Diego even though he wasn't originally from there. It was admirable to see one person make such a difference.


The next day, Andrea and I caught a boat to an oceanarium on another island. That was pretty incredible seeing trained sharks and Dolphins doing double front flips. I don't know anyone who wouldn't enjoy watching a dolphin jump 15 feet out of the water. The Oceanarium owner also had a big bird zoo on another Island. He collects birds from all over the world and tries to support their rare species'

If the trip wasn't good enough already, then we went diving. I hadn't dived since I got my certification two years ago, and Andrea hadn't ever. Andrea did a mini course and I did a review and one dive to start out. After lunch, we met up and did the second dive together with the group. It was great seeing her underwater, she was the only one in her mini-course who had the courage to go down.

It was the most amazing diving I've had(only 5 dives in my life probably). We started near an underwater cliff, and our descent was along this cliff covered in coral. It's an amazing, surreal, and powerful feeling. I was pointing my head down and just flying slowly down this cliff. I eventually got about 80ft deep which was a little more than I am technically supposed to with my certification.

Basically, I can only describe it as flying. At times, I felt so confortable that I had to consciously remind myself that I was underwater, so that I wouldn't "take a break" from that annoying thing in my mouth. A majority of the time I spent examining Coral closely, chasing schools of fish, or just floating around in wierd positions. My diving partner, Cara from Minnesota, told me jokingly "your air might last longer if you didn't do handstands the whole time." Andrea had a great time, and the dive shop owner personally took care of her the whole time.

Like always, I got sun burnt, no matter how hard I tried not to. We limped around Cartagena on Friday night and Saturday morning, taking turns complaining. We got on the same flight and got back to Bogota. I laid down on Andrea's bed and within moments I fell asleep for two hours.

Tomorrow I start formal Spanish classes, and I am excited for it. These last four months have been productive, I am speaking Spanish at an Advanced level so the time has not been wasted. Nevertheless, there have been a few too much time spent alone and too many days where my students cancel on me and I am left with nothing to do.

I am ready to start the next chapter of living here and I hope it is full with numerous things on my to-do list. I never thought I'd appreciate routine, but four months without a solid one is enough. Tonight, the streets were nearly empty, and I took a bus to the grocery store. I bought some tasty breakfast items for tomorrow and it's actually exciting to think that tomorrow I actually have to be somewhere tomorrow, whether I want to or not.