Hey Papi, how do I eat this?

We went to Carlos' orchid farm on Thursday. It was beautiful. As we were walking through, Papi pulled a fruit off the tree. I'm not even sure what it's called. He pops one in his mouth and tells me to try it. I'm hesistant because I never know how it's going to taste. I ask, "Hey, Papi, how do I eat this?" and he said without a beat, "With that thing below your nose!" It was pretty funny. I tried it. It was good. It was sweet and sour. But that one little piece of fruit had 6 seeds in them! My other one only had 3. So it varies. Pretty good!

Earlier that same day we went to one of the bakeries. I haven't seen the bakeries in "full production" so we went and I took another tour of one of them to see stuff being made. Quite interesting. And we're coming out with some new stuff like sandwiches and stuff so we did some "tasting" and figuring out what we liked and what we didn't like. It took us a while to come to a head on the sandwich because it had too much cheese, and then we didn't like how it was presented but in the end, we all came to an agreement!

The orchids were beautiful! I was in HEAVEN when I saw them all. It's a beautiful farm Carlos has out there and wow so many to see!! You definitely can't find these in South Carolina or anywhere in the States for that matter.







Later on Thursday night I went out with my cousins. First Leo picked me up and we went and met 2 of his friends for pizza downtown. Very good! Then his sister, Elana and her boyfriend came and got me and we walked down a few bars to another place. Except this one was an Irish pub. A few of her friends that were there went to college in the US so I was able to talk to a few of them. And Elana's cousin from the other side of the family was there and she lives in Ohio so I talked to her most of the time. It was a fun night! They kept saying that they want to take me out one last time before I leave for the states..they've planned a few things...we'll see. Next time I'll have to take pictures!

We left Friday morning for Bogota. Ooooo what a trip. It was a beautiful ride but I was still getting over my cold or whatever I had. It should have been an 8 hour trip. Instead it took us almost 12 hours to get here. Needless to say, I'm not a big fan of Bogota. It's a city of 7 million people and it's Colombia's capital (it's like our Washington, D.C.). It's very...dirty. The other morning Papi and my dad were walking down the street to go to the Harley Davidson shop (yes, a Harley shop. You would know my Dad would find one here) and they said people were just throwing trash out their windows from the building. "A very dangerous place to walk!" Papi said. Anyways, back to my story, Luce, my grandmother's sister (whom we are staying with while here) gave us bad directions so we got lost on our way in. It was a Castro heated temper for about 3 hours. It was horrible. We couldn't find her street or anything.

Well then... there's this thing called "Pico y Placa." What it is that there are so many people here in Colombia and in their cities that depending on your numbers on your license plate are the times that you can't drive. For example, when we arrived we found out that if the last digit of your license plate was 6, 7, 8, 9, or 0, you couldn't drive between 5 and 7. So if you're on the road, you have to pull over and wait for your time to drive, literally. And if the police catch you driving, it's like a $100 or $200 fine. They have "Pico y Placa" to reduce the traffic on the road--but it's kinda of stupid. So we had to pull over and wait for 45 minutes for it to be 7 so we could start driving again. Then we started off again in search of Luce's apartment. Still couldn't find it. So we go this brilliant idea for my dad to get in the taxi, give him the address, and Papi and I follow them. Well the taxi driver didn't know where it was either so we kept going in circles. The driver was going to fast, Papi couldn't keep up....it was insane. Needless to say, we FINALLY go to Luce's apartment and I was in tears I felt so bad and so sick. I was tired, and achey, my throat hurt, and I was coughing. It was horrible.

Luce fixed me some of her "magical" tea to warm me up because it is cold here. And then she fixed me kiche and chicken broth. I ate as much as I could but I was so weak. So Dad ushered me to bed and I slept for 12 hours that night.

The next day, Saturday, I felt much better. Still kinda "blah" but better. I had a big breakfast because Friday I felt so bad I barely ate anything. Luce fixed me some croissants and cheese sticks from the bakeries, and some hot chocolate. Yum. I finally got the energy to get a shower and get dressed for the day.

We (Dad, Papi, Luce, and myself) ventured off to "Catherdral del Sal" which is a mountain of salt. I don't really know how to explain it. They mine salt here. For example, when you get there you see just see beautiful green mountain and hills. But underneath those hills and mountains are salt mines. And they have carved out crosses and such to be like an actual church cathedral from a l o n g time ago where the spanish actually went in these salt mines for church and weddings. It was beautiful. Each cross told a story of Jesus. They still mine salt from here too.

After we left there, we stopped and ate dinner at a old Spanish style house restaurant. I had pork and it was delish! But I'm telling ya, I can't wait to have a good ole hamburger, salad, and chicken (but not all in one meal).

Last night, my cousin, Andrea (I know you're probably thinking, good Lord Jess! HOw many cousins do you have?? I just keep meeting more and more) took me out with her boyfriend (of course) and some of her friends. We were supposed to go to a relaxing, chill, mexican restaurant. It was the opposite of that. You had to scream over one another to talk to each other. I enjoyed it was first but as the night wore on and as they drank some more, I got a little bored. I wasn't feeling good (again) and I was ready to be back at Luce's apartment. I finally got home around 1:30 and so grateful to be back in a cozy quiet element. I had fun, but I think I would have enjoyed it more if i wasn't so sick and I could actually speak a little bit of spanish.

And if one more person asks why I don't speak spanish or hear ,"English por favor! Habla no espanol!" I'm going to scream or hurt someone.

Today, Sunday, we went to the gold museum where a lot of gold has been recovered and restored from years and years and years ago from the Indians. It was pretty neat. But, Bogota and Colombia's Independence is this weekend and tomorrow so it was slammed pack where we were. It was kind of hard to get through the museum, but it was neat to learn about the Colombian history and their artifacts. I don't have those pictures uploaded quite yet so I'll do it later.


Cuy anyone??? It looks like rat doesn't it? Actually it's a type of guniea pig (did I even spell that right?) Yum Mom!

Tomorrow we're off to more of the southern part of Colombia for a few more days. I'll update later on. Keep us in your prayers. We have at least an 8 hour drive ahead of us tomorrow. And then we're heading back to Medellin (which I've come to appreciate) hopefully Wednesday or Thursday.

I miss everyone so much!! I can't wait to see everyone and eat some good ole southern food....