Chévere

ChE-ve-re.  This means cool, sweet, awesome here in Colombia. It´s a great word that is just one of many of the new Spanish words I´m slowly but surely collecting in my brain. Todo es chévere, todo bien.  Things are good.  I´m in Bogotá now.  This city is huge and crazy with large puffs of pure black exhaust at every intersection and I´m just barely starting to orient myself, just barely able to understand the grid of numbered calles (streets) that run East-West and the numbered carreras (avenues) that run North-South.  But I should back up a bit.  I´ve been in Colombia for exactly one month  !  ( Really? )  This is the first time I´ve ventured from the northern Caribbean/Atlantic coast, where I was the past month, to the heart of the country.  No more beaches and sticky humidity.  It´s goosebumps and blustery wind now up here at over 8,000 ft elevation.  I find myself gasping for breath mid stride just walking down the street every so often. It´s bizarre. And try swimming laps here (as I have done twice already since arrive in Bogotá, at this very ritzy social club- I´ll explain more later).  THAT´s hard.

Much has happened in the last month and I´d like to share the highlights (because some are really special) but I´d also like to make this blog about what I am up to now, what I´m seeing, thinking, feeling.  (I admit I was enjoying purposely not being connected to the computer for a while, and therefore not starting this blog until now)  Being in Bogotá is like entereing a new época so I´m going to try to be crafty and mix my present experiences in with what happened in first month here.  If it gets confursing just remember this rough rough rough outline of my time in Colombia:


*Arrive June 1st Cartagena, Colombia.  Meet up with Sarah
*Go further north up the Caribbean/Atlantic coast to the city of Santa Marta
*Sarah leave June 6th
*June 12th I continue further north up the coast to Palomino, into the state of La Guajira the northernmost department of Colomia and ALL OF SOUTH AMERICA
*I return to Santa Marta June 19th
*I arrive in Bogotá June 27th
*I will go to Medellín July 5th or so until July 29th when I fly to Quito, Ecuador.