Colombia

La Candelaria
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

What a beautiful country! I took some really amazing pictures from the plane. The landscape is a patchwork of different shades of green spread over mountains. You can check them out at www.homepage.mac.com/janerubio/PhotoAlbum7.html.

After arriving and waiting a couple hours at the airport, I successfully met up with my friend María, who flew in from Miami. Two of her aunts were waiting for us at the airport. They were super nice. As we were driving into the city, I was struck by how calm the place seemed. It´s hot in Caracas right now, and the city is crowded, dirty, and completely loco. Bogotá is high up in the mountains with cooler air. The buildings are shorter, and they have this old, colonial style to them. It´s a big contrast to the modern concrete jungle of Caracas (though Caracas isn´t anywhere near as ugly as Manhattan or Sao Paulo). Also in contrast to Caracas, the city police seems to work. People obey traffic laws because they actually have to pay heavy fines.

When we got to Tía Ilva´s place, she offered us tinto, a little cup of black coffee. It was a bit strong for me. The next morning, her aunt Amparo took us up to Montserrate, the famous church on the mountain. It´s lovely, but unfortunately I started feeling sick. For some reason, I wasn´t really thinking about the altitude, and it wasn´t until I got back that I realized that I got the sorroche real bad. I now know that the symptoms of altitude sickness include nauseau and vomiting. I thought I had eaten some bad tuna in Maiquetia, the Caracas airport.

So unfortunately, I couldn´t eat very much the first couple days, which is pretty tragic for me. I wanted to be eating all the cheeses and the desserts they make with this pre-cheese stuff and candied pears and other fruits. I still had a little arequipe (a kind of dulce de leche) with brevas (prunes). But after the first two days, I was back in business. I ate ajiaco, a soup with lots of yummy stuff in it, and partook in a bandeja de gallina. When we went to Gaivota, I ate hot chocolate with white cheese in it, almohabanas, rolls made with cheese, chicha, a fermented corn drink similar to chicha in Peru, but totally different from the chicha in Caracas. At the market, I tried granadilla, a fruit that you open and has seeds in this gooey stuff, what Pili and her cousins used to call mocos de elefante, elephant boogers.

As for the safety issues. . . I felt just fine. Actually much more relaxed than in Caracas. People say the situation is fine. They can travel on highways. Yes, there is still a war going on, but the situation is completely different than what it was in the early 90´s. But it was interesting having to open the trunk of the car to have it searched by armed security guards to use the parking lot at one of the nicer malls.

And everyone was so nice. María´s family is so welcoming. She has tons of cousins and we visited them around the city. One night, they threw a party for an aunt who had arrived from the U.S. She hadn´t been back in 15 years. A trío came to the house (the Colombian version of mariachis--and I didn´t sing Cielito Lindo with them, but I did sing along to La Bamba, it was about the only song I knew). Friends and family were there to welcome her. I felt really grateful to be part of the celebration.

I got to meet Liza´s family. Her dad came by with Ponchys, her little 8th grade brother, and took us around. We met her grandmother, who´s super cute. And we met up with Oscar´s brother, Pablo, in La Candelaria, a historic district of colonial buildings. We also met Oscar´s former roommate, an American missionary, who showed up 4 months ago in Bogotá, is studying Spanish, and moves around like a pez en el agua in Bogotá. I felt so welcomed by all the family of my friends. They all really wanted to pick me up and show me around.

Colombians are very proud of their country. They should be. I had some contact info of my grandfather´s family who my aunt and grandma visited 20 years ago. None of the names or phone numbers worked. I didn´t have time to go knocking on doors. I was just there for 5 days. But I plan on going back next summer. Since I have to go back to Texas for my brother´s wedding, I´ll continue to work on the family history research in Colombia and Venezuela.