Tonight is our last night in Colombia and we are all ready to get home. The past three nights we have been in Bogota, and between the travel and being in another new unfamiliar place, someone has been a little cranky and irritable. Me. Actually we are all doing well but I have to say that I really can't wait to wake up in my own house and see my dog after a month. Tomorrow morning we leave the hotel at 6:00 a.m. and if everything works well we will arrive in Chicago at 6:15 p.m., where my folks will pick us up. It is going to be a long day but it will be well worth it to get back.
This afternoon I put a load of laundry in the washing machine at our hotel and went to put it in the dryer about an hour later. When I got to the laundry room, a lady that works here motioned to me that she had already put it in the dryer for me. I said "Muchos gracias" and started to walk out. She stopped me and said something in Spanish, that as usual I didn't understand. She had been doing the dishes and had on yellow dish gloves. She held a hand out to me palm down the way a lady might if she expects you to raise her hand and kiss it. I didn't know what to do and she repeated the phrase and again I didn't understand. So I took her wrist and started to raise it to my face when I noticed that her name was written on the back of her dish glove and that was what she had been trying to tell me all along. So then I tried to play it off by shaking her wrist like a handshake while her hand flopped around. She gave me a look I've seen time and again the past month and I walked away. I'd really like to think that will be the last time I make a complete jack-ass out of myself in Colombia, but there is always the airport tommorrow morning. It will be nice to get home where everyone already knows that I'm socially inept without having to surprise strangers with that fact on a daily basis.
Almost home to Wisconsin, Paul

Finally in Bogota

Originally we were supposed to arrive in Bogota on Sunday, but after waiting several hours in the Pasto airport, and another 45 minutes in line at the check in counter, we learned the airport had closed and there would be no more flights the rest of the day. I found this all out thanks to a very kind and helpful young woman who just happened to be next to me and spoke English! She also helped us get a taxi back to the hotel for the night and told us what time we should be there Monday morning (7:30).

So we get up early Monday morning to gather our stuff and meet the taxi downstairs around 6:15 and drive to the airport. After we check in, we wait another 4 hours through delays, wondering if we are ever going to get out of there. Finally about 11:30 we see people lining up to walk out to the plane.....hallelujah!

We were concerned about how Sofia would be on the plane ride as this was the first time, but she was an absolute angel. I can't imagine it will go the same way on our flight home as it is considerably longer.

After we arrived in Bogota, we were taken to the B&B and they had a delicious lunch ready for us. We had a couple hours then to get settled in our room before heading to the appt. with the embassy doctor. This is the 2nd dr. appt. we have taken Sofia to, and we are pretty certain she just doesn't like going to the dr. Everything seemed fine at first, she was really good in his office while we were talking. Then he said something to her, "Como estas, Sofia" I think, and she just erupted. The screaming, kicking and crying went on throughout the entire exam, or what the dr. was able to do, until he stopped and gave her a lollipop.

After that we had to run and get some photos taken for her visa and our return plane tickets. Yes, this means we have a return date! Thursday!!!

Today we had to go to the US Embassy and apply for her visa. We were told this could take a few hours and to be prepared. It must have been our lucky day again, because we were in and out in one hour! We were told to just come back tomorrow at 3:00 to pick up the visa and then we are done!

Thursday will be a very long day since we have to leave for the airport by 6:00am and arrive in Chicago about 6:15 pm (if there are no delays). It seems strange now that this part of our journey is coming to an end. You wait and wait, and before you know it, it's over. We have made so many memories here, and there are things we are already missing, but we are also excited about getting home, seeing family and friends, having everyone meet Sofia, and starting our new life as a family at home.

Iron Maiden, Rodents for Lunch, Protests Down Town and Birthday Cake in the Bodega

Everywhere we've gone in Pasto we see kids wearing Iron Maiden t-shirts. Other than one Nirvana shirt we haven't seen any other American or British band t-shirts at all. Iron Maiden was one of the few bands that would play South America, and in the 1980's, Eastern Europe. They have die hard fans in countries that heve never even heard of most other popular bands. Being a huge Iron Maiden fan myself I thought this was pretty cool.

A couple of days ago Erin and I tried Guinnea Pig for lunch. It is a specialty mainly in Pasto and eaten usually on special occasions like weddings. The hotel owner Patrice ordered it to be delivered for us and it took over an hour because they start with the Guinnea Pigs live and must butcher and then prepare them. It came in styrofaom takeout containers and was in 5 pieces. Two of the pieces were side pieces with the ribs and legs, two must have been the back haunches and the last piece was a mystery. The meal also came with a bag of small baked potatoes (good) a dish of neon orange peanut tasting hot sauce (O.K.) and strangely, a bag of popcorn with what I assume were Guinnea Pig livers on top.(yuck). The livers seemed big for Guinnea Pigs and I only tasted a little of one, not being much a fan of any kind of livers. The popcorn was good though. We had bought barbecue sauce to dip the meat in and all in all it was pretty bad. It was deep fried, so to a certain extent it tasted like deep fried anything, but the meat itself wasn't too good. It was dark, stringy and greasy with a thick rind of fat on the outside. It was much like rabbit or squirrel. Erin hardly had any of hers and I ate about half of mine. I'm glad I tried it though, I'll try anything different to eat at least once especially if, like Guinnea Pig, you can only get it someplace like Pasto.

Yesterday (Friday) was a holiday, being the first of May. I'm not sure why it was a holiday but the three of us set off on foot downtown as usual. The whole way down it was very quiet with many stores being closed and very little traffic on the streets or sidewalks. When we got downtown we saw a parade coming around the corner. We thought "Cool a holiday parade." Then I saw the first "float." It was a donkey with a big hat on its back that looked an awful lot like an Uncle Sam top hat and was pulling a cart that had a big paper mache person wearing a poncho with CIA painted on the back. Uh-oh. We stayed where we were on a corner with the parade coming from our right and then turning right, heading away from us. There were lots of flags and banners and people with megaphones leading call and response chants that we couldn't understand. From the bits and peices of slogans on the banners we could make out, we figured it was a labor/anti-capitalism/anti-government kind of deal. While the people didn't seem overtly angry or aggressive, it didn't quite have the feel of say, a St. Patricks day parade either. After about 10 minutes of watching and snapping pictures we turned the corner right, walking into the oncoming parade so we could go to the park. The sidewalk was jammed and we were nearly at a standstill. I saw a group of anti-faciast skinheads with big flags and the full combat boot suspender gear so I took a picture. The anti-faciast , or non-racist skins are generally pretty cool, if for no other reason that they hate Nazi skinheads. As soon as I took the picture about 6 or 7 teenagers with their faces painted like skulls came charging out of the parade and surrounded me. They were carrying home-made cardboard t.v. cameras and microphones. They put their fake cameras right in my face and jammed a fake microphone up to my mouth. They seemed to be smiling but maybe it was just the skull facepaint. One of them said something to me and I said "no Espanol." He spoke in broken English and asked what I thought of the parade. I told him I didn't understand what it was about and he replied "These are the working class, the poor people." I said "Bien", (good). Then one of the guys with the fake camera yelled "Speak English!" at me. This seemed to draw a lot of attention from the rest of the parade and it was a little uncomfortable to say the least. If I was by myself I wouldn't have cared. I'm confident almost to the point of arrogance of my ability to be in control of almost any situation I'm in, and if things went really South at least it would make for an interesting blog post. But seeing as how I had my wife and 2 year old daughter with me I turned to Erin and said, "We better get back to the corner until this chills out a bit." Also by now the parade had moved on and while the people in the front seemed to have more of a political air about them, the back of the parade had the distinct feel of hooliganism. As we were trying to make our way back to the corner, there was a large group in the parade with combat boots, black shirts and pants, and all carrying bid red communist flags. If you were raised in the Reagan 80's, height of the cold war like me, seeing a bunch of hammer and sickle flags with Sylvester Stallone nowhere in sight to sort things out can be a little disconcerting. Especially when they break into a chant where America is the only word of which you can make out. I highly doubt they were chanting about their love for America. Behind the communists was a group wearing masks. Not festive "Carnivale" style masks, but rather "Now they can't see our faces when we start to smash things" kind of masks. Just as we got back to the corner a loud explosion went off down the street and the parade took off running and cheering towards it. We waited a few minutes until most of the people were past us and then went back towards the park. All that was left of the parade was a line of about 75 semi trucks without trailers. We walked 2 blocks past these trucks all of which were blairing their horns non stop. There were concrete buildings several stories tall on both sides of the street and the noise was deafening. But we got to the park and had some fun for a few hours. For the rest of the day you could hear the trucks horns all over the city. When we went out today there was grafitti spray painted all over the fronts of nearly every shop and building, and I felt bad for the shop owners. Last night Erin got on-line and translated some of the slogans we saw on banners and also some of the literature people handed us at the parade. Some of it says, "International day of the working class", "Against facism, for democracy", and "Defend the rights of the people, organize popular protest."

Last evening I went around the corner from our hotel to a little shop (bodega) that I often go to for pop, beer, snacks, etc. There is an old lady that owns it who has been so cool to me the whole time we've been here. She speaks no English and seeing as my Spanish is terrible at best she opens the steel gate in front of the store so I can come in and grab or point to what I want. She is about 4 foot 9 and always wearing a smart looking suit with a scarf around her neck and shoulders. So last night Erin got on the computer and helped translate a phrase to write down and take to her along with a box of chocolates we brought from home. The note roughly said, "thank you for your kindness. I am going home Sunday. Please accept this gift of chocolates from America." When I gave it to her she nearly teared up, and put her hand to her chest before giving me a big hug. Then she motioned for me to wait there and she went in back to get her daughter. I'd seen her daughter in there before and she spoke some English. Her daughter came out, read the note and said "Wait here, I'll get my husband, He's American." Her husband came out and the next thing I knew I was in their appartment behind the shop at a birthday party eating cake. It turns out the husband, Michael, and his wife, Sonia are missionaries and he teaches English at the university here. They also have a daughter named Sofia. I sat eating cake and talking with them for about an hour and they were so cool. It was nice to speak English for a bit and Michael was a really interesting guy. He said if we ever come back we could stay with them and I believe he meant it.

After I got back to the hotel I told Erin all about it and then we ordered some pizza. While we were waiting for our pizza, there was a knock on our door and I opened it to find the hotel cook, Phillipe, standing there. A few nights ago after talking to him about punk music (his English is pretty good) I burned him a c.d. of some of my band's music and some other stuff I had on our laptop I thought he'd like. He had in his hand 2 c.d.'s of Colombian punk for me and said "Here are some punk bands from Colombia I hope you like them." I can't even describe how cool that was. After the weird day with the parade, to be invited into someone's home, served cake, and then to have someone go out of their way (Phillipe had the night off due to the holiday and stopped by just to give me the c.d.'s) to bring me some local punk rock was just awesome.

This evening, (Saturday) as Erin and I were trying to pack up a months worth of clothes, gifts and toys we got another knock on the door. A member of the hotel staff motioned for me to follow him downstairs so I did. In the lobby sat Michael and Sonia with a gift for Sofia. I asked them to come upstairs to meet Erin and Sofia, even though our room was trashed as we were trying to pack up our stuff. Michael and Sonia have traveled a lot and completely understood. They bought Sofia a hand-made round wooden container with designs on it that are exclusive to Pasto. On one side it said Pasto Colombia and on the other it says Sofia. They wished us good luck and much happiness. If this were fiction I would be hard searched to come up with a better conclusion to our month in Pasto.

Tomorrow morning, Sunday, we fly to Bogota, then meet the doctor at the U.S. embassy Monday, and then get Sofia's visa on Tuesday and Wednesday.We should be flying home on Thursday. I can't wait to get Sofia home to meet her family, but will greatly miss Colombia. The people here have been so gracious to us and the country itself is beautiful also. I really hope the three of us can come back again someday. As Michael said the other night, "Oh you'll be back some day, especially with a little Pastusa daughter. This place is in her blood." I can only hope that it is and that she grows up to be as friendly and generous as the rest of her native country has been to Erin and me.

Look forward to being back in Wisconsin and seeing everyone, Paul