Roaming South America

Added pics to my photo album, Puerto Colombia, Usiacuri

October 5, 2017

I have uploaded many pictures to the photo album - look in the Colombia folder for the new folders called Puerto Colombia and also Usiacuri, and also a folder called Misc Pics. Puerto Colombia is a small town just outside of Barranquilla. It has the remains of a very old pier, which was the longest pier on the Caribe coast, at something like 1 kilometer. Then a couple years ago during some very high winds part of the pier was destroyed. You can see me on the pier, or what's left of it, and in the distance you can see the end of the pier. There is a move to get funding to restore the pier. Usiacuri is a very small town (village) about 38 kilometers outside of Barranquilla. It's a very nice little town, and it is very small. In the pics you will see a view of the main street, it's about 2 blocks long. They have a fairly large park with a statue at the top of the hill in the park, there is a pic of me standing at that statue. There is a historic church, and I uploaded pics of it.

Visited Usiacuri, a new kitten, expatriots

June 13, 2017

Finally, I'm updating my website. So what has been happening?

One weekend we took a day trip out to a very small town, here referred to as a village, called Usiacuri. It's about 25 miles south of Barranquilla. It's a nice little town with no large businesses of any kind. There's a park with a soccer field, and at the side of it a steep hillside to climb, and at the top of the hillclimb is a statue and a view of the historic church across the small valley. There are a few small tiendas (neighborhood grocery stores, but they are very small, usually one or two rooms in a persons house that have been converted into the tienda), one or two similar sized hardware stores, a couple similar sized restaurants, and a community arts center. Oh, and a similar sized shoe store. I didn't see any gasoline stations in the town. And the very old church that sits on top of a small hill overlooking the entire town. The town is known for the arts center, where many residents are involved in making baskets and other things from Iraca palm. The area has been populated since the early 1500's.

Bogota Trip

October 24, 2016

We got home sunday in the afternoon, after a long bus ride. It must have been the milk run route - the driver stopped in just about every little town along the way. It was about 20 hours, if not more, for the trip home. We have many photos which I have posted in the photo album, just look for the Bogota album. And some videos as well.

While we were in Bogota my landlady contacted me to tell me she found my neighbors cat in our apartment. She said it appeared to have not done anything bad inside, but may have been there for 3 days, just crying to get out. The only possible way for the cat to get in is from the patio. Which means the cat had to be on the roof, then jump down to a steel-bar grate over the top of the patio, then jumped down through the grate to the laundry sink, then to the floor. I had left the patio door open just so the room would have some fresh air while we were away. But, when we got home, we found things were a bit dirtier than we'd hoped or expected. And after that very long bus ride we were mopping, 3 times, the apartment. Then I found that the toilet tank wasn't refilling with water after a flush. So, the next task was to dive into the tank and find out what was wrong there, and I did - the valve inside the tank was plugged. Not a great way to start our evening back home.

A mixed bag of thoughts and musings.

July 17, 2016

To start with a short story. One typically beautiful day when I was walking to a students home for their lesson... I am walking along and up ahead of me, maybe half a block, are two women also walking, in the same direction. I didn't really notice anything special or particular about them as I could only see them from behind and a half-block back. But I see one of them stop under a tree alongside the road, between the sidewalk and the road. I thought maybe they were just stopping to rest in the shade, it was a hot day as is normal here. But then one of the women starts jumping, so right away I knew she wasn't resting, and it was too hot to start exercising, even in the shade.

Castillo Salgar, update from David

April 22, 2016

I discovered a great coffee a couple weeks ago. I was walking through a store I don't normally shop in, it's too expensive for most items, and I was looking at the coffee section, thinking "There are a lot of Colombian coffees here, I should try one of these". So I picked one called Al Amir. It's a 100% Colombian coffee with Cardomom. And it is fantastic! The name is Arabic because of the Cardomom, apparently adding Cardomom makes it an Arabic blend. I don't know, I'm no connoisseur, I just like the taste. It's a mild coffee with the slightly minty flavor of the Cardomom. A perfect late afternoon coffee, as is vanilla coffee, also a very good coffee for later in the day. In the mornings I prefer a cinnamon coffee. So far I have found a vanilla coffee and a cinnamon coffee made by Sello Rojo. The cinnamon coffee is harder to find so sometimes I buy the regular unflavored black coffee and buy some cinnamon sticks and crush them into the coffee grounds. If you haven't tried it, you should. As for finding these coffees in North America or other countries, Sello Rojo should be available, but Al Amir is probably not in North America (according to their web site they are only exporting to China). There are quite a few other coffees I haven't yet tried, but will as time goes on.