A few months ago we received an email from our dear friend Klaus asking if we wanted to meet up with him in Colombia for a few days in June. Never one to turn down the possibility of meeting friends on the road (not to mention seeing a new country), we told him to count us in. After emailing a few other friends about our Colombia plans, we soon discovered another dear friend is going to be in the area around the same time. Small world, eh? So now Secret Agent X (who some readers may remember from Tim's post about urban exploration in Lima) hopes to meet up with us in Colombia too.
Needless to say we're super excited that we'll get to see not one, but two good friends. And in just a few weeks, we'll be headed to Colombia for a long weekend. We purchased our tickets a week or so ago, scoring a good deal at $350 each for round-trip tickets. We'll be taking a red eye down there so we can arrive bright and early. We've both gotten pretty good at sleeping on planes (though I'll confess Tim is a bit better at it than I am) and the excitement of seeing some place new (not to mention good friends) will certainly keep us going.
Although Tim receives a great amount of vacation days from work (particularly by American standards), we'll only have three days to explore Bogota. Given we plan to visit India later this year, we have to save as many vacation days as possible for that mammoth-sized country. Three days in Bogota might not sound like much – particularly when we remember how long we'd often spend in places during our adventure around the world – but we think it'll be a great amount of time to get a glimpse of that exciting city.
(I wonder what the border guards will think when two hedgehogs show up, no luggage in tow, with plans to be in the country for only a few days. I suppose not that many people hop down to Colombia to meet friends for lunch, do they?)
Between our work and the usual hedgehog activities throughout the week, we often forget that we're headed to Colombia soon. We don't have a guidebook yet (actually, we'll only be buying the Bogota chapter from Lonely Planet rather than an entire guidebook – no need to overpack!). We haven't researched "must sees" or things to do. And we've barely glanced at possible hostels, though we do have a good lead thanks to our traveler friend Deb. (Although we don't book ahead when we travel, we enjoy peeking around online sometimes to see what's available.)
In sum: we're not prepared in the slightest. But you know what? Other than our plane tickets and our passports, there's not that much preparation that has to be done. Sure, a bit of reading ahead is good. Actually, it's downright enjoyable. But at the end of the day, as long as we step on the plane with our passports in hand, that's all we need.
Well, that and the name of the cafe where we'll first meet up with Klaus and Secret Agent X.
1) Márquez's autobiography, Living to Tell the Tale (http://www.amazon.com/Living-Tell-Gabriel-Garcia-Marquez/dp/140003454X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243959195&sr=8-1), is a really enjoyable book. I had the pleasure of reading it when we were in Ecuador (though I can't remember how I got my hands on it) and would spend hours reading passages to Tim.
2) The recently published biography about Márquez written by an English author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Life ("http://www.amazon.com/Gabriel-Garc%C3%ADa-M%C3%A1rquez-Gerald-Martin/dp/0307271773/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243959159&sr=8-1). I just picked this up from the library and am only a few pages into it, but I'm already enjoying it tremendously.
(Of course, these recommendations are in addition to Gabriel García Márquez's works of fiction, like One Hundred Years of Solitude or Love in the Time of Cholera. All good stuff!)
Belly and China send the appropriate woofs and meows to their cousins too! We miss you!
You guys make me feel so stodgy and old.
Well those are two things that you will never be, my friend. Though technically, I guess decades from now we'll all be considered old, but it will be in age only. Certainly not in spirit!