happy holidaze

im writing this only because i recieved word that it is 60 degrees right now in nyc. god awfully horrifying as that may be (what HAVE we done?), the balmy weather there will make it more bearable for you to read this. if the tempurature were 15 degrees with gusty winds i would not be writing this entry. i mean it! i do have a little compassion.

but, since you are comfy, here we go... colombia is incredible! and you know i dont just throw these kinds of compliments around (think: eh-cuador). picture colombia right now - picture sun, humidity, cloudless skies, multi colored, beautiful people, millions of alien looking fruits and juice stands every three steps blending them together with ice, loud festive music (not only reggaeton!), whole fried fish, great coffee (!) (no, really, i havent seen nescafe once. AND there was a dunkin donuts, a real live one, in the bogota airport, waiting for us when we made our connection to cartegena), and blue blue water. actually, i take that back. the water is more aqua-ish and clear. oh, and its piss warm, in a good way. oh and the sand is white. i know, sometimes i cant stand me either. my future self is really, really, jealous of me right now.

so obviously, ant and i have been having a good time. we landed in cartagena on the night of the 14th. we quickly threw our sweatshirts in the bottoms of our bags, changed into sandals, and set out to explore the city. we spent a few days just walking around cartagena. its a fantastic city. there is a pretty large old, colonial city, filled with plazas and outdoor cafes and pretty buildings. but then, about 1 km away, is the beach. plus there are harbors with all sorts of boats. you know, the kind of place that makes for the perfect sunset. there have been many sunset cocktail hours for us. then, after a few days of enjoying all of that, we went to playa blanca for 3 days. playa blanca is a beach easily accessible from cartagena via 20 minute lancha ride. playa blanca is incredible. we spent all day, each day, in the water. at nigth we watched the sun go down, ate enormous fried fish, and slept in hammocks. nice. after playa blanca we came back to cartagena for a day to do a tour of the mud volcano, which was almost too wierd to write about. basically its a small bump in the middle of flat flat land, and its crater is filled with mud. obviously, the thing to do is to jump in the mud, which is cool and nice and completely lacking in gravity. it is impossible to sink. or move really. really, it was wierd. afterwards these women bathed us in a nearby lagoon. also wierd, to be bathed like that. mine made me take off my bathing suit. i hope she does that with everyone.....

the next day we came here, to sta. marta, another coastal city 4 hours east. the trip was fairly comfortable, another plus for colombia. prices for transport were straightforward and posted, thus relieving a lot of paranoia about being ripped off on my part. sta. marta is beautiful also, with perhaps the second most beuatiful coastline ive ever seen, and cheaper juice. the first most beautiful coastline ive ever seen was in tayrona national park, which we visited yesterday from sta. marta, as it is only an hour away. we hiked through jungle for an hour to get to a wild, jagged beach. then we walked through more jungle for 1-2 hour to get to another beach, which was actually 2 blue blue bays connected by a strip of sand, rocks jutting out and all. obviously we decided to stay the night, although we already had a hotel room in sta marta. we slept in a hammock in this jam packed campground. maybe too jam packed, which is really my only complaint from the past 10 days. we came back to sta marta today, and tomorrow we will go to a fishing village nearby, and then maybe to a town in the mountain range nearby (but not too high up! we have had quite enough of high, high mountains, thanks.)

so, this whole colombia trip has been amazing so far. i know many people have reservations about colombia, as did i at first, of course. but really, it is not to be missed. what i am trying not to think about is how much i miss you guys, esp. now during the holidays. i hope you are having a great time, and i really really hope you are not working right now.

happy holidays!