Bogota

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Colombia's tourism slogan, "El unico riesgo es que te quieras quedar," = "the only risk is that you want to stay" is pretty appropriate: this country has brought nothing but good to us and our trip. Since arriving a little over a month ago, we have met incredibly friendly, generous and interesting people, have had great food and tried many new exotic fruits, have enjoyed the beautiful countryside and landscapes from coastal lowlands to mountains, and have not felt unsafe or insecure. And we are only half way through!

We arrived in Bogota on the 3rd with our cyclist friend Wayne after an unexpectedly easy ride in from the city of Facatativa, taking only 2 hours when we believed we would need 4 - our guide books were wrong in the altitude changes and instead of a hard climb we had perfectly flat roads that helped us fly the 50km into town. Bogotá lies in a huge basin right in the middle of the Cordillera Central of the Andes mountain range and extends today with its ~8 million inhabitants into the surrounding mountain slopes. We had great luck arriving on probably the only flat road that enters the city, and also were fortunate to find a wonderful couchsurfing family to host us. Staying with Ivan and his family made our days there a lot more interesting, informative, fun and social, and gave us the opportunity to learn a lot more about Colombian culture and traditions. Four generations living under one roof can be the norm here and of course the small house had room to squeeze us and our bikes in between Ivan and his sister, her 4 incredibly lovely and talented young kids, their mom and dad, grandma, and two large but friendly dogs!

We spent one last afternoon with Wayne, our cycling friend, before we parted ways; spent some time in the house with Maria Angela (Ivan's sister), her children and other relatives sharing stories and experiences; we were on Skype for a while with family, and were able to rest and relax, organize and enjoy ourselves and our new friends.

Bogotá has a partly preserved colonial old town, which is a pretty place to walk around; the rest of the city is fairly modern with a MetroBus system, great bike lanes, skyscrapers (offering great views from their top), modern museums, traffic jams, pollution, rubbish (but recycling as well!), public parks, nice plazas and a botanical garden. They even close many main streets to car traffic on Sundays and Thursdays leaving the many, many bikers free from the worries of getting hit by a mad bus driver. All this we explored in our 5 days there, strolling a lot through the streets and avenues, tasting the state of Santander's specialty of fried ants (only Swen), drinking great cane-sugar sweetened coffees from street vendors, visiting the world biggest exhibition of gold and indigenous jewelry-smithing art in the huge Museo de Oro, walking through room after room of paintings, sculptures and drawings from Colombia's most famous artist Fernando Botero , as well as other famous European artists such as Picasso, Matisse, etc. in the Donacion Botero Museum. You would easily recognize Botero's art – everything he paints/sculpts is exaggeratedly fat, from the human figures to animals and vegetables!

We also had the unique and unforgettable opportunity to participate in a traditional healing ceremony as Maria Angela invited us to join her and 2 of her children on a trip to a special place about 2 hours north of Bogota called El Sol Naciente (The Rising/Birthing Sun). Many Colombians participate in this ritual several times a year and we had prepared for several days by avoiding certain foods and spices, etc. The Colombians call this ceremony a healing ceremony, it is a cure, a remedy and treatment for various problems. There we were given special buckets filled with herbs soaking in hot water to bathe with, were given relaxing massages in order to be better prepared for and opened to the healing herbs, spoke with a medical doctor about any problems, illnesses or pains (spiritual, physical or mental) and our intentions and expectations of this healing ritual. We were given a long introduction to the practice and use of the herb, it's effects and side-effects, how the ceremony would progress and what we should do, where we should be - they lent us hammocks for the night which we hung in the hut or could choose to sit or lay around the central fire.

Then the ceremony began, and along with around 75 other participants, we lined up to meet the Taita (Shaman). He asked a few questions to us, where we were from, what we do, etc. then said a prayer over the goblets of Jagé (Ayahuasca) juice, and handed them to us to drink. It was bitter and strong tasting, many of the participants suffered bad ly all night long from the side-effects (vomiting and diarrhea), but we just experienced some nausea and stomach cramps. There were other parts to the ceremony afterwards, lots of drumming and guitar and flute music around the fire, we were “cleansed” (aka whipped) with stinging nettle plants, got alcohol spit on us, the bad energy was fanned out and away from us. We had all night in the hammocks to reflect on why we were there, what our future would hold, our connections and relations with others and by daybreak we were awed with the incredible views around us and beauty of the place, of life, of each other. We took the bus back to Bogota at around 8 am along with s everal others, tired but happy, positive for the future, and spiritually refreshed. We felt indeed mentally cleaned, and a night of laying in a hammock and just thinking about life, the future, our wishes and fears, had done its part in the process – how rarely do we take such a time off to really think without distraction about us and our lives!?!

Back in Bogotá we met Swen's old friend Ben from Australia with his wife Nati, native from Colombia, who had just arrived from OZ to visit Nati's family. A great reunion, after about 7 years of friendship kept via email and the occasional postcard. We spent a beautiful day together strolling around and going via cable car to the top of the mountain overlooking Bogotá for great views, and catching up on all the stories of our lives of the last years.

Then it was time to say goodbye to the lovely family of Ivan and Maria Angela and jump into a bus with Ben and Nati towards Medellin, the country's second biggest town and home of Nati's family, where we would spend a few more days together....