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Colombia and Mexico| | We spent a week in Colombia and Mexico for the Camp Counselor USA job fairs. We went to recruit staff for this summer at Hantesa. It was our first CC-USA trip, and the agency's first time hosting fairs in Colombia and Mexico. So on the last day of February, we dropped off Benton and Henry with Grammy and Poppa Winfrey and hopped a plane to Bogota. We arrived at the Bogota airport at about 9:00 pm, and emerged from the customs check to a huge crowd of people on the sidewalk outside. It was warm and humid and hundreds of people were waiting for their loved ones to exit the airport. We soon found our group and caught a bus to the hotel, for our first night spent outside the US.
In the morning, we had this view from the balcony of our hotel room. We spent an hour walking around the neighborhood, then returned for a sumptuous breakfast, which, like most of our meals in Bogota, included 2 or 3 fruits we had never seen before. Sarah usually tried one or two--I tried them all! (with no ill effects.) By mid-morning, the job fair had begun, and we had dozens of eager applicants to interview. We were one of only 5 camps brave enough to be "guinea pigs" for this trial run, so we were able to be pretty selective. Most of the kids were in college and spoke very good English. Nearly all had experience with kids, and many were in Boy or Girl Scouts, or had other camping experience. We soon filled most of our available slots with the candidates that most impressed us.
It was during the job fair that we realized that we'd be very well taken care of in Bogota. Our hosts plied us with snacks and drinks through out the fair. That night, we were taken to Sassoon's, in the T-Zone, a trendy area of Bogota with a wide array of restaurants. This particular one was frequented by the city's elite, but the menu costs only ran to $20 a plate at the most. I ordered the one entree I couldn't translate, and it turned out to be a Fred Flinstone-sized platter of pork ribs, glazed in tamarind sauce. Like everything else we ate on our trip, it was delicious.
Day 2 in Bogota was our free day, and our hosts took us out to the country at our request. A mid-day stop was the Alpina dairy store, where we sampled several sweets, including the local specialty: Arequipe. It's a rich, milk-based caramel, and we bought two jars to take home. Then it was on to the village of Zipaquira, home to the world-famous Catedral de Sal.
The Salt Cathedral is built inside a huge salt mine, and contains hundreds of carvings--angels, the stations of the cross, a nativity scene, all out of salt. The cathedral itself is huge, with about a 70-foot ceiling. Pope John Paul II visited there several years ago, bringing a huge crowd to the small village. We took the full tour of the cathedral, climbing up and down stairs through several levels of the cathedral.
Outside the cathedral, Sarah found a gorgeous shawl in a light green color (it matches the bridesmaid dresses from our wedding) for 3800 pesos. ($19US) She was so happy with her purchase, she wore it to our restaurant that night, an enormous steakhouse called Audre's Carne de Res. The restaurant stretched 3 blocks, with 300+ waiters on duty. We were serenaded by costumed actors, were given Colombian flags during the playing of the national anthem, and Sarah got a "Honores de la Casa" sash. Oh, and there was food, too. The menus were on rotating scrolls mounted inside of boxes--they went on for a few hundred feet, I think. The food was terrific, and the atmosphere was even better. Sort of a South American Lambert's, with music and dancing thrown in.
Our last morning in Bogota allowed for some more sightseeing, and we traveled to Montserrate, on the eastern edge of the city. We rode a funicular train up the mountain, to a church and former convent, with beautiful flower gardens and a panoramic view of the city. We saw long-tailed hummingbirds in the flowers and tried to catch our breaths at the 10,000' altitude.
After descending on the train, we did a little bit of shopping around the city. We visited a shop selling replicas of the pre-Colombian artifacts on display in the city's gold museum, along with a couple of big stores full of local handicrafts. We spent only a few dollars but filled up our bags, and then it was off to the airport, 3 hours before our flight time:
1:00 - arrive at airport, queue up with mob at Mexicana airlines counter.
1:40 - reach front of line, realize that we have to pay our airport taxes in cash (luckily they take US$)
2:00 - Sarah gets bumped to the front of the line because they recognize that she's 3 months pregnant
2:10 - tickets in hand, we have greasy hamburgers at the airport restaurant.
2:45 - long hike across the airport to the international terminal (no moving walkways here)
3:30 - pass through security, endure pat-down, arrive at our departure gate
4:00 - begin boarding the plane
4:05 through 7:45 - enjoy leisurely, comfortable flight, including several drinks and a decent meal.
7:45 - touch down in Mexico City
8:00 - deplane onto the tarmac, and then into the airport, where we reach the immigration desk. Around two thousand travelers are ahead of us in line.
10:00 - we finally get close enough to the front of the line to see the immigrations officials. It appears that they are changing shifts, because several leave the room, then a few more filter in to take their spots.
10:10 - passports stamped, we head to baggage claim.
10:20 - At baggage claim, we discover that international baggage arrivals from South America go to a different area. We retrace our steps, go up a flight of stairs, down a long hallway, back down an escalator and through another security checkpoint.
10:30 - We pass through customs and discover a very happy sight--friendly faces waiting to greet us as we leave the airport! They are Carlos and Tita, Sarah's "aunt and uncle." Carlos was unofficially adopted by Sarah's Noni nearly 40 years ago, and the families have been close friends ever since. Carlos even attended school at the University of Missouri at Rolla. We were so touched by their warm welcome, and even more touched that they had stood around for more than 2 hours after our plane had arrived! We were in Mexico.
The view above is from one block away from our hotel. We were in downtown Mexico for two days, near the Constitution Plaza, where the Presidential Palace and National Cathedral are located. The Cathedral is in the back left of the photo; at the center is a traveling art exhibit "Ashes and Snow," which people were waiting in line three hours to see. We took a walk around the cathedral and also saw the Diego Rivera murals in the palace. They reminded me a lot of the Thomas Hart Benton murals in the Missouri State Capitol.
Above, an entrance to the cathedral; Below, view from the courtyard of the Presidential Palace
The job fair in Mexico City was very short, due to a lack of applicants. I'm not sure why, but the CCUSA programs in Mexico were much less well-organized than the one in Colombia. So with extra time in the afternoon, we were treated to a tour of the Anthropology Museum. I wish I hadn't been quite so tired, or I would have tried to see more of the museum. As it was, we saw thousands of Aztec, Mayan, Olmec, Toltec, and other native Mexican artifacts, dating from 3,000 years ago to the present day. A few standout items were examples of early writing, a quetzal-feather headdress, and a circular stone Aztec calendar. Many items were solid gold or jade, including the huge jade column standing in the middle of the museum.
The next morning we traveled by van to Puebla, a city about 40 miles southeast of Mexico City. It took a long time to get out of Mexico City, but once we were in the country, the views were great. We drove up through pine-covered hills and past the smoking cone of Popocatepl. We headed to the campus of UDLA--the University des las Americas, for our Puebla job fair. Here we were able to fill our last two staff openings with a couple of good candidates and the trip was officially successful. In the evening, we visited the huge pyramid of Cholula (which has a small church on top of it). Our hike to the top was timed to coincide with the sun setting behind the volcano, known locally as "Gregorio."
The next day was Thursday, and we were giving the morning to ourselves. We took the adventurous step of hiring a taxi to take us out to the Ecological Park at the edge of town, and made arrangements for the driver to return for us in time for lunch. The park had a popular jogging and cycling track, but also had good habitat for birds. We saw several warbler species that will be passing through Iowa in May, and we also saw a few local birds. Our favorite was a White-Throated Magpie Jay, something like a huge, glamorous Blue Jay with an eight-inch tail! The park also featured a domed aviary, and we paid our fifty pesos for the tour. Inside were flocks of parrots, whistling-ducks, forest falcons, and harsh-voiced guinea fowl. The coolest birds were a few toucans!
After returning to the hotel, we had a couple of hours of shopping around the city's many markets. We bought a few sweets to take home for the boys, and couldn't resist sampling from a corner ice cream shop. The ice cream shop had at least fifty varieties of homemade popsicles in their coolers--everything from strawberry to kiwi to tamarind. I had a delicious cone of Mango ice cream, and Sarah had a popsicle with juicy chunks of fresh strawberries.
Then it was back in the van for the ride back to Mexico City. This time the ride was a bit more eventful--our driver was pulled over for speeding, and then later when we were in the city, we saw about a dozen police trucks drive by, each with about twenty armed riot cops in the back. We never did find out what that was all about, but even our hosts regarded it as unusual activity for Mexico City.
At our hotel near the airport, we made arrangements to meet up with Carlos and Tita again. They took us out to eat at a great steak restaurant, and we had a wonderful evening hearing about their experiences in America and especially their stories about Sarah's family.
By Friday morning we were ready to head home and give our boys a big hug. We went to the airport around 11:00, and didn't have to spend much time waiting in line for a change. By early afternoon we were in Houston, but then had our flight delayed so that we got into Kansas City an hour late. Soon we were tucking Benton and Henry into bed and getting ready to go back to Iowa and life at camp.
It was a really amazing trip, and we definitely plan to return to Latin America again sometime soon. By the end of the week, our Spanish was much improved, and we felt pretty comfortable exploring on our own. We had lots of great food and good company, and saw some unforgettable sights.
| | | Posted 3/10/2008 10:53 PM - 19 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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