Well the trip ended fast and furiously, as we didn't exactly sit on our butts in Bogota to finish the Colombia trip. First we used the public transit to get to Monserrate, a really cool monestary on top of this mountain overlooking Bogota. It was a bit smoggy, but it was still a spectacular view from the mountaintop about 3x as high as the tallest skyscraper in the city.

The next day, we rested up (sorta) for a big family dinner with Claudia's aunts and uncles and and sisters and brothers and me and chuck. Some fantastic meals were had on this trip (thanks Aura!) and here are some: Ajiaco (potato soup), Arrepes (fried corn patty), tons of pan y queso (breads and cheese), barbequed pork, about 10-12 different fruits i've never seen before (my favorite was jugo de lulo con leche), and plum cake and oh my gosh tons of great stuff.

Then our last day in bogota, the whole group of nine people (Aura y Luia, Claudia y yo, Paula y David, Andres y Alexis, y Chuck) went in 2 cars to a place called Villa de Leyva, which is a premier Bogota getaway about 3 hours away from the city. They are filming the telanovela (soap opera) Zorro there right now, seen on the spanish channel :) It was a really chilled out old spanish style town, w/ mostly white walls and tons of tiendas selling all sorts of trinkets. Suffice it to say i spent a few thousand colombian pesos there...

Anyway, I just got back to Austin after a job well done, it was another sweet trip and i'll work on getting thos photos together ASAP! ~cheers, Darin (ps - thanks a lot to all of the Lorente-Rodriquez family para todos)

We are back in the city of Bogota after a stunningly beautiful trip to the Parque Nacional Tairona on Colombia´s NE coast. Amazing rainforest and stunning beaches with rocky terrain you have see to believe. And mosquitos that love gringo skin...

We took a short set of busses and trucks from Tagonga to Tairona Wednesday and got to the start of our hike. The trees reminded me a lot of those seen in Costa Rica near Osa, though I did not see much in the line of wildlife. So we walked 2 or 3 km to the beach which was just stunning! Funny too, because i had a hard time enjoying it due to some gastro-intestinal troubles that sprung up during the hike (the way back, i actually appreciated what i hustled by the first time). Past the beautiful Arricefes beach we made our way to Cabo (de la San Guia...?) where we all got hammocks and slept under little lean to´s for something like $4 per night. Great, except for those bugs.

On the way back i tried a little snorkelling (couldn´t find the reef) and a little geocaching (couldn´t find the cache) but had tons of fun along the way! We took the busses back to Tagonga to crash for the night and grab some pizza listening to the music of Renaldo Sanchez (and and his son Pipe?). Then this morning, Paula and David, Chuck, Claudia and I all hopped a plane back to Bogotá and here we are again at The Lorente Casa. We plan on spending the next few days (including my birthday) checking out the city before I head back Mar 20th...