Bogota & Villavicencio

The timing of our trip was dictated by when the Colombian national team was playing.  For example, there was a game Thursday around noon.  So we had to leave Turmeque and be back in Bogota for that game.  Immediately following the game, we left on our next adventure to Villavicencio.  

We found a hotel for the night near Parque 93, which is a nice area surrounded by office buildings and restaurants.  Hyrum's friend saw where it was and said, "I walk by this building every day and never knew there was a hotel there."  The best part was the awesome playground for the kids just a block away.  

We didn't have anything on our agenda for about 24 hours, so we spent most of it either playing at the playground or eating.  Priorities: we ate lunch, then bought ice cream sundaes at McDonalds to bring to the playground.  At McDonalds you can order the regular ice cream, but covered in dulce de leche. It's a winning combination that never disappoints!

The kids had a blast.  The weather was perfect.  There was a pirate ship to play on, a climbing structure, and a sand area where all the kids took there shoes off to play. Tiago waited 30 minutes to ride on a big swing. 

It was fun watching them interact with other kids, and at one point I told Tiago that something was "easy peasy".  The kid climbing next to him said, in perfect English, "You forgot 'lemon squeezy'."   Not what I was expecting to hear!  It would've been a dumb question to ask if he spoke English, because that's a phrase even Hyrum probably doesn't know.  He spoke Spanish too, so maybe one of his parents was American.

We ate dinner (despite screaming children), and walked back right before bedtime.  Tiago asked for hot chocolate before bed (a bit of an obsession with him!) so we stopped at the bakery next door to the hotel to get croissants and hot chocolate.  Vacation life is the best sometimes!

Once the kids were in bed we were able to connect to the internet for the first time in almost a week.  (There was no internet in Turmeque, unless you stood within 5 feet of a hot spot in the middle of the park.)  There were emails to read, and 'fun' stuff to do for our rental house like signing leases and figuring out utilities, schools, move-in dates.

Unfortunately the next morning Siena was sick.  She was cute, and sleepy, but also miserable.  We were glad we were checking out later that day so we could leave behind all the puke-covered towels and bedding.  I stayed at the hotel with the girls while Hyrum took Tiago to watch the soccer game.

Once Siena seemed to be feeling better we went outside for fresh air and bought some hard bread sticks.  Because there was a soccer game going on, the streets were completely abandoned.  Maybe 1 or 2 pedestrians, and no cars, on a street that normally looks like the middle of NYC.  (As soon as the game ended, the streets had bumper to bumper traffic and sidewalks were flooded with people.)

We lucked out finding an amazing bookstore right next door.  We hadn't planned to buy many souvenirs on this trip, because we didn't have extra suitcase space.  The one thing I wanted to bring home were books in Spanish.  I spent over an hour looking at the kids' section while the girls sat at a table 'reading' and eating bread sticks.  I could have spent hundreds of dollars, and luckily felt more restrained by space than money or else I would've been really poor.  We got some 'search and find' books, Frozen, Peppa Pig, Colombian folk tales, classic fairy tales, etc.  I brought Hyrum back later to show him and we ended up buying 2-3 more books.  They're so nice to have now!  (It seems that all the spanish language books I can find in the United States are translations of classic American books, like Are you my Mother, The Very Hungry Caterpiller, etc or dumb stories with a lot of text.)  The stack of books entertained my kids for hours during the rest of the trip.

Hyrum, Tiago, and friends watched the game at whatever nearby restaurant they could find a seat in.  I'm not sure Tiago knew what to make of all the noise and commotion.  At one point he had to use the bathroom and Hyrum was racing back and forth between the bathroom and TV screen, waiting for Tiago.  When he went to check on Tiago, Colombia scored a goal and his friends gave them both a hard time for missing it.   After Colombia won there were noise machines and people shooting around confetti/shaving cream.  I think that scared Tiago, so they left.  We met them in front of the hotel (and bookstore!) and Hyrum cheered and sang songs with fans driving by.

Villavicencio

Right after the game was over, we packed our suitcases and had a van pick us up to drive about 3.5 hours to Villavicencio.  It's a relatively large town, known as a vacation spot from Bogota because it's generally a hot climate so people can go there to swim.  (Bogota is in the 50's and 60's year round because of the altitude.)

The drive was pretty, and very green.  Hyrum told us that this road used to be unsafe (25 years ago); guerillas would come down from the mountain areas and stop traffic on the highway, demanding any valuables that people had.  After hearing that, I thought our trip was pretty uneventful!  (The roads area obviously safer now.)

The plan for this trip was for Hyrum and his friends to rent a finca (a vacation rental house) for a few days to hang out and relax.  Daniel came with us on Thursday, and the others came on Friday morning.  The house we rented was really nice, but we were expecting to have it to ourselves.  Obviously.  The owner, whom one of Hyrum's friends knew, ended up staying in the house with his two kids.  They kind of stayed out of the way, but also were 'around' in a way that was really awkward at times.  The owner would turn on the radio with music he liked, or in the evening while we were downstairs socializing, he'd be upstairs watching TV.  At the end of the night they locked up all the doors. It felt like having a dad always looking over our shoulders.  He left for most of the day on Friday and we were able to relax, and listen to whatever music we wanted!

There weren't many restaurants around, because we were in a rural area 20 min. outside the city.  We ate at this little highway food stop just at the end of our dirt road.

The other miscommunication was that the house didn't come with any towels.  (Fortunately it had sheets!)  That was fine for people visiting from Bogota, but we certainly didn't bring towels with us on our trip!  It was too late on Thursday to go get any, so one of Hyrum's friends bought us some in Bogota and brought them the next morning.  So Thursday night everyone went swimming and then dried off with our dirty laundry.  (Speaking of laundry, we washed all our clothes, since the house had a washing machine!)  While I'm on a roll, the other bummer was not having internet.  If it had simply been a 3-day getaway, that wouldn't have felt like a big deal, but in the middle of a move and the middle of a big international trip, it was super inconvenient to have another 3 days without internet.  Especially because the place we were staying was pretty isolated, we had no idea where restaurants were or what there was to do in town.

Friday morning we waited for everyone else to arrive, then went on a little family adventure to the town of Villavicencio.  Everything we had done until that point had been great, but we (I!) were really craving time alone.  Meaning, no other people whose opinions we had to consider.  Going and doing whatever we wanted.  Eating what we wanted.  Being able to focus on what the kids needed instead of accommodating other adults, too.  So much easier!

We went to a mall that had a jungle area in the back with walking paths and bridges.  There were signs up about animals that live there, but they likely don't come out until it's dark.  We saw a few butterflies and nothing else.  Hyrum 'taught' the kids how to make bird noises, and they 'called' to the birds for a few minutes with no success.

We bought the kids ice cream after and it ended with a lake of tears.  Here's the problem: our kids only want to pick ice cream flavors based on color.  And unfortunately, the 'prettiest pink' happened to be sugar-free strawberry flavor.  We made Siena sample it, she insisted its what she wanted, and then she was furious we wouldn't buy her another one.  And neither Hyrum nor I wanted it.  Gross. Tiago started out getting blue ice cream but we eventually convinced him he'd like chocolate better and he now sticks with that.  

We started walking towards the main plaza, but then took a taxi.  Tiago thought that was the coolest thing that ever happened to him.  He kept rolling the windows up and down, and 'reading' the info card on the back of the seat.  When he saw a sign for the Colombia soccer team on a building, he wanted to show Hyrum.  Hyrum was in the middle of a conversation with the driver, so I told Tiago we'd take a picture of it to show him later.  We looked around the main plaza, saw the church, ate lunch, checked email at an internet cafe like it was 2005 and then took a taxi back to the house.

Tiago and I had a funny conversation in the taxi.  He said, "Colombia is so much better than Estados Unidos.  I just want to stay here forever." (He actually said he 'hates Estados Unidos' but I convinced him that was a bit much!)

We spent the rest of the afternoon swimming.  Hyrum's best friend Johan was there with his girlfriend, Andrea.  And Johan's brother, Alex, with his wife.  There were so many adults to pay attention to my kids and they were in heaven.  It made me extremely nervous having a big pool in the backyard.  (None of our kids know how to swim.) The back wall of the house opened up during the day so it was completely open to the pool area.  We made it work by being extra vigilant.  I guess that made it less of a relaxing vacation for me, but everyone had a good time.  Tiago was in a great mood, dancing for everyone and acting like a clown.  He let Hyrum's friends take him on rides around the pool and played 'pool soccer' with them for about an hour.  He was giving Andrea kisses and laughing.

When people in the United States hear that Hyrum went back to visit Colombia, they ask if he has a lot of family still there.  While he does, the truth is that Hyrum primarily goes back to Colombia to visit his friends.  (And because he loves Colombia.) It was nice that he had a few days to just hang out like they were still 15. 

Around 6 we walked to a restaurant down the street (down a major highway) and it ended up being closed! We turned around and walked home.  I'm pretty sure Mila got carried the whole way.  (Obviously not by me; that ship sailed over a year ago.)  Although we were starving, we were rewarded with a beautiful sunset. 

The guys jumped in the car to go search for food farther down the road.  They came back (thank goodness!) with envueltos-- meat and vegetables and corn dough cooked in plantain leaves.  The whole time we ate we were fighting with the kids for them to calm down and fall asleep.  Eventually they fell asleep and we could enjoy adult time with a rousing game of Parcheesi.  It went on for hours... I eventually gave up and went to bed, but I heard everyone else for over an hour finishing, and the loser was punished by jumping into the pool fully dressed.  I think Hyrum came in first or second.  It was quite competitive.  (It made me realize Sorry is the faster version of Parcheesi, and is far superior because it doesn't take 4 hours!)

I was glad to have gone to bed by midnight, because Mila woke up at 5 am screaming that her body itched.  I tried to calm her down, and get her to go back to sleep, with no success.  So I think I eventually gave her the tablet.  It took several more hours for the adults to be up and running.  We made breakfast and ate, then let the kids watch TV while we played Rana.

Rana (frog) is kind of like a Colombian version of horse shoes and skeeball.  You toss four rings onto the table, hoping to get them in the metal frog's mouth for 20,000 points.  There are other holes worth less points.  And sometimes the rings ended up in the rocks behind the table.

The kids joined us eventually, but first we had a game of all the adults.  We were playing the first person to 90,000 points.  Hyrum reached 90000 and started celebrating.  But everyone gets to finish the round to see if they get higher points.  While Hyrum was trash talking and rubbing it in everyone's faces, I beat him!  I got 91000.  The non-Colombian won, surprising everyone (and I obviously just got really lucky!)

The rest of the morning was filled with swimming.  We ate a fresh pineapple that we'd bought on the side of the road.  They're grown in that area and were super cheap.

When we were getting ready to leave, Tiago got really emotional again.  Hyrum took him around to say goodbye to the different things at the house: the pool, the rana game, the beds, etc.  But after we took off he cried because he forgot to say bye to the toy gun.  I made Hyrum ride in the back of the van (where I usually sat) to entertain the girls, and of course the girls fell asleep pretty quickly and he had a relaxing ride back to Bogota.

In Bogota, we checked into an awesome AirBnb for our last 5 days in Bogota.  We had two bedrooms plus a pull-out sofa.  There was a nice kitchen and a washer/dryer.  It was a relief knowing we wouldn't have to pack up and change hotels again.  We put our things away, organized, let the kids relax and watch TV.  We connected to the blessed internet. 

We went to the grocery store to buy food, and the kids had a blast dancing to "Despacito" in the middle of the produce aisle.  They were fascinated by the fresh fish displayed with their eyeballs intact.  Grocery stores tell so much about a country.  We ended up buying a big bowl of rice from the restaurant section, for only about 50 cents.  No meat or vegetables... our kids just eat rice. We also bought yogurt, cereal, and jet chocolate.  I was hoping to buy a hair brush, because we somehow left ours behind in Dallas.  I was going on 7 days without one... and my hair was a tangled mess!  (To say nothing of the girls' desperate hair situation.)  Hyrum didn't understand why I needed one so badly, but ran (literally, ran) 15 minutes to a shopping mall to buy me one because no other stores were open at 7 pm.  That's love!

Saturday night is when Mila turned into a raving lunatic at bedtime, and unfortunately that continued almost nightly for 5 nights.  She was completely irrational and hysterical.  She needed to use the bathroom, but refused.  Then she'd drag me to the bathroom and tell me to get out, then scream for me to come in. Then point where she wanted me to stand, and then scream because I was looking at her.  (At one point I was in the shower facing backwards, thinking how ridiculous the situation was.)  All the while she was loudly crying.  Then she'd get up and start the whole process again with a new problem.  She had no idea what she wanted, but was OCD about everything. She was sweating from all her screaming, and it lasted for almost TWO HOURS.  While we were staying in that apartment, the neighbors called the doorman more than once to complain.  But what can you do??  Bedtime that week was the worst part of our trip to Colombia. (Yes, we had melatonin to help with sleep, but it didn't help unfortunately!)

Colombia- Flight and Turmeque

This morning I asked the kids how they know Spanish, and Tiago said, "Because we went to Colombia."  haha

Our whole purpose in traveling to Colombia this past summer was to help connect the kids to their heritage.  They're young, but we hope that at least Tiago remembers experiences there.  And we have lots of pictures and videos to remind them of things.  So here goes detailed documentation to justify the fortune that we spent. :)

One note before jumping in-- the kids were at great ages for this trip!  They're not in cribs, don't really need a stroller, eat "anything", and don't wear diapers.  That gave us so much more flexibility, although I was still incredibly anxious about certain things before leaving.  Traveling with kids is never super easy.

We stayed at the airport the night before our flight.  We woke the kids up at 3:20 am to ride a shuttle.  They were so excited and so well behaved.  I crossed my fingers that was an indication of how the whole trip would go.  Other travelers on the shuttle were smiling at these tiny, wide-eyed kids carrying their own backpacks while it was still dark outside.  If I weren't laden down with kids and bags, I would have taken a picture.  (That's true of several moments on this trip!)

The flights went well.  Hyrum tried to convince Tiago during take-off that there were people running behind the plane pushing it.  He laughed and laughed.  Despite being nervous (he doesn't remember flying!) he was excited and as soon as we got in the air he said, "It looks like cotton candy!"  

Like usual, airlines never put "gate-checked" stroller in the right spot, so during our layover in Florida I ended up running with the kids to our next gate, and stalling for Hyrum to get there (he was waiting for our stroller, which never came.)  We barely made it, and I had to apologize to the kids for yelling at them to run faster.  

I got Siena to fall asleep on the second flight.  Does it get any better??  

Colombia was playing in the World Cup when our plane landed, so Hyrum spent all of customs trying to get the game to come up on his phone.  We finally made it through (by that point Mila and Tiago had fallen asleep in the stroller) and we stopped at the food court to finish watching the game.  However, Tiago shortly woke up from all the yelling and freaked out.  I think he was disoriented and tired, and it was super loud.  I tried to take him for a walk, but he just kept screaming that he wanted to leave.  I took the kids downstairs and bought them Dunkin Donuts.  (Arequipe!)  That helped significantly, but he still didn't want to be around the noise.

Most of the time we were traveling around we used a van taxi.  My girls absolutely LOVED being strapped in the back seat with me.  And they looked like they were teenagers already.

Our first stop after checking into our hotel was the park.  The kids deserved it after a long travel day!  It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, and the playground was filled with kids and families. Besides a random (huge!) dog eating Tiago's donut, they had a blast.  And our second stop was to get hot chocolate. Tiago said that was the thing he was most excited about in Colombia.  (That kid LOVES hot chocolate.)  The girls had a meltdown so I took them back early and Tiago and Hyrum stayed to enjoy the experience.

Our first full day in Colombia was perfect!  We kicked off our trip in Turmeque.  (That's the town where Hyrum's dad grew up.  It's a few hours away from Bogota, deep in the countryside.  Hyrum spent most holidays there growing up, plus all of fourth grade.)  We wanted our kids to experience Colombia outside of big cities.  Turmeque was perfect.  

Hyrum has two aunts that live in the 'family house', which is connected to the Pharmacy his aunt owns.  Hyrum and I haven't been there since 2011.  It was fun to see... not much has changed.  From the time we were dropped off, to the time our driver picked us up two days later, we just walked around town and played.  No cars.  Which is beautifully relaxing.  Everything is close.  We walked to the cemetery, bakery, cow fields, etc.  

The house has a walled-in 'huerta' (garden area) in the back.  It was kind of like a jungle last time we visited, but Tia Silvia has a person working there to clean things up.  It looked really good and the kids loved exploring.  Best of all, Tiago discovered the moras (blackberries) growing along the wall and ate as many as he could find.  The gardener kept pointing him towards other areas of ripe berries and his face was stained purple.  

One of the things our kids have talked about most since returning from Colombia are these ducks!  There are three ducks that live in the backyard, but only two have names.  Tia Silvia was trying to get them to come show off a trick (she lifts them up and they fly across the yard.).  She kept banging a pot or something and yelling, "Matilda, Lorenzo!"  The kids joined in and chased them around.  We tried getting them to swim, but they weren't interested.

Then we sat at the patio to eat these fried balls of rice and fresh pineapple.  Tiago was in heaven.  There was a little girl there (a employee's daughter named Mailet, who the girls kept calling 'Violet") for them to talk to in Spanish (aided by Hyrum.)

Our next stop was the market.  Monday in Turmeque is market day.  The normally 'empty' town was bustling with people from the surrounding area, and the streets were jammed up with trucks transporting fruits and vegetables.  When I commented that the town looked busy, everyone scoffed, because apparently just a decade or two ago the market day was a BIG deal.  Like people packed shoulder to shoulder.

Hyrum bought second lunch, and tricked me into trying blood sausage.  Tiago played bar tender and kept pouring our cups of soda.  They tried playing on a little (old school) playground, but the astro turf was wet and after they slipped a few times I called it quits.

We bought some produce.  The kids ate these tiny bananas, which they held up to their ears like telephones.  Hyrum showed them how to break a passion fruit open against his head.  They ran free with airplane wings.

Hyrum's family lives on the south side of the main square.  Diagonal from their house is the church, which the girls were anxious to explore.  We visited 2 or 3 times while we were there.  Tiago was fascinated with the statues of Christ on the cross, and the walls of the church are covered in Biblical paintings which I think date back to the 16th century but were only recently discovered and restored.

From the top of the church steps you can see out over the green valley.

Tia Miriam runs the pharmacy.  So we spent time just hanging out in the store and on the bench outside.  They brought out the old bread crust to feed pigeons on the street.  The kids had a blast with that.  There's a stray dog, who they call Luna, who they also brought scraps to.  But when she tried to eat the breadcrumbs, everyone shoo'd her away.  The kids spotted Luna around town a few times and she became a household name, just like Lorenzo and Matilda.

The one non-magical time was 7 pm.  The kids were all exhausted, but disoriented.  No one wanted to go to sleep.  There was still noise around, and lights on, and they had a hard time falling asleep. And having an audience while you parent miserable children always increases the pressure.  More so when people remember having their own well-behaved children.   But that's life.

Eventually, they did fall asleep.  And we got to sit around looking through old family photo albums.  I suspect the pictures will never be digitized, so I took pictures of several of the pictures.  It's better than nothing, and hopefully this way, more extended family will get to see them.  Here's Otoniel, Hyrum's paternal grandfather who also grew up in Turmeque.

Here's the group at breakfast.  Tia Silvia really spoiled the kids with hot chocolate.  Every time Tiago devoured a cup, she rushed off to the kitchen to bring him more.  He was really good at asking, "Mas choquito, por favor."

We stepped outside one morning and Hyrum saw a friend walking by.  This is a friend from about 25 years ago, who no longer lives in Turmeque but happened to be visiting for the morning.

We started to walk to Hyrum's old school (which has been torn down.)  The kids kept talking about seeing the destroyed school building (and asked if every crumbly building was the school.)  But it started raining on us so we turned around.  We took refuge in a bakery on the opposite side of the plaza.  Family friends own it, so Hyrum and his aunt had a good time chatting while I tried to control the kids.  Tiago had a dance party out in the rain.

Later in the day we went with Tia Silvia to the cemetery to show the kids.  It's on the outskirts of town, on the top of a hill.  Parts of it are very run down, but it's cool to show the kids where their relatives are buried.

It happened to be our 8th wedding anniversary, so we got a picture together.  On the way back down the cobblestone street, Mila held my hand and sang me the ABC song.

A family friend invited us to eat at his hotel (about 2 minutes away, also on the main square) so the kids had a blast exploring and playing while we enjoyed a meal together.  They played in the hammock and danced around the courtyard.  They got their fair share of attention!

It was starting to cool down, and the kids were out playing in the plaza.  They walked over to invite our kids to play.  Tiago played it cool but you could tell he was exploding with excitement inside.  As soon as we gave them the green light they ran like lightning.  And Hyrum and I tried to nonchalantly keep an eye on them, while we really just wanted to watch their every move.  It was adorable to see them playing.  The kids were so nice to them.  They played into the night, and eventually we had to pull them away.  

We walked down the hill for Hyrum to say hi to one of his old teachers.

And of course, before bedtime, the kids got hot chocolate.  (In these adorable, tiny tea cups.)

 We packed fairly light, hoping to do laundry along the way.  We took advantage of having a washing machine at his aunts' house, but the clothes didn't quite dry on the line outside.  Tia Silvia made quite the effort to get them hung up inside, so they were ready to be packed the next morning.

Wednesday we woke up, and were on our way back to Bogota by 9 am.  Breakfast was a bit of a rush.  Yogurt, cereal, juice, hot chocolate, a raspberry drink, etc.  I don't remember the slow down (maybe someone ran to the store?) but then one of the girls spilled juice everywhere.  The driver showed up early to get us, and ended up waiting quite a while.  But then we were on our way, with arms full of bottled juice and giant guanabana chunks.  Plus oranges and other odds and ends.

Just before loading into the van, the neighbor girls ran out to say goodbye.  (They had played with our kids the night before.)  They were adorable, and gave each of the kids a Colombia scarf.  The girls spent the next few days talking about "my friends."  When we asked Tiago what his favorite part was so far he said, "All of it."  He was really sad when we left, to the point of tears.  He told us he never wanted to leave.

As we drove back out of the green countryside, complete with bumpy dirt roads that twist and turn, we spotted pieces of a completely different lifestyle.  One that involves more walking, live stock, and a lot of beautiful nature.  I'm glad we could show our kids that side of Colombia.  Because the rest of our trip involved much more traffic and skyscrapers.