Well, I'm sure you guys are getting tired of reading my travel log, so I'll try to wrap it up here...
On Saturday we wound up doing the tourist thing... We took the tour of the Gold Museum and wandered around downtown, window shopping and walking through craft bizarres... We had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe in the Atlantis mall... It was as you would expect, a Hard Rock Cafe... In the afternoon we bought a couple bus passes and rode the bus all over town... This was a real education into what the average person from Bogota has to deal with... The bus lines are fast, reliable and an experience to say the least... Later in the evening a group from the agency was going to an exclusive club called El Sitio... Pretty swank, good food and an excellent live band... Again, by the end of the evening were all up dancing and having a great time...
Well, today is the last full day of my trip... The separation anxiety has already begun to set in on both of us... There is a trip scheduled to go to the Salt Cathedral today in Zipaquiera, about 50km north of Bogota... As we drive to the salt mine the conversation covers alot of ground... Everything from the rebel forces to the efforts that Uribe is making to try and right the country... Someone made the comment that the rebel forces had declared a seize fire that morning and someone from the agency said, yes, they did this every year over the holidays... I guess even the rebels need a holiday every now and then... lol... The general feeling from our new Colombian friends is that things are getting better, slowly, but better... After the tour of the Salt Cathedral, we stop at the Hacienda la Margaritta de Ochoa... Senor Ochoa was a top level man in the drug cartels during the day, but after the cartel wars and the government crackdown, he somehow escaped with his life and his freedom while the rest of his family went to jail... The restaurant is located on the site of his riding stables and is named for one of his favorite horses, Margaritta... Excellent food in an open atmosphere... Every Sunday they put on a show that includes Mariachi dancers, riding exibitions and even something for the kids with horse drawn wagon rides... To this day, his grand children run the restaurant and it is well worth the visit...
Being this is my last day in town, my novia and I spend a quiet evening together enjoying each other's company before I must leave... The following morning my novia accompanies me to the airport and sees me off with a teary goodbye...
Time to start planning my next visit... Time to start figuring out how to nurture a long-distance relationship with someone that I will only be able to see for a few days a month... Time to do a gut-check... I've got the preverbial tiger by the tail, now what the hell do I do!!!
I have spent much more before on holidays where all I had to show for the trip was a stupid T-shirt... This one is much more special in that I have found a very special person to hopefully one day share my life... That's if I don't screw up by being a man!!!
I appreciate you guys not ragging on me too much as I wrote this story, but it helps me put the trip into perspective... Hopefully there is some useful information here that some of you might use... For most of the veterans there is nothing really new here... But maybe some of you lurkers, newbies or fence-sitters can gain some insight / motivation from these words and to help GET YOUR BUTT ON AN AIRPLANE...
Chao...
wizard
