Hello! Hola! Konichiwa! Nihou! I am here!! MEOW!!!

Hi all.  I was planning to write a final post on my last week in Colombia, but now I’m two countries behind already so I will just have to say that Col0mbia is one of my all-time favorite countries and you MUST go, if you ever have the opportunity.  You will meet no friendlier people and see no better beaches, jungles and mountains, I promise.

 After Colombia I spent a whirlwind week back in California – a few days with my family in Los Angeles and a very quick weekend in SF.  It was delightful to catch up with everyone and eat all the food I had missed, but I am thrilled to be back on the road and away from “real life” yet again…

For the next leg of my trip (Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Israel, India) I am traveling with Colleen, one of my oldest and closest friends.  We spent four days in Istanbul before arriving at our current destination in Amman, Jordan.  Istanbul fulfilled many of the stereotypical images in my head as a bridge between traditional and modern, religious and secular, east and west.  I didn’t realize that there is also a literal bridge that connects the two halves of the city (old and new).  Istanbul is an incredibly massive, diverse, bustling metropolis.  We visited many different parts of the city but I felt like I needed weeks more to fully explore it.  We spent a fair bit of time in the historic old center where the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque and our hostel were located.  This part of the city is incredibly picturesque but extremely touristy, which brings mediocre food, blaring American pop music and irritating carpet sellers.  Akbiyik Caddesi street is very similar to the abomination that is Khao San Road in Bangkok, but all the cheap hostels are located there so we didn’t have much choice.  Also, the backpackers you meet there tend to be very young and very green travellers - just out of college generally, with Istanbul being the “craziest” place they have ever been (not to be such a travel snob, sorry).  AND I had just met up with Colleen and we had lots to catch up on, so I wasn’t too interested in smoking a hookah with alcoholic 22 year old Aussies on the roof of the hostel.  Anyway…

Friday night we went out to Beyoglu and Taksim, a hip shopping district with lots of bars and clubs.  Beyoglu is full of energetic young Turks and plenty of women with their heads un-covered.   We went to a bar that was playing salsa music (random) and danced at an electronic club.  Good times.  The next night we took it easy and sprawled out for what turned out to be a five hour dinner.  We drank 10-15 cups of tea a day, and that night was no different.  The tea drinking culture in Istanbul is absolutely fantastic – it’s like enforced relaxing.  I loved wandering around the Spice Bazaar and taking in all the delectable aromas, and every time we walked into a cafe we were greeted with the fragrant haze of apple tabacco smoked in large water pipes. 

The main reason I didn’t totally fall in love with Istanbul, however, is that we were endlessly harrassed by men almost everywhere we went.  I do miss traveling with a man for that reason, because two girls alone is no different than one girl alone in terms of harrassment.  The title of this blog entry is how we were greeted by almost every shopkeeper/annoying tout as we walked by (I have a bag that says “Colombia” on it so people kept talking to us in Spanish, funny).  At first we were polite and responded “hello” back while continuing walking, but that would lead into inevitable conversations with lecherous men and pleas to have tea so we quickly developed the art of averting our eyes and not responding to anyone as we hurried by.  This wasn’t even the ideal solution though, because we found that some men would become really angry if we ignored them – “Are people unfriendly in your country? COME BACK HERE I AM TALKING TO YOU!!!” or an unfortunate incident at the club where a guy said “F*** you!  God will judge you!!” because I answered a question from someone else.  Ugh.  I pretty much stopped talking to any local men after that, which is so unfortunate because conversations with locals is one of the best parts of traveling.  Oh well.

I don’t want to leave the impression that all Turkish men were like that though, because we did also meet some friendly university students as well.  They didn’t believe in God, which was pretty shocking in a country that is 95% Muslim.  We had a nice chat with them in a hipster rock bar and left without anything lecherous happening.  Whew.  There were also plenty of men who barely noticed us in Beyoglu, which was really refreshing. 

I think Istanbul would have been a radically different experience if I had been traveling with a male companion, but… well, lesson learned I guess.  I would love to go back and explore the rest of the country sometime in the future.  We did have some excellent food experiences – Turkish yogurt (yum), gozleme (kind of like a crepe stuffed with cheese, spinach or meat served with an array of spices) and manti (ravioli-type things served with yogurt, garlic and some harrissa-type spicy sauce).  But…er… the food in Jordan is blowing me away right now, so I think it wins for best Middle Eastern food so far.

I hope all are well, I will post about Jordan later!  I love it here!!

 

Medellin – my favorite Colombian city

Hi all. I´m back in Bogota to chill out for a few days before boarding my flight to Los Angeles on Wednesday (I am going to be back in the states for a week before flying out to Istanbul). I spent six days in Medellin, but I could have stayed for weeks more. Medellin is known for its perfect year-round spring climate, stunning setting in a valley surrounded by green mountains, excellent plastic surgeons and Pablo Escobar. During the heyday of the Medellin Cartel in the 80s and 90s, Medellin was infamous for rampant drug-related crime. With curfews and loads of motorcycle assassins, it didn´t attract too many visitors at the time. Medellin today, however, is an entirely different place with an extraordinarily vibrant nightlife and some of the friendliest people you will ever meet.

After arriving on Saturday morning, Chris and I ended up at the Palm Tree Hostal, a lovely hostel with the cleanest communal kitchen I have ever seen in Colombia. Generally speaking I don´t cook very much when I travel because kitchens are often dirty and it is usually cheaper to eat out. The Palm Tree, however, offered free coffee, unlimited oranges to make fresh juice and two eggs per day. We ended up making breakfast and dinner every single night, a really welcome change after eating so much tasty but not very healthy Colombian food for weeks. It´s amazing how delicious steamed broccoli tastes when you haven´t had it in awhile! Chris is a very good cook so we took turns with the meals. The other travelers were really into cooking as well, so the hostel had a great, homey feeling to it. It was also small enough that you knew everyone who was staying there, and the group was pretty diverse – in addition to the usual Aussies and Brits, I also met travelers from Switzerland, Italy, France, Argentina, Brazil and the US.

We were pretty tired from the bus journey, but since it was Saturday night we felt obligated to go out and experience the famous Medellin nightlife. It definitely did not disappoint! We started at an electronic club with some people from Palm Tree, where I had my first dose of serious Colombian plastic surgery. Holy crap! I don´t think I have ever seen so many fake tits in my life. The ass implants were pretty entertaining as well. Some women were really starting to look like trannies though, which I don´t think was the intended effect…

That club closed at 4am, which felt way too early. We wandered outside to ask where the next spot was. After a short chat we ended up in a car with some very drunk but friendly Colombian guys who plied us with whiskey and red bull as they drove us to the next club. I would never get into a drunk stranger´s car back home, but the rules when traveling are a little more…relaxed. I rode in vehicles and motorbikes with drunk drivers in Southeast Asia all the time, just because, well, everyone was drunk and there wasn´t much you could do about that.

Anyway… the second club reminded me a lot of the clubs in Vegas, except that it was full of Colombians, not Midwesterners. More electronic music, more expensive booze, etc. I ran into some travelers I had met earlier in my trip, which happens a lot more often than you would think. Right outside the club were street vendors selling cigarettes, lollipops, gum, and all sorts of random crap you might want for a late night at a club. At around 6am we finally got tired of dancing, caught a taxi home and flew through the city as the cabbie blasted the best hits of UB-40 while driving like a maniac. Nice.

Sunday was spent doing pretty much nothing as we nursed our hangovers – had some food, watched movies in the living room and chilled out with the other hungover travelers at the hostel. After that indulgent and extremely lazy day, we did go out and explore the city a bit during the rest of the week:

Monday – Indian vegetarian restaurant for lunch, and then the Botero museum and plaza. The overview of modern Colombian paintings was really interesting.

Tuesday – Took the cable car up to the top and explored a neighborhood that used to be a total slum. The cable car has transformed this neighborhood by connecting it to the rest of Medellin. Now people can go to school or work with much more ease. Also, a huge, modern library has just opened up in that neighborhood, and we saw several offices that looked like they were giving business training. And there were tons of adorable kids running around!

Wednesday – More paragliding for me, first time for Chris and Adam (Aussie from the hostel). This time was even better because of the fantastic views of the city. Also, I wasn´t scared at all this time, so I took a lot more photos. We landed in a big dirt patch in a poor neighborhood where the kids gawked at my camera and hopped around us. As we headed to the metro afterwards, we ended up stopping at an empanada stand and eating about 20 potato empanadas (they were small!) while chatting with some friendly locals.

Later that night we went out in Zona Rosa, party central in Medellin. Since it was Wednesday night it was pretty tame, so we had just one drink and headed back (I still felt like I was recovering a bit from Saturday anyway). There were TONS of bars and clubs in that area though, and it looked like it would be really fun during the weekend.

Thursday afternoon we caught a bus to Manizales, a city in the heart of Zona Cafetera, the coffee-growing region of the country. I really didn´t want to leave Medellin, but forced myself to do so because of time constraints. I will be back though! Who knows when…

 

Bogota and my newfound empanada addiction

Welcome to my first blog entry!  I´ve been a little slow going on getting this started, but I hope to post once a week or so.  FYI, I haven´t figured out how to replace that ugly green tunnel photo above – Windows in Spanish is too much for me.

 Today is my fifth day in Colombia.  I arrived last Thursday on a flight from LAX-Panama City-Bogota.  If you want to buy a Lacoste shirt at the Panama City airport, you are in luck – there are four Lacoste stores.  However, if you are desperately searching for an Economist because you accidently packed all your books in your checked luggage, no success whatsoever.   Not a SINGLE magazine or newspaper to be had!  Ergh.

 I arrived in Bogota not knowing exactly what to expect.  It´s billed as one of the most cosmopolitan cities in South America, so I expected it to be crazy, crowded, and full of hustle and bustle.  I was not aware before coming that most Bogotans are on holiday from Christmas to January 6, so it´s been fairly mellow.  I´m staying at a hostel in La Candelaria, an older neighborhood that is packed with museums, cafes and colorful but crumbling colonial architecture.   You´re not supposed to walk around alone at night, but from what I´ve seen there are way fewer street urchins and crack addicts here than near my old apartment in the Haight.  My hostel is a bit rundown but full of friendly travelers.  I´m paying $8 a night for a bed that may or may not have clean sheets (thank god for my sleep sack) and a lukewarm-to-usually-cold shared shower.   Woohoo!

This city is absolutely massive (pop. 8 million).   My impression is that wealthy people tend to live in the north in nondescript modern apartment buildings while the south is full of the aforementioned crumbling colonial buildings and cobbled alleyways where the not-as-wealthy live.  And then there are the slums hugging the mountainside that seem to be present in most major South American cities. 

My friend Michelle connected me with some Colombian friends she met while living here last summer, and they have been showing me a fantastic time around the city.  I´ve been to a fair number of restaurants, bars and clubs in the city now.  One of the first things I noticed about the restaurants is that waiters are always reminding you to put your bag away in a safe place (i.e. under your table or in a secret compartment in your chair) even when you are sitting inside in a corner…

Which brings me to the security situation in Bogota.  It is impossible to miss the police, tourist police, and military guarding the city at almost every turn.  There´s also usually a soldier with a giant gun posted in front of every ATM machine.  This was a bit startling when I first arrived, but I don´t notice it too much anymore.  Bogota is much safer than it used to be even a few years ago, and I assume this giant military/police presence has something to do with it.  And all that said, I do feel safer here than in parts of Los Angeles or New York.

What else… oh, the food!  Of course.    One of my absolute favorite parts of travelling is trying all the local food.  Here are the culinary highlights and lowlights of my experience in Bogota:

HIGHLIGHTS

-Empanadas: delicious, cheap (15-30 cents), usually filled with rice and a little chicken or some type of meat, eaten with aji, a spicy cilantro sauce.  I´ve been eating these every single day.

-Ajiaco: a Bogotan specialty, chicken/potato/corn soup served with sliced avocado, cream and capers.  One of the very few things to eat that is not fried.

-Arepas con queso: Corn pancake-type things with cheese inside.  Fried, of course, and served by street vendors and restaurants everywhere.

 LOWLIGHTS

- Hot chocolate with cheese (chocolate santafereno??), another Bogotan specialty: This isn´t as gross as it sounds.  In fact, I bet if you like hot chocolate you would think it was delicious.  Since I´m not a huge fan of chocolate, I don´t think I will have it again.  You drop pieces of mild cheese into the hot chocolate and it becomes this gummy mass at the bottom of your mug which you retrieve with a spoon and eat with bread.  The hot chocolate doesn´t end up tasting like cheese at all, in case you were wondering.

-Wobbly-fat stew: ok, I have no idea what this is called, but without inspecting it very carefully I ordered a portion of what looked like a delicious spicy potato stew from a women at the market yesterday.  As I was about to dive my fork into it, I noticed that it consisted almost entirely of huge chunks of quivering animal fat and two tiny potatoes, covered in a spicy red sauce.  I took one ginger bite of potato, not wanting to waste food, but then threw the entire thing away.  I´m feeling a little ill thinking about it right now.

Other foods that Bogotans seem to be obsessed with are ice cream and giant cuts of meat for lunch and dinner.  I´ve avoided the giant slabs of meat so far, but I´m glad I started eating a little meat again before I left because as a pure vegetarian, I would be subsisting solely on french fries and arepas.  I am very much looking forward to the seafood on the Carribbean coast!