Colombian Cowgirl

I have had an excellent first few days in Medellin.  The first day was exactly as planned - straight up relaxing.  The second day, a friend of a friend who is a tour guide of the city, arranged for a countryside horseback excursion.  

Now, when I agreed to go on this excursion (using my phone during the immigration line in Colombia), I being a bit sleep deprived, imagined 10 people trotting through the Colombian countryside, stopping for some delicious Colombian coffee, and riding back.  Sounded like a nice relaxing day, no?  Well, we did trot, but it turned out to be me and about 50 others around my age coupled with aquardente (Colombian national drink - tastes like Sambouca, Greek Ouzo, Turkish Raki, etc) being freely passed around.  Apparently, that is how you drink aquardente: straight up and passed among friends.  Below is a pic before the ride.  

The ride started out awesome.  Everyone kept passing me drinks of the Guaro (short name for the national drink) and it made me slightly less nervous about being on the ferocious beast (if you don't know the story of last time I was on a horse, it started with tequila and ended with me being bitten and needing a tetanus shot).  Anyway, this time along with drinks flowing freely, music was playing (people hooked up speakers to their horses), and everyone was so welcoming and wanted me to practice Spanish with them or they wanted to practice English with me.  About 30 minutes into the ride, it started pouring rain. Thankfully, I bought the sweet hat and was ready.  

The view during the trek was beautiful!

After a two hour ride there, we stopped at a bar, ate some snacks, drank some more and danced.  A new Colombian friend tried to teach me how to dance Reggae-ton (some sort of Colombian reggae - sounds weird but I loved it).  On the way back, I don't know if it was me or the aquardente, but me and my horse bonded much more and did a lot more trotting than on the way there.  I had a great time and definitely want to ride a horse again!

The next day I went to the cable car from some fellow hostelers.  The cable car promised us a great view of the entire city.  We took the subway from where we are located, Poblano, to the correct stop, which puts you at the base of the Barrio, which is similar to a slum/favela.  Basically, the poorer part of the city.  We connected to the cable car, which by the way apparently Rio is working on developing as an easier way for residents of the favelas to get to their homes (most favelas tend to be on mountains), and headed up.  One of the cable cars was sponsored by Citibank.  As an ex-financier, I found that interesting.  

As we headed up and admired the views, I observed the streets in these neighborhoods were much wider and it was much more open than the favelas in Rio.  I don't know if that was only a tiny part I saw, and I certainly don't feel comfortable comparing poverty levels, but it seemed "nicer" here than the favelas in Rio.  Perhaps that is attribute to Rio being a bigger city, but really I have no idea.  I would by no means call it nice though and still found it very sad.  Another thing I have found very sad throughout my travels here in South America is the amount of children working.  Kids were working at the horse farm, the street selling food, and other places.  It has made me feel very appreciative of my life.  

Once we got to the top of the cable car line, there was a beautiful national park where we rented bikes and strolled around.  

That night, we drank at the hostel and I met up with some old friends from college for a few drinks.  Look, Colombia has rum in a juice box!!

 

Today has been a very low key day.  I went out for lunch with some friends, ate a salad (not common at all, so much fried food/bread here) and now am working on planning some trip details.  I head to Bogota on Wednesday, and next week will be in Peru climbing Maccu Piccu.  From there, off to Bolivia and likely Argentina after.  But, a woman has a right to change her mind, so who knows!!

Adios Amigos!