The Colombia Journey

a wrap up

We spent nearly 3 weeks in Colombia, and rather than try to see the whole country, we chose to base ourselves in Antioquia and specifically in Medellin - to get to know that city and the towns and valleys around it.  Though I still like the road-trip style of travel, where you keep the scenery rolling by and the pace peripatetic, I like even more the staying put and digging more deeply into a place you've never been.

For Monica this was an opportunity to re-aquaint herself with a place and with people that had helped form her long ago.  For the boys, this was to rattle their cages and open their eyes to a heritage that they are mostly oblivious to.  For me, it was a kind of recreational anthropology, where I got a explore an unfamiliar culture from all the many angles and vistas that Monica's relatives generously made possible.  There's an old anthropology expression that says, immersing yourself in another culture "makes the strange, familiar, and the familiar, strange."  In that way, you not only see the sense in a new culture, but get to see your own culture through new eyes.  In the process your brain gets stirred all the way down to the reptile parts, which is subtly disorienting and awake-making.  And that's a good thing.

So, for all that the trip was a great success.  

I have posted pictures and accounts in seven installments, and if you'd like to view things as I wrote them:

Part 1 Medellin           Part 2 Pictures

Part 3 The Fincas          Part 4 Pictures

Part 5 More Fincas         

Part 6 Guatapé and Piedra del Peñol

Part 7 The Towns

The morning view from Uvital