Fotos of our barrio

I should've posted these the other day when I wrote the post about our neighborhood, La Macarena, but whoops! I forgot.

Check out our street

(note the pizzeria on the right):

Here's one of the main streets of La Macarena, just around the corner. On this block you can find our favorite bakery and fruit/veggie store. There's a rivalry pizzeria at the end of the block, but it's not as good (read: cheap) as the one next-door.

Last, but not least, here is something you don't see everyday in the good ol' US of A. Horse-drawn cart going down the middle of one of the main thoroughfares of the city (think: Peachtree Street a la Atlanta or Pennsylvania Avenue a la DC).

Leche de coco

As I've mentioned before, I can't get enough of the cheap, fresh fruits and vegetables in this country. To Jerry's dismay, Colombians don't really go for spicy food. So, he decided to make a green curry paste - completely from scratch. You can buy any ingredient imaginable in Paloquemao, the wholesale market in Bogotá, even lemongrass. But in order to use his fresh curry paste as part of a delicious meal, we needed some coconut milk. Why not make it ourselves?

Step 1: Go to the market, buy coconuts.

We stopped by the plaza de mercado near our house and picked up a couple of coconuts. Remember, coconuts are a pain in the ass to cut open. So we asked the muchacho in the tienda to cut them open for us with his machete, which he did free of charge, of course. Each coconut was about $1 each.

Step 2: Mmmm. Meat.

Take out the meat, the white part, of the coconut. There will be a thin brown layer attached to the white part; that's A-OK. To make it easier to take out the coconut meat, you should score it a few times while it's in the hard outer shell. The knife might bend as you pry out the meat.

Cut these large chunks into smaller pieces, roughly one inch squared. That's not a hard and fast rule, just make sure the pieces are smallish.

Step 3: Washing tons. Of coconut.

Rinse off the coconut pieces.

Step 4: Blend it up.

Fill the blender half-full with water. Put the top on the blender, but leave the center hole open. Turn the blender on with only the water inside. Drop in the coconut, piece by piece as it grinds up and blends with the water. Continue dropping coconut pieces in until the blender is almost full, or until it cannot blend the coconut efficiently.

Step 5: Sieve I care.

Filter the water/coconut concoction through a fine mesh sieve into a pitcher. Most instructions we found online recommended filtering the water/coconut concoction through a clean cloth towel. Turns out we didn't have any clean cloth towels around the house, but a sieve seemed to work out fine.

Step 6: Repeat. Kind of.

You should still have some coconut pieces leftover. Pour the coconut milk you've already made back into the blender until it is half-full. Repeat the process of slowly dropping in coconut chunks. Depending on how much coconut you have, you may repeat this process several times.

Step 7: Sieve again.

Strain the coconut milk concoction again. Now you're ready to go!

Step 8: Make sumpin good.

You can use your coconut milk for all sorts of things - we used ours to make a green curry chicken & veggie dish. We had a little bit leftover and poured it into some homemade pineapple juice. Yum. Check out how happy Jerry is to be cooking with his homemade green curry paste and coconut milk.

Step 9: Eat & Enjoy.

We won't be buying canned coconut milk anymore... at least while we're unemployed and have the time to make it fresh.

La Macarena

When it's not raining at lunchtime, we go up to the terrace of our apartment to eat and get our Vitamin D for the day. Here is Jerry reading his Kindle, as well as a view of the neighborhood from the terraza.

I step out of our apartment and turn left. The smell of delicious pizza penetrates my poor sense of smell, and it takes all the self-control I can muster to not buy una porción every time I walk by. Turning the corner, our favorite bakery is on the left. Every few days, we buy a loaf of braided bread stuffed with cheese. It never lasts more than 24 hours. A couple of times before ultimate frisbee practice, I've bought a flaky pastry filled with bocadillo (guava paste, not to be confused with the Castillian word for sandwich). Keep walking downhill, and you'll see the tienda where we buy any fruits, veggies, or milk that we need at the last minute.

The woman there can't believe I'm over the age of 16, much less married. Yes, even in this country where you can't tell if people are 14 or 40, they still think I have a cara de niña (young girl's face). Here, milk comes in a bag that goes unrefrigerated until you open it, and even then it's optional. We usually make at least one fresh fruit juice every day, for a fraction of the price it would cost in the States. At right, Jerry's enjoying a fresh glass of orange juice while watching the UGA football game this weekend - unfortunately, it was probably the only thing he enjoyed about watching that game. Also, notice our fresh sunflowers - fresh flowers are so cheap in this country!

Keep walking down the hill, past the coffee shop/bookstore, past the butcher, past the Plaza de los Toros (Plaza of the Bulls). Then you reach La Séptima (Seventh Avenue), the lifeline of Bogotá. I almost always buy a mango on the street here, as long as they look sweet. And I don't even need to peel and cut it! Colombians also like to eat green mangoes with lime and salt, but I still prefer the ripe ones. Ok ok, so the mangos come in plastic cups that I then have to throw away because this country doesn't really recycle, but I justify it because it didn't travel thousands of miles to get to my belly. If I'm feeling particularly hungry, I'll buy an arepa. Fried corn flour goodness with cheese.

At this point, I'm usually crossing over to get to the Transmilenio, Bogotá's rapid bus system with designated lanes, or flagging down a colectivo, one of Bogotá's private buses that act as public transportation. The advantage of these buses as private enterprises is that they will cross several lanes of traffic to pick you up. The disadvantage of these buses as private enterprises is that... well, they'll cross several lanes of traffic to pick someone up just to get their 1,300 peso fare and commission (roughly 75 cents). One lesson we've learned one too many times - never take a colectivo during rush hour. It literally took us two hours to travel nine miles home the other day.

We recently discovered a small market just a few blocks from our house. Today, we bought lunch there for $2 each - thick barley soup plus chicken, beans, rice, and plantain. And passionfruit juice to wash it all down. Then bought some fresh produce, including a fruit called feijoa (see left).

I loved the feijoa juice I tried our second day in Bogotá, so I thought, why not try to make it myself? It turned out so terribly, we couldn't finish it. Apparently, you need whole milk and a ton of sugar. So much for that idea.

This is why Colombians rule: Saturday night I go to the corner store to buy a box of rum and Coke. I'm gone for half an hour. Joined in with a bunch of people celebrating some woman's birthday (she was turning 38, looked about 28 or 78, hard to tell), they gave me a couple of shots of tequila, lectured me that I can only drink that rum straight (that's the best rum our country produces! you can't taint it with coca-cola!), and told me to call them if we ever need anything. Also, for the record, the song that Colombians sing for birthdays is literally the "Happy Birthday" song with a Colombian accent. It is absolutely brilliant.

I'll leave you with a picture of our very untraditional Rosh Hashanah dinner of homemade gnocchi. Oh right, Rosh Hashanah was the night we got home late after our two-hour bus ride. And then the power went out. But we managed to buy apples and honey! Also, can't end this post without a shoutout to my nephew, Davis Leon Luxenberg, born on Rosh Hashanah. Mazel Tov, Paula and Harlan! What a great new year.

Travels

Finally back in D.C. (Bogotá D.C. that is), so I figured it was time to fill all y'all in our travels around the country. Because our apartment didn't open up until yesterday, we decided that if we were going to continue paying $20/night for a hostel, we might as well be spending those nights in new and interesting places.

First, we went to a restored Spanish colonial town called Villa de Leiva (see photo on the left) that was supposed to have lots of cool hikes in the area. The first day we went on a h

ike to two waterfalls and the "paso de angel," a 6-inch-wide ridge crossing bordered on either side by very, very, steep cliffs. Sadly, right as we accomplished that crossing, it started raining and thundering. Understandably, we realized that we were standing on a bare ridge in the middle of a thunderstorm and decided to turn back.

Not much more to report on Villa de Leyva, and next we headed to Colombia's coffee region, in search of a cup of coffee that would best Sr. Neuheisel's. Fellow travelers had raved about Jesus Martín's tinto (a small coffee shop in Salento, the backpackers' stop in the Zona Cafetera). It was crap. The owner of the hostel that we stayed at in Salento recently purchased a coffee farm nearby, and we sampled a cup of his coffee. Though better than Jesus Martín's, it still didn't stack up to the coffee produced in ol' 2566. On the coffee plantation, Robin learned where pineapples come from.

In Salento we also went on another beautiful hike to the Valle Cocora, home to some stunning groves of wax palm trees (and wild growing mushrooms - I'll let y'all guess as to which is the main reason for backpackers descending on Salento en masse). The hike was gorgeous and exhausting, though the clouds never did part to let us see the valley in all its splendor.

Although we initially had planned on spending all of our travel time in the coffee region, we decided that we were tired of sticking to the Lonely Planet trail and instead wanted to forge out on our own, taking several long bus trips to Popayán, another beautiful colonial city. 30 km from our hostel are some thermal springs, and the hostel arranged a trip for us to be driven (mostly uphill) through the Andes to the thermals with bikes, so that we could then bike down: Robin's Climate Ride Jr.

From Popayán, we took a 70 km/5 hr. bus ride through the Andes to a small to called San Andrés. Most travelers skip this spot because the ride is long and goes over very crappy roads. It was stunning. Nestled in a small valley, the town is known for the ancient tombs that dot the surrounding ridgelines. Not to be insulting to Colombia's indigenous cultures, after having been to Cappadoccia, these tombs just didn't seem as cool. However, the tombs were just a sideshow to the great hike that takes you up and down the mountains to see all of the different archeological hikes. The last ascent was the toughest, and Robin almost didn't make it, but I carried her up the last 200m.

Next, we decided to visit Tatacoa, Colombia's "desert" (it's not actually a desert - just a really, really dry tropical forest). If you've already been to Bryce Canyon, you aren't missing too much by not having seen the Tatacoa. It's like Bryce, except small, and with Colombians instead of Mormons. The Tatacoa was gorgeous, especially at night, and an amateur astronomer who was a bit too enthusiastic with his Spanish R's pointed out some new constellations to us. However, after one night of sleeping in hammocks and getting devoured by mosquitos, we decided that it was time to head back to Bogotá.

And here we are! This should be the last of our "travel" posts until Evan arrives. Now it's time for us to find a source of income...

Feliz cumpleaños to Jerry

Alright alright, so it was Jerry's birthday more than a week ago. Happy birthday, mi amor! It's been a great week, but I'm paying for internet (no free wifi where we are now) so I'll just sum it up as follows, with more details to come:

- A night out to the local microbrewery + art show with new Colombian friends.
- A night out on the town with our new housemates and lots of French people for Jerry's bday.
- Friday night and Saturday morning services at the local Lubavitch synagogue, where the women talked on their cell phones and the rabbi had to hush the men from chatting during the Torah reading. I wore my tallit while sitting on the balcony Saturday morning and didn't get any grief except for a funny look from the rebbetzin. The rabbi has been really nice to us, but not sure yet what we'll do for the High Holidays. We still have to check out the Conservative synagogue when we get back to Bogota.
- Our first "onces" (pronounced ohn-sehs) with Myriam, my Aunt Sheila's friend from way back. Las onces is the Colombian version of afternoon tea, but with hot chocolate, arepas (DC friends - think Colombian version of a pupusa), bread, and cheese.
- Vacation in Girardot with Luis & his family, including an adorable 20-month old (which made me so excited to be an aunt soon! And no, we're not going to have kids any time soon).
- A few days in Villa de Leyva, just a few hours from Bogota, which included hiking in the middle of nowhere through people's backyards, and getting caught in the rain while it's thundering.
- A couple days back in Bogota, including a visit to Ciudad Bolivar, commonly known as the worst/poorest part of the city. There will be a longer blog post about that.
- And now we're in el Eje Cafetero, the coffee region. The bus ride over here yesterday took 10 hours, most of which we slept, but the hours we were awake had breathtaking scenery. I love the Andes mountains. If you're afraid of heights, don't have a window seat when riding through this area. Imagine the green of the Appalachians plus the jaggedness of the Rockies, but add in palm trees, farms that are practically vertical, and a bus driver that likes to pass big trucks around a switchback.

Also, the main reason you should one day come to Colombia is because they sell cut-up mangoes on every street corner. Plus freshly squeezed orange juice. I'll finally eat something besides Cheerios every morning for breakfast. Oh, and the people are wonderful. We definitely picked the right country.

Traveling now until September 1 when our apartment opens up. Life is grand.

L'auberge Colombienne

Good news, y'all! We found an apartment! Almost everyone we've been talking to here in Bogotá has told us to live in the northern part of the city; east of the Ave. Caracas and at the very least north of Calle 60. These areas are much more affluent, and also contain the more upscale restaurant, shopping, and entertainment strips. One of the owners of the hostel that we're staying at told us to check out the area that he's living in, "La Macarena" (recently spotlighted by the NYT). We walked through the neighborhood a few days ago, and it was beautiful. Lots of small restaurants and cafés, lovely tree-lined streets, less traffic, friendly people, etc., etc. We spent that day calling and visiting apartments, wandering street after street looking at and following up on "For Rent" signs in apartment windows.

That night, I trolled compartoapto.com (the Colombian cragislist equivalent) for apartment listings, and came across an ad for a room in a 4 bedroom apartment in La Macarena. We went and visited the next morning, and we got the room. Renting a room instead of an apartment allows us to avoid the ridiculous situation of having to own in order to rent in Colombia. We would be living with 2 Frenchies, 1 Venezuelan, and 1 TBD, for half the price of the other apartments that we'd looked at. The apartment even has a rooftop deck! Even better, we move in Sept. 1, for now we can go travel around the country for a couple weeks.

In other news, yesterday we also visited with a Catholic Colombian NGO/service-oriented university, UNIMINUTO de Dios. The university works with a number of local Colombian NGOs in underprivileged parts of the city. Next Friday, we're going to work with one of the women who works for UNIMINUTO to visit a project in Ciudad Bolivar, in the southern fringe of Bogotá.

For those of you who have been clamoring for photos, I finally talked Robin into letting me carry our camera around. I'm hoping to visit our neighborhood in the next couple days to take some pictures, which will quickly find their way onto the blog.

Huffing and puffing

We moved to a new hostel yesterday... and by new, I literally mean the hostel hasn't even opened yet (we got to stay here free last night!). One of the partners of the hostel told us last night that he was going to take a walk up one of the mountains overlooking the city in the morning and asked if we wanted to go along. He then informed us that you have to go between 5:00-9:00a.m. Well, since we don't have jobs, there was really no excuse, so we decided to join.

When the alarm went off at 5:00a.m., we almost fell back asleep, but finally convinced ourselves to get out of bed. It was definitely worth it. The hike was not particularly hard, but wasn't particularly easy, either - mainly because we still haven't completely adjusted to the high altitude. But the view from the top was completely worth it, and getting away from the city traffic and noise was really nice. To top it all off, when we got back in the city we bought cups of fresh orange juice from a street vendor for super cheap.

Oh, and did I mention that the tap water here is potable? That's better than I can say for DC!