well.....my first year in panama, teaching at ISP, is coming to a close....TODAY!!!! it has been a long and crazy year and the past two months have been super overwhelming....from a death of a colleague to a school board gone crazy....not the easiest place to finish.....i am coming back for at least one more year and if i can possibly make it work, two more years.....but that is no guarantee, as really, the past two months have been filled with a lot of chaos.....however, my time here in panama has been positive and i have seen some amazing parts of this country and countries in central and south america....i have met cool folks along the way, had fun adventures and experiences and look forward to some time away this summer.....i will be in both the states and europe during this vacation and i look forward to time away to clear my head and get ready for next year....but i still have not shared with all of you the adventures i had in colombia at the end of march and the fun things i have been up to in panama......so let's move backward a bit and on with the story......sorry it has taken so long to get this update out....
sorry this never made it out at the end of last week, but it was the last day and then i was on a plane to the states....and now i am hanging at my parents place until june 30th....so now, let's hope i get this out in the next day or so.....on to colombia....i visited bogota, medellin and guatape (a cute little town outside of medellin)....and yes, medellin is where pablo escobar is from and what the series Narcos is based on...but when you mention his name (and really you shouldn't), there are many that are really not happy that this particular series is making it in the states....so if you go to medellin, realize that if you support tours for Narcos, the wrong people are benefiting from this.....and for those of you nervous to go to this country...don't be...it was safe and secure and i had a blast...i am hoping to make it to cartagena sometime next school year, as i loved colombia that much and really want to see that city....anyway...here are some shots for you to see why i loved my time there....
one of the first thing i noticed about my time in bogota, was that it was raining quite a bit, and that there were tons of green spaces throughout this huge city....one of the cool things i found in the park was this little library...it was not open, but during weekdays and weekend days it would be open and kids could come and take out books....love it!!!
bogota is one of the most amazing cities for graffiti....it has become the place where artists from all over the world go and it is one of the ways colombia has dealt with slums...they have been beautified by local artists....one of the most famous locations for graffiti is medellin...however, i was not able to make it to the area with all of the graffiti there...but i did make it to a graffiti tour in bogota...and it was incredible.....
all of these pictures were taken in the la candelaria area of the city....where graffiti is literally on every street....it is a way artists have documented colombia's past and present....the piece you see above was designed by famous graffiti artist Rodez... his work always contains multiple eyes and bold colors....he painted a ton of murals around one park...and his children, who are also graffiti artists help him with the art he creates.....the park they did was important because it was where a young graffiti artist had been shot in the back by a police officer, as he ran away when we was caught doing graffiti....this began a horrible time period between the police and the artists....now graffiti is not legal, but it is not illegal in places of bogota.....confusing, but at least no one gets killed over graffiti these days...however, there is a ton of construction happening in the la candelaria section of town...and as the city tears down the buildings the art is being lost....as they refurbish and renovate, artists come back and paint again...but no one who is sure who will win...the city or the artists.....the works of art may be lost over the next 5-10 years we were told on our tour.....
This one above was my favorite....there is one street artist who does murals of the indigenous folks from colombia...and he has taken the name gauche....which is a slang term for indigenous that is not very nice....his work is stunning....i have to be honest though, i am not sure this one was done by him, but it has much of his style.....so if i am crediting him for something he did not do, i apologize to the artist who did this piece that i love.....
colombia is also home to botero...an artist who is still alive....his home town is medellin, so there is more of his work there, but we went to the botero museum for the day....as you can see, i am hanging with some friends...the schnack family...from panama who were also in bogota.....it is a common place for folks from panama to go to, as it is relatively close by and cheaper than panama.....botero is still alive and more of his work is below....i just like that we all fit into the hand....
medellin is a town that has been through many changes.....back in the 90's it was considered one of the most dangerous cities in the world...and now it is a place tourists flock to because the city has been "cleaned" up....does it still have problems, of course....but the people and government of medellin have worked hard to make it the city what it is today....in the middle of town there is a sculpture that is based on dante's inferno....pretty scary up close....but it is to remind the city what it has been through and how it has fared through all of its history.....
medellin is also the home town of botero....this is in his plaza, where there are 23 sculptures done by him....this is caballo (horse) and i....love the work....
one of my main reasons for going to colombia was to see my friend and previous colleague genevieve....we travelled from bogota to medellin, where we had a blast exploring the city and gautape, a small town about 2 hours outside of medellin.....the building behind us is rather bizarre...it is called the rafael uribe uribe palace of culture...i really liked this side of it, but the opposite side was built very differently because they ran out of money before they finished the building.....
in 1995 there was a bomb that went off in a place where more than 1000 people had gathered for a concert....the bomb was placed in the botero sculpture called the dove, on the left...it killed 30 people and injured 200 people.....it was never really determined which group did this, but it happened just after pablo escobar's righthand man had been arrested.....when the city discussed the taking down of botero's sculpture with the artist, he requested they not remove it...and he built a replica of the dove, which he placed next to the original, to show that the spirit of medellin could not be stopped....
outside of medellin by about two hours, there is a cute town called guatape....it is considered the most colorful town in colombia.....the artwork you see on the steps are called zocalos....and they are on most people's houses and commercial buildings....they represent the things that are important to the owners of the houses and buildings....no one really knows why the zocalos were started...but i did hear something about chickens.....still don't understand the connection though....
even the municipal building is decorated by zocalos....they are the cubes along the bottom of the building...very colorful if i do say so myself....
as we were wandering through the town we came across this old dump truck....the front of it was super colorful, just like the town it was parked in....in guatape they also had tuk-tuks....hadn't seen them many places outside of asia, so that was cool.....
we also came across an old ferris wheel for kids....it was abandoned, and falling apart...but cool looking....
this was the view from our airbnb in medellin....i really had no idea how big this town was or how tall the mountains were that surrounded it....i would go back....especially to do the graffiti tour in medellin...as it is one way they helped clean up this city from being one of the most dangerous places to be, to being a tourist destination.....so glad i got to be a tourist there....
and of course i couldn't forget a toast to you all with a colombian beer, club colombia.....the place i am in was amazing!!!! a true working person's bar....with a live band and as you can see behind me, dancing of all of the local folks....my friend genevieve and i loved this place.....it was called salon malaga and really had a colombian feel to it....
as you can see my time in colombia was awesome....and i didn't even post all of the coffee i drank, hills i walked (its a very hilly place), and tasty colombian food i had while there...you will just have to go check it out yourself.....and of course, there were some fun things i did in panama over the past few months....so i figured i would end with a few shots from there.....
back to panama we go....one of the funniest things about panama is how they put up cardboard/metal cut-outs of police holding a radar gun to cause people to slow down along the sides of the highways....you can see one of them above....
this is it from the back....hahahahahahaha....it is always the same woman and she is rather short...but every time i see one of these i laugh out loud....slow down panama drivers.....
another visitor this past year was my friend julia who i met while working in china....she and her beau came through for a week or so and we took a trip down the coast on the pacific side....on the way to the beach we were heading to we stopped and looked at the chinese gate that is just over the bridge of americas....we got to connect with a chinese lion and each other on this trip and had a blast.....
we also stopped in el valle....a town built in the caldera of an extinct volcano...in a previous post i wrote about el valle...this was very quick visit, but we got to spend the afternoon down in that valley...and it was great!!!
and on the way back to the city we got to experience one of the craziest things that happens when there is traffic on the highway that leads down the pacific coast to and from panama city...when the police change the direction of one or two of the lanes on the opposite side of the median...as you can see we are in the lane closest to the median going forward...yet just on the other side of the median you can see the brake lights of the gray car going in the same direction, but the taxi coming the other way is not going in the same direction....every time i experience this, i get freaked out....i have not driven on the other side, and i am not sure i will,,,,crazy panamanian driving.....
the last shot is my excitement at finding a japanese place in panama city that serves asahi beer and takoyaki....yummy!!! i am also going to europe this summer and will be connecting with the folks that introduced me to this amazing meal...and i am very excited to reconnect with them....woot!!!
so there you have it...my spring break trip to colombia and a small bit of panama at the end...more to come on panama before the end of the summer i hope....as i would love to have something else written about my time from april - mid-june...as i had quite a few adventures....so fingers crossed it happens....hope all of you have a great start to summer/winter (based on where you live)...if you have any questions, feel free to send them my way...and here's to the next installment coming a bit sooner....
hope all is well & have a fab day :)
dani
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