Greetings from the beautiful northeastern coast of Brazil! We've spent much of the past couple of weeks traveling from beach to beach along the coast and they've been stunning! We started the week in Fortaleza and were hoping to head to Jericoacoara Monday afternoon but later realized that the trip was a lot longer than we originally thought. Instead we decided to head out early the next morning and check out Praia do Futuro in Fortaleza with our new Brazilian friend, Warlem (pronounced War-lee). Praia do Futuro is a beautiful stretch of beach with great surf along one of the cities coasts. It had a beach club close by where we had some fresh mango juice and hung out by the pools.
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Note: Post was written a few days back on my cell, but took a while to get a stable connection and computer to edit and upload. Apologies again for the length, but hope you enjoy! Feel free to comment any thoughts below. Where to begin?!? So much has changed since my last post. No more Colombia. I've finished the second leg of my trip and am now in Brazil. No more solo travel. I am now traveling with my beautiful sister, Michelle. No more President HRC. We now have President-Elect Donald Trump. There was a gamut of feelings and emotions, several of which, I'm sure many of you shared as well. I'm going to break this post up into each of those and go into a bit more depth for each as I share the corresponding events on this journey. The feelings and emotions were:
Joy & Excitement:I'd just wrapped up my best week in a very long time, having spent the majority of it with my Abuelita Maria and her two sisters on her farm in La Uvita. (If you didn't get a chance to read last week's post, I'm With Her, I'm With Them! check it out. I posted it election night and understand if you would've missed it.) Now, I was on my way to Leticia, the Colombian gateway to the Amazons, with Michelle. Our plan was to explore a bit of the jungle and then take a river boat from Leticia to Manaus, the Brazilian gateway to the Amazons. This part of the trip was a major bucket list item for me and a dream of mine since I was a little kid. Growing up, I wasn't very into video games. They just weren't my thing, but there were two I obsessed over, Age of Empires and Amazon Trail. I guess it was the nerd in me that loved these games with historical context. Amazon Trail, was made by The Learning Company and had similar game play as Oregon Trail. Instead of fighting off dysentery, you've got malaria and yellow fever to watch out for. You start your trip in Belem, Brazil, where the Amazon River meets the Atlantic Ocean, and then travel upstream to the source in the Andes Mountains in Peru. In the game you travel across the river but also through time. I particularly remember meeting Henry Ford in Manaus, as he was collecting rubber from rubber trees for his cars back in the states. Some of my other favorite parts were finishing in the river for piracu and piranhas, documenting the wildlife like tapirs, jaguars, and sloths, meeting the historic figures, like Ford and Teddy Roosevelt, along the way. I know, total nerd! But I loved it! Getting a taste of this was going to be a dream come true!
I start this post of by saying this past week was probably my most meaningful and favorite week in a very long time. With that said, this post was written on my phone so pardon any spelling/grammatical errors as well as any long winded ramblings. When I last left, I was on my way to visit my grandma and her two sisters who all live together on my grandma’s farm in La Uvita. I'd visited La Uvita a handful of times when I was younger, but none was as special as this past week. It was me and three beautiful 80-somethings on a farm for a week. As I alluded to in the last post, there was going to be a lot of love and delicious food, and they did not disappoint on either account. The journey from Bogotá to La Uvita is about six to nine hours depending on the bus and traffic. I left early Tuesday morning on a coach bus to Duitama. At around noon, I arrived in Duitama and would have to transfer to another bus heading towards La Uvita. Much of Boyaca, the department La Uvita is located in, is made up of beautiful farmlands high up along the Andes mountains. The majority of the second half of the trip is on curvy, switchback roads along the sides of mountains. The scenery is absolutely stunning. The bus makes a lunch stop in Boavita, the town just before La Uvita, but I knew better than to have lunch on the road.
I arrived in La Uvita a little past two. La Uvita is a small farm town of about 3,000 people nestled in the mountains. The bus drops you off right in the central plaza. It had been four or five years since I last visited, so after a quick walk around the square to orient myself, I recognized the road that leads up to my grandma's house. Bogota, Colombia, my birthplace, my family, my... home. One thing I’m realizing, the more I travel and grow, is my understanding of home is continuously evolving. I’m sure you’ve all heard the saying, “Home is where the heart is.” The longer I live, the longer I love, the longer I explore, the more I realize I have more than one home. As a matter of fact, the more I experience the beauty and incredible people around this world, the more “homes” I seem to acquire, as each place I fall in love with seems to hold a piece of my heart. Bogota is my home. Long Beach is my home. Chapel Hill is my home. Brooklyn is my home. Mebane is my home. Antigua is my home. The list goes on and will continue to go on. By the time this trip is done, I imagine Rio and Cape Town will be homes as well.
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AuthorColombian-born, Brooklyn educator traveling the world Archives
May 2017
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