Last leg - almost

Greetings from Colombia! My mind is already partly in Harrisonburg and Ithaca, making grocery lists and schedules and thinking of things I need to remember to pack. But most of my attention has been on the present moment, which is much easier to do here than in Bolivia where every sight and sound dredged up memories from the past.

This is country #20 for me, and for some reason I didn't expect it to be so surprisingly different from other Latin American countries I've visited. I guess I never thought about Colombia too much. But I don't even know what to compare Bogota to, or Cali.

Impressions:
Bogota - flat and even plain between green mountains, high-rise apartment buildings and a speedy "millenium tranport" bus running down the middle of the street. Quaint tiled houses with a colonial/European flavor converted into office buildings. Strings of zeros on the bills. Light misty rain, breathless climbing the stairs, glad for wool socks.

Cali - fields and fields and fields of sugar cane, mountains on the horizon, blooming trees, and a river winding through the middle of the city shaded by enormous gnarled trees. I love it that the built the streets following the curves of the river instead of straightening the river with a canal to match straight streets.

Colombia is so much more diverse than I imagined - geographically, ethnically, culturally. It's just a fascinating place.

The MCC programs here are focused very much on peace-building; you can read this volunteer's blog for more details on that aspect of it - certainly a closer perspective than I could give after just a few days!

Tomorrow we have the day mostly off, and Monday I leave for the US!!! Time flies.