Day 2: driving around Colombia

Ready for the day!

Actually, we waited around for a bit since 

the plan was to meet at 10 AM. Julia and I noticed the people on the streets where cars had been. 

They close the street on Sundays so people can ride bikes, roller blade, or go for a run. I like that idea. We saw some tents and saw there was Something like a morning market. I really was in the mood to just go walk around and discover the cool areas around our hotel. I had brought running shoes, and thought how cool it would be to go running. But it is not safe to go alone and did not plan ahead. 

Natalia had a driver ready for us at 10. We were going to drive to a cool lake that had a lot of history and we were excited. I thought we would go drive to the really cool Laguna, let the boys run around and maybe buy a soccer ball so they could play, take some pictures with my good camera, maybe go to a museum and see the artifacts, eat food of course and then come back. It's so nice to think of this we have never even heard of it before but some of the artifacts are actually in museums around the world. We heard that we should wear comfortable clothes, and take my good camera. 

Do you see the military/army guys behind Dylan? Dylan matches them in his camouflage. They have huge guns and I all around the city. 

Stevens aunts mad at us and we loaded in the van. We saved a seat for Natalia and went by your place to pick her up but she was not there. We could not understand the phone conversation but it sounded like she was going to take a motorcycle up there by herself.

The streets were pretty crowded with cars, buses, and crazy people selling things like huge bouquets of cotton candy.

I had a huge smile on my face the whole way up the mountain in the car. When we were almost there, leave a little store that had some soccer balls for sale. We had the driver circle around so we could let Dylan and Isaac and to buy them. It was quite an adventure going up the mountain. We love looking at all of the sites and I was excited for the way back because I could be able to see out of the other window. The seats are a little high or the windows are little low to see out directly. Once we were really close, the streets were extremely bumpy and narrow. It didn't seem exactly dangerous, but I was surprised I had not gotten carsick. Actually Clara did get carsick. And puked all over Andre. And he had only brought one shirt. The Driver gave him extra to borrow. 

Surprise! We were not at the Laguna. We were at a base camp for an extreme hike up to it. 

 It actually said on a disclaimer that pregnant women, and people with heart conditions should not attempt a hike. Instantly, Steven's aunts decided that they would just meet us at the lake itself. Unfortunately, the driver had already taken off to meet us down there at the end. We did not have cell service, so could not get a hold of him. The aunts figured out a way to get to our destination with another driver of some kind.The rest of us needed a little more convincing. We decided to go ahead and pay and attempt the surprise hike. We had the boys wear the babies.

The boys got a snack while we went to the bathroom and let the kids see the pretty sight and flowers in the Hills.

We went with a tour guide. She spoke Spanish, so we didn't get much out of it. The boys actually said they weren't listening that much when we asked them. They told us some parts though. We entered the first outdoor tee pee room by walking in backwards. We don't know why, but the people in front of us did it so we'll did it with smiles on our faces too.

We ate some delicious oranges that my Marlen gave us before she split.

Then the real hike begin. It was actually nice and paved and not that steep. Tyler was holding my hand but then I let go to go ahead and take a picture of Andre and Barbie. 

Not too much after that, Tyler's started sort of crying and I thought it was because I was not holding his hand. But I noticed that he was wheezing and looked scared and sad. He found me and we held hands but that alone did not console him and he was kind of falling down. I stopped and told everyone else to stop because he was having difficulty breathing. It was scary. I wanted to hold him so I picked him up. Andre and Steven knew that it was altitude sickness and that we needed to go back down immediately. I thought we could just stop moving and let him catch his breath and figure out what we should do. It did not seem as difficult as I had imagined, but it is true that we kept getting higher and higher. One of the tour guides was coming back down and we explained what was happening. He went back down the rest away with us. Actually he was in front of us and we were walking pretty quickly. I think that all of us were a little out of breat from that brisk walk. We explained that we were from Florida, altitude zero. Steven told me that Bogata is the second or third highest capital in the world. And we were going he even higher than that! Andre went with somebody to go down to the lake to find our drivers so he could come pick us up so we could find the aunts back down at the lake. So we took a family picture. And let the kids play a little more. 

It seemed to be so stressful. The babies fell asleep as soon as we had settled into the car even on the crazy pot hole infested narrow windey roads. We heard that the aunts were at a little city so we are going to spot them and pick them u from there. We thought we are going to just pick them up, but it was such a cute city that we decided to stop and eat lunch there. 

Clara was good and stayed asleep, but Julia woke right up. I want a tula carrier. 

Surprise! We found the aunts but Natalia was with them too! So we ate with them. 

There was a live band. Marlen took Julia to see. 

The food was good. But the jugoo de guanabana was amazing. Frothy white fresh yumminess. 

We got obleas for dessert. 

Natalia bought the boys balls. I bought two nativities. 

That is the city as we drove away. 

The boys had to get out and push because the car broke down. We need to get out of traffic. We took the opportunity to go use the bathroom. We had been in the car for over two hours. We went a different way home so that we could drop Natalia off so she could go go to work. We had actually asked him just before we broke down how much longer it would be. When she said an hour, I was shocked. And only taken about two hours going the other way. 

When it was getting dark, we got to a point where we could look down and see the city of Bogotá.b

#ElevatorSelfie! It was a rough day.

We were happy to get two our nice hotel room, shower, and get into  PJ's even though it was fairly early for bedtime.