Nevin’s Travel Blag

::::: Update: Oops! For those of you who tried to view this page in the past two days, the password prompt was due to some images of flags that are hosted from within the stats interface for the domain (which requires login). No more pretty flags, but at least now it’s viewable to the world again!   :::::

Well, that was quite an adventure. Back in Ashland now, and headed to PDX tomorrow to find a place to live. This blog proved to be a good way to keep people up on what I was up to, and it will be great to read through

it myself in the future. Here’s how it all added up:

компютри втора употреба

Search Keyphrases (what people found the blog by typing into google)

Thanks for reading, and wish me luck with the housing search. This site will eventually be a lot more than just the blog, so check back to see what silly things I make public to the world next! Here are a last few photos from Ashland:

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My dad, Tom
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Well, after saying goodbye to all of the awesome Bogotanos, having barely enough pesos for the cab to the airport, and passing the multiple security checkpoints of the Bogota airport, I am back in the US of A. As everyone kept joking about with me, I could have gone right on speaking spanish in Miami (we ordered dinner in spanish the night I got in), but of course it would be silly since my spanish is worse than everyone elses English.

My time in Miami was really nice. I lounged around and got my classes figured out while Greg and Adriana did some work, and then we hung out with their friend Chris who lives in the UK. He is a great character with all sorts of stories who seems to know someone from every nook and cranny of the world. The next day we went to the beach to relax and swim, then went sailing in the evening with two more of their friends (Wendy and Carlos I think are their names). It was really cool seeing the edge of the city from the water as it got dark and the skyscrapers lit up. Then when it was time to turn around the motor had died and we had to slowly sail back (2 knots) and were just able to guide the boat into its stall. We all agreed by the end that it was actually really nice to go so slow and steady. Getting to visit them made me thing of all of my other relatives I want to hang out with- watch out aunts and uncles- I just might have some free time sometime soon, better be ready.

The next day I hopped over to Dallas, met up with Ben and Ryan, and jetted down to Austin. We stayed with the Ross, the brother of one of Ben’s good friends since highschool, who was a great cook and host. We had intended on tubing the Guadalupe River, but it was swolen over its banks and no outfitter was allowing tubing so we headed over to Shlitterbahn, a really really huge water park with artificial tubing. Although it was a cool day, we had a blast.

Now we are back in Dallas, just hanging out enjoying Ben’s good cooking until tomorrow morning. I’m exited to see all you folks in Portland, and on Saturday morning I head down to A-town. See y’all soon!

Well, it is my last day in Bogotá. As exited as I am to go home and see friends and family, including the ones I get to visit along the way, I am sad to go. The people I have interacted with here have been wonderful. I already mentioned how great Adriana’s family has been, but I also got to hang out with some youger people through a series of fluke events, which gave me a little view into what the college life might be like here. José, Fabian, Lina, Camilo, Viviana, Diana, Pablo, Julian, Sabastian - thanks for the good time.

Last night I went with part of the gang to a place called Imbitro, which was by far the coolest bar/club thing of the whole trip. Actually, I don’t think I’ve been to a place I liked as much as this one in the states either. The mix of music was great, the people there seemed like the kind of people I would want to interact with, the lighting was perfect, and until 11:00 Club Colombia only costs 1.25. In addition, once the place filled up, they asked everyone to sit down and showed a short film, prefeced by an explaination from the writer and director.

Today I went to the Center de Las Gaviotas, which is the Bogotá office of a town that is out in the Llanos of Colombia. Gaviotas is basically a town of 200 people that is completely sustainable, and almost completely inaccesible (especially for foriegners) due to its position in the middle of Gurilla territory. See: http://www.friendsofgaviotas.org. The Bogotá office is, well, I don’t exactly know what it is. That is what I had gone to find out today, but I guess they aren’t really set up to give information. I wen’t with a notebook and 6 or so specific questions both of my own and from other people on the Gaviotas Discussion email list. When I arrived, there were two guys doing some sort of testing or something involving big blue barrels and some sort of electronic meter. One came down to street level to see what I wanted, and I asked him what exactly the place was, if there was someone there who had info about the project, if there was any info in English, and if I could take some photos of what looked like working models of the Gaviotas technology that so many have heard about. The general answer was ‘No’ to all of these. There was no info in english, nobody there to tell me anything I wanted to know, and I wasn’t allowed to poke around and take photos. He did ask my name, make a phone call to who knows where, and then return to tell me again that there wasn’t really anything here for me. As far as what goes on in that place, if he told me, it was with words I haven’t learned yet. He did however give me the name and number of who (I think) runs the office there and said that in order to find out more I should call her. I asked if she spoke any English and he said he didn’t think so. That left me unsure of what to do, and disapointed that I waited until the very end to visit. I decided not to call her myself because I am even worse at understanding someone’s Spanish over the phone. We’ll see if there is any time to figure more out tomorrow, but I highly doubt it. Next time.

One last thing. Today I had two unexpected experiances on the Transmilenio. The first one was that two local looking guys about my age actually asked ME which station we were arriving at, and I was able to tell them. Good thing, cause it was their stop. The second, even more amazing thing: I GOT A SEAT!!!!

Well folks, it’s official. I like it a lot here. I have been in the city for exactly a week now, and have gotten the chance to se a pretty good amount of areas. In addition to what Sonia showed me, I have done a lot of exploring on foot and even a little by bike. For such a giant dense place, it is incredably easy to navigate here, since the streets are all numbered and relatively gridlike. Addresses are also a lot more meaningful, and don’t require google maps to locate. If someone is at Calle 100 #15-12, that means you go to Calle 100, then to road #15, and look for the adress number 12. The bikeway network is pretty cool, and very far-reaching. There are definately difficult road crossings and places where the network is incomplete, but the paths are seporated from the road and plesant to ride on. Even when there is no specified bike lane, the sidewalks are so giant that there isn’t really a problem riding off street. Some Bogotanos still (who knows why) choose to ride in the street next to the cars, even when they are only a few feet away from a nice dedicated bike path. Also of note is that the network is still being expanded, as I witnessed first hand a few days ago.

The Transmilenio is fast, far-reaching, affordable, and barely handles the immense demand for public transit. It has over a million riders a day, and the buss compartments are always, always, always packed rediculously full. People cram themselves in by force, and the doors close in a scooping motion that caps off the overflowing hoard of commuters. Once I got used to the system map, I understood that it’s apparent complicatedness is only necessary to have”express” style busses and ones that stop often. As long as one can figure out which number they need to take, it’s pretty simple to get from one place to another.

The relatives of Adriana who I have been staying with and hanging out with have been wonderful. I gave Juan Camilo his room back on Saturday and relocated to stay with her cousin on the Moya side, Alejandro, and his wife Erica. They took me on a tour through some parts in the south of the city and then we drove a big loop through the countryside, stopping at the huge salt mine-cathedral (really cool), as well as some towns and other pretty spots along the way. I have been made to feel at home in both places, and it is a great way to experience the city.

On another note, I have spent all morning scheeming on how I can take only the classes I want to take, and still get the appropriate degree requirements to get into the graduate transportation program. Now I am waiting on an email from an advisor at PSU, but if all goes as well as I think it could I might be taking a lot more cool and a lot less lame classes throughout the next two years. Fingers crossed!

I take off from here on Thursday and go to Miami to see Greg and Adriana. I will hang there for a few days, then head over to Texas and meet up with Ben, Christian and Ryan. Our adventures to Austin and the Guadalupe River sound like they should be fun! After a few days of that, I will finally be heading back to PDX to get my feet back on the ground at home. I hope to do some backpacking before the term starts… hit me up if you wanna join me!

Brief note: formatting of this post is rediculous, and not gurenteed to be pretty or readable on some browsers. Oops! 

This is the style. Pants are purchased about 4-7″ too long, and folded as such. If I wasn’t already so obviously a gringo, I would give my foriegn-ness away in an instant with my traditional leg-length garb.

Well, after a long, cold busride to Bogotá, I succesfully met up with Jose and his friends. We bussed out to the kite festival for the weekend which was a lot of fun. As Jose had warned, it’s not really about kites so much any more, kinda just a giant party. They all spoke english relatively well, which made it easy to talk to them but bad for practicing. I hope to hang out with them in Bogotá before I take aoo, but they have real life commitments during the week, se we will see. Really I can’t say much about the time there: the pictures will tell all.
 

After returning to Bogotá, I was warmly welcomed into the home of Sonia and her son Juan Camilo. Sonia is Adriana’a cousin, and I am Adriana’s nephiew via marriage… what does that make me to her? I also met some more of her family in the evening (forgive me for being terrible with names!), who I will hopefully get to hang out with a little more before I leave. Today Sonia was a wonderful tourist guide and showed me a part of the city that has a lot of old colonial buildings and such. Then while she was at work I had some time to troop around on my own and check out the scene near some of the universities. In addition to this, we also experienced the Transmilenio (click here for wikipedia entry). It has its ups and downs, and I will let y’all know what I think when I have a little more experience.

Although I haven’t seen most of the city yet, my experience here has been really exiting. I really like the bustle of it all (8 million people), the young people I have met, and the seemingly endless opportunity of such a huge intense place. There are a lot of cool places I have been on this trip, but only a few that I have thought “wow, I want to live hear and know this place inside and out”. This is one of them. Once I am a little more comfortable here I’ll start to whip out the camera so y’all can see what I’m talking about.

Unrelated note before I start: If you are from Oregon, check out http://oregonliberal.com. It’s a very new, very cool site.

Well, this little jaunt was random and plesant. I decided onn a whim to stall going south and travel to Taganga, a small carribean beach town with Mark and Zohra (pic #5), who are from Austrailia and England, respectively. They are both great, and I also ended up hanging out with Richelle and Mickey (did I even come close with the spelling?), a Kiwi couple (part of the group pic).

The day before yesterday I got an email from Adriana and Greg that said Adriana’s “second parents” live outside Santa Marta, which is really close to Taganga. I finally wrote their phonenumber down right after being told the number I had was invalid, and made contact with them yesterday morning. They are so wonderful! They came and picked me up in Taganga in the afternoon, showed me Santa Marta, took me out to dinner, and accomodated me for the night. Then today Hernando took me around to buy my bus ticket to Bogotá, a sleeping bag for camping, and a mini tripod for my camera. I really like them, and really hope to return someday. Thankyou Adriana, Greg, Ampora, and Hernando!

Today I am getting on an overnight bus to Bogotá, where I will meet up with a fellow named Jose and go to Villa de Leyba for the Kite Festival. It sounds like a lot of fun, and that’s where the camping will be taking place. After that I am back to Bogotá. The pictures are: Cartagena from a rooftop, Clubbing in Cartagena, Rooftop Pool (thanks Andres), Sunset in Taganga, Mark and Zohra (with an h and one r), The gang in Taganga, and Ampora and Hernando today at breakfast.

Yesterday afternoon, I landed in Cartagena, Colombia. My backpack, however, did not. It was still chillin out, enjoying the awesomely low food, household item, clothing, and busride prices of Panamá. Honestly, I’m really glad it arrived today instead- it made for a much better way to enter the city! All I had on me was my camelbak with the essentials: Harry Potter (which I finished last night), pocket dicionary, water bottle, and iPod. Because of this it was no hasstle just walking away from the airport, waving town a bus to “el Centro” (downtown), and wandering around the city for a few hours before finally picking up a map and walking to my hostal. The reputation of danger in this country , I think, is the biggest factor in making me question weather I’m safe here. It is a town with a lot of safe, busy places to hang out. The downside of the tourism aspect is people’s readyness to heckle a gringo about whatever they are selling. Oh, and the people who supposedly change currency in the street are notorious for giving nothing back in return.

The part of the city that is called downtown seems to be made up of pretty, old buildings converted primarily to up-scale and tourisy shops, hotels and restaurants lining narrow streets that are more and more lined with avid street venders the further from the sea and closer to the main road one gets. Once one crosses the main road(s), the area is a little funkyer, with hardware stores, cheap restaurants, mattress stores, a few hostals, etc. This is where I am staying, since my couchsurfing dude hasn’t come through for me yet. Maybe I will get to stay with a local for one or two nights, but it’s not looking like it.

And the motorcycles… Today, while riding a bus for an hour or more inorder to see a few areas more efficiantly, expecting it to continue its route and pass downtown again (it ended at a bus station way the hell out of town, and I had to catch another one), I noticed the rediculously high amount of motorcycles on the road. I would say there are probably 2 motorcycles per every 3 cars. It creates an interesting situation, having them weaving all over as only they can in addition to the already crazy latin driving. At first I thought the cracks in the pavemeant (not unlike sidewalk crack, only in the place where the dotted white line is in the US) were observed as guides, but I quickly realized this is far from true. The weaving of motorcycles, cars and yes, busses creates gridlock without an intersection in sight. Then there is the occasional horse-drawn-wodden-wheeled kart or old man on his 1975 shwinn road bike…

Overall I am having a good time exploring this place, but I’m eagre to go to Bogotá and stay with someone local. I am thinking of stopping in Medellin on the way to break up the 20 hour bus ride. Here are some pictures!

Wow, what a week. I experienced so much here in Panamá City, I don’t even know where to start. I visited the Canal, a bunch of places booming with people throughout the city, some interesting bars, a metropolitan park that was like a jungle; the list goes on… (oh yeah, and I am 2/3 through Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, I think the slowest I have read a Harry Potter book yet)

While here, Rafa was really helpful, setting me up with the cheapest place to buy my ticket to Cartagena (he practically did it for me), and hanging out with me when he wasn’t at work. His brother Angel and I spent more time together since he is on a one month vacation from his job. I really enjoyed his company- teaching each other our native tounges and learning about the city from him. I’m sad to say that the friendship we developed ended in an awkward and unexpected parting when he decided not to return to the city from Penonomé. Details aren’t appropriate here, but it was a powerful, confusing experience and I will share it with you guys at home when I return. I will stay with Rafa one last night, but Angel won’t be with us. I wish him the best.

Tomorrow at 10am I fly to Cartagena and begin my Colombia adventure. I don’t know a whole lot about Cartagena, but what I have been hearing about Bogotá and traveling Colombia in general have really got me exited. I hope to find a computer that can handle putting up some photos soon, and I hope all is well at home. I’m starting to miss you, Oregon!

Yesterday morning I made the four block walk over to the Bocas airport to check out what it would take to fly to Panamá City. They told me all the flights were booked for the day, but I could hang around as they left if I wanted and if someone didn’t show up I wcould buy a student ticket for $50. That didn’t sound too bad, considering it would be $27 by bus, and take 10 more hours. I figured I was used to waiting on the chance to hop a full flight, so I gave it a shot. Shure enough, a few minutes before the plane landed they called me up and sold me the ticket. The actual getting on the plane and flying was great- I can’t wait to put some pictures up. The x-ray machine was a dude that looked in your bag, the security wall was three orange cones and come caution tape, my boarding pass was a plastic thing with the number 11 engraved into it, and my seat on the plane was about 2 feet from the pilots, with nothing inbetween us.

Then upon arriving to the airport I had to traack down Rafa and his brother Angel, the guys I am staying with via couchsurfing.com. A taxi driver picked me out as mildly retarded for trying to use my debit card in the slot in the public phone. Apparently that’s not how they work here. Once I finally got through to Angel, the cabbie and I got directions to the restaurant I should meet him at. Details and scetchyness aside, I finally met up with him and he took me to their place. They share a small appartment with access to the roof that overlooks the downtown area, which is really pretty. I have some night pictures of this that I will put up in the next few days. On the subject of night, at about 4 or 5 am there was the loudest thunder storm I think I have ever experienced. One clap of thunder in particular scared me like I have never been scared of thunder before. It wasn’t even so much because it was thunder, just because it was SO LOUD.

They are so nice and accomodating! They made me dinner, and since Angel is on vacation from his job he showed me around some really pretty parts of the neaghborhood they are on the edge of, as well as going with me to the Panama Canal. Last night was the final night of “Vive la Música” (kinda like American Idol, only in Panama), so we watched the three final contestants. Their (and my) favorite got second place, although she definately deserved first.

There are definately some dangerous parts of the city, especially for a gringo, but I like it here so far and I look forward to doing some more exploring. I have a list of a few books I need to get, as well as a few shirts (I left two on the Isla de Opetepe). It feels good to be in a city where I can get ahold of whatever I might desire, the only thing in my way being a long (though cheap) bus ride. Harry Potter, we shal meet again soon..

So here are some pictures that I have been wanting to put up. The oldest is the lighning pic, from the storm in Nicaragua. Ten there is the Crew of germans and the Tica. Next is our hostal in Puerto Viejo at night. Then the german girls on an island near Bocas. The view from the Aqualounge. Finally getting my bike fix! A crafty way of drinking a coconut. New friends that came on today’s bikeride.

As you can see, the bike I was on was cooler than the ghetto rentals around here (they are SUPER ghetto). Matt, one of the guys on the bike tour of Central america, let me use it for the day. Isn’t that rad!?!

 Anyway, this picture ordeal has taken for ever, so I’m off to dinner. Y’all better look at them to make it worth my time! (I can see how many indevidual visitors there are per day you know, which is why I actually keep posting on this thing Adios!