Santa Rosa - Full Story
Hi all,
Sorry that I haven't posted the full story of what I did in Santa Rosa last weekend. It's been a busy week and frankly, pictures are more exciting than my writing could ever be anyway.
On friday after school we got picked up in a mini-bus (really a big van) and drove the four hours to Santa Rosa going north from Cali. We exited Cali by going through the east side through the really poor part of town (that is about 1/2 the population of Cali) called Aqua Blanco. It was definetly a change of pace from the rich parts of town that I've spent most of my time in so far. Heaps of garbage everywhere, crumbled buildings, tin and cardboard shacks. It would be easy not to see this though if you just stayed in the other parts of town.
We spent most of the trip to S.R. talking about Colombian politics (or in my case learning about Colombian politics) and reading questions from my "IF" book (ie If you could have the mind of someone from history and remain in your own body, whose would you choose?). I'd planned to do marking on the drive but that obviously didn't get done. Santa Rosa is about 88,000 people and a really nice town. It reminded me of the town on Lago Calima (called Dorien) but in a bigger form. They even had the exact same town square, just bigger, with a bigger church. You can also see Manizales from the hills near Santa Rosa so that was neat. On the way there we saw the aftermath of a motorcycle accident that the police had cordoned off, complete with dead person still lying on the pavement....
Just outside Santa Rosa we stopped at this really nice little restaurant that served awesome trout so I had the really garlicy one....mmmmmmmm... I can still taste it. Then we drove a little further up the road and found a place to stay (shown in the pictures below). On saturday morning some people went into town but Scott, Sonia, Bonnie and myself were more eager to go hiking. The people around suggested a hike in the jungle, following a river to a 35 meter waterfall. We were also told that it was 1/2 hour hike in which usually means about an hour and a half. It was one of the best hikes that I've ever been on, just beautiful, although we got split up a few times when part of the group would cross the river. About 3 hours in we realized that were weren't going to get to the waterfall and turned back (turns out they meant that there was a point where we could SEE it, not actually get to it). All in all, it was a magnificent 5 hour hike (yes we were faster going out) but we were a little beat afterwards and went to have snacks and beer.
Next it was off to the Termales (hot springs... like 'Thermals') to soak our aching bodies in hot water..... nothing sweeter than that feeling!
Sunday morning I climbed up the hill behind the place that we were staying and got a FANTASTIC view of the surrounding area. I've posted the best of those down below but they just don't do it justice.
Whoever eventually comes to visit, I'm definitely taking you to this place...... mmmmm hot water and 100 m waterfalls!
Sorry that I haven't posted the full story of what I did in Santa Rosa last weekend. It's been a busy week and frankly, pictures are more exciting than my writing could ever be anyway.
On friday after school we got picked up in a mini-bus (really a big van) and drove the four hours to Santa Rosa going north from Cali. We exited Cali by going through the east side through the really poor part of town (that is about 1/2 the population of Cali) called Aqua Blanco. It was definetly a change of pace from the rich parts of town that I've spent most of my time in so far. Heaps of garbage everywhere, crumbled buildings, tin and cardboard shacks. It would be easy not to see this though if you just stayed in the other parts of town.
We spent most of the trip to S.R. talking about Colombian politics (or in my case learning about Colombian politics) and reading questions from my "IF" book (ie If you could have the mind of someone from history and remain in your own body, whose would you choose?). I'd planned to do marking on the drive but that obviously didn't get done. Santa Rosa is about 88,000 people and a really nice town. It reminded me of the town on Lago Calima (called Dorien) but in a bigger form. They even had the exact same town square, just bigger, with a bigger church. You can also see Manizales from the hills near Santa Rosa so that was neat. On the way there we saw the aftermath of a motorcycle accident that the police had cordoned off, complete with dead person still lying on the pavement....
Just outside Santa Rosa we stopped at this really nice little restaurant that served awesome trout so I had the really garlicy one....mmmmmmmm... I can still taste it. Then we drove a little further up the road and found a place to stay (shown in the pictures below). On saturday morning some people went into town but Scott, Sonia, Bonnie and myself were more eager to go hiking. The people around suggested a hike in the jungle, following a river to a 35 meter waterfall. We were also told that it was 1/2 hour hike in which usually means about an hour and a half. It was one of the best hikes that I've ever been on, just beautiful, although we got split up a few times when part of the group would cross the river. About 3 hours in we realized that were weren't going to get to the waterfall and turned back (turns out they meant that there was a point where we could SEE it, not actually get to it). All in all, it was a magnificent 5 hour hike (yes we were faster going out) but we were a little beat afterwards and went to have snacks and beer.
Next it was off to the Termales (hot springs... like 'Thermals') to soak our aching bodies in hot water..... nothing sweeter than that feeling!
Sunday morning I climbed up the hill behind the place that we were staying and got a FANTASTIC view of the surrounding area. I've posted the best of those down below but they just don't do it justice.
Whoever eventually comes to visit, I'm definitely taking you to this place...... mmmmm hot water and 100 m waterfalls!
posted by Matt and Emily at 9:24 AM
1 Comments:
This week, I would totally want the brain of Nietzsche despite the fact that he was a bit of a tortured soul. That will probably change next week.
I read somewhere, I think it for my Latin American History class, that the reason town squares throughout Latin America all look very similar is because they were all built by the Spanish to impose Spanish aesthetics on the foreign environment. Make the colonizers more comfortable.
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