I spent three months back in Bogotá for the first time since the winter of 2020, before the Covid-19 pandemic. I chose Bogotá during the worst (weather) time of year — it usually rains and days pass without seeing the sun. Most people hate this weather, but I feel cozy and focused here. I spent each day working from within a WeWork co-working space, spreading time between my job, classes (Spanish and business school), etc. Having spent time here over the past six years, Bogotá feels less like a foreign destination and more like a routine resting place. I kept it fresh by hiking a 5,000-meter volcano, and that helped to focus my morning training regimen each day. Alongside weekend hikes to Monserrate the cardio grind wasn’t so miserable as it would have been chained to the treadmill. My Spanish continues to steadily improve, however spreading my focus among so many goals over the past years has slowed my progress (in all of them). I’m fine with that; I prefer steady, incremental improvements compared to alternatives. Sleepy, rainy Bogotá is the perfect place to grow.
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The fastest month I’ve spent was in Sao Paulo, Brazil. It’s been a long time since a daily routine of a morning gym session a day spent working felt so fulfilling. My first time here, I was surprised to find a city covered in trees, beautiful plants, and people. Brazilians from Sao Paulo may be the most friendly people on earth. While my attention was mostly focused on a new job I started, the rest was spent enjoying the posh neighborhood and people of Vila Olimpia, the posh neighborhood that became a real home.
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riends. What a great excuse to visit Brazil. The last time I was in Rio was 2016, I had flown from Japan to catch a little bit of Carnaval en route to Argentina. That worked out pretty well considering I was there on my own so I was excited to return for a different occasion and a large group of friends.
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I began 2019 with the goal to vastly improve my Spanish and what better place to improve it than Bogotá, the Colombian capital generally regarded as harboring the most-neutral accent. I already intended just how to do it too — three years ago when I first visited Bogotá a woman named Nataly approached me while I was working from a Starbucks cafe in Zona G to solicit Spanish classes. We exchanged contact information, she emailed me and, well, I was busy with other things and never responded. Actually, I did respond, it just took me three years. But when I did respond I knew it was her who I wanted to learn Spanish from — in the city that I grew to love so much in the interim spacing my reply. The universe had delivered me a teacher (this is how I like to make decisions — by following the path serendipity lays before me) and of course I felt compelled to oblige. I purchased 80 hours of Spanish classes and facilitated class three days a week over the lunch hour and set to work on the challenging task of learning a first, second-spoken language. As someone who studied Latin […]
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The tiny Colombian island of San Andrés lies within the Caribbean sea off of the coast of Honduras, northwest of the Colombian mainland. San Andrés is a popular vacation destination for Colombian mainlanders to escape to during holidays and weekends as the airfare is cheap, less than $100 each direction from the capital city, Bogotá. I visited mid-week for three nights for a good deal on accommodation; it ended up being a smart decision as the island was mostly empty of tourists. The AirBnb that I was at was about 100 meters from the shoreline and offered a scooter rental that was ideal for exploring the island. It only takes about an hour to circumnavigate the circumference of San Andrés and really, you don’t want or need a car for that. A popular alternative is to rent buggys – sort of two-row, suped-up, open-air golf carts and we saw many vacationers travelling around as two pairs of couples in this fashion. I was working while there and the internet was certifiably terrible, some of the worst and least-reliable of anywhere I have travelled. Restaurants and cafes don’t have accessible wifi for their patrons and even that which was provided in our accommodation was […]
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Three years ago I visited Shaman Winston in the Peruvian Amazon for an eye-opening ayahuasca experience; at that time, many happy discoveries within myself had me anticipating an inevitable, future return. This time around there were fewer surprises and a little more adversity, yet again I feel better afterwards for having done it. The trip entailed two nights in the jungle removed from electricity, wifi yet accommodating in ample supply of mud and biting flies. It took a plane from Lima, a car, a boat and a short hike crossing a river twice to reach the Shaman’s compound. I was barefoot and shirtless the entire time (the native flies were well fed) — the two weeks subsequent itching a fond reminder of my time spend mostly naked and unafraid. The low point of the weekend adventure was the afternoon of arrival — enduring a preliminary “cleansing ceremony” which wasn’t a part of my initial experience two years prior. The intent of the ceremony was to remove toxins and emotional restraints that would otherwise prohibit ayahuasca’s intended lessons. People who eat unhealthy diets, drink excessively need to be purged beforehand so that the plant can work its magic, so it was […]
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I returned to my favorite city in the world for two months of living my daily routine in the grungy, bustling neighborhood of Chapinero. When I wasn’t working from cafes in the area I was exploring neighboring towns in Cundinamarca like Sopó and La Fuente. With every returning visit Bogotá feels less like a destination necessitating exploration and more like a comfortable home to live a life. As for learning Spanish – I continue to improve slowly though focus is spread among other endeavors contemporaneously which serves to limit dedicated efforts. As a historically all-or-nothing person it is an exercise in little-by-little. I was honored to host my sister and a niece and a nephew in Bogotá for a week as they celebrated their spring break with me. After hearing how much I love Colombia they were brave enough to visit; but since Bogotá is not an easy destination it required effort to show and help advocate for all the great stuff sitting beneath the trafficy, somewhat-dirty exterior. The first day of their adventure featured a stroll around grimey Chapinero, a visit to Monserrate, the historic, graffitied neighborhood of Candelaria, the Gold Museum featuring lots of artifacts from the indigenous […]
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After fleeing the United States to Bogotá for a week after San Francisco, I rendezvoused with a group of international friends living in Medellín for six days and took it as an opportunity to hang out with international people that are otherwise hard to pin down. I stayed in two different apartments in Poblado, a really nice and also touristy neighborhood of Medellín where my friends had chose to stay. I’ve only been to Medellín once before and as I wrote afterwards it wasn’t a city that I really enjoyed. I hesitate to pass further judgement this time around because I didn’t even set foot outside of Poblado — instead choosing to work and hang out with my buddies rather than venture and explore a city I already decided I dislike. Nevertheless I will pass judgement! I really dislike Poblado. Just about everything about Poblado — from the dense demographic of expats, the meandering roadways with narrow sidewalks on a single side that switch from one side of the street to the other seemingly at random necessitating that you wait for the line of passing cars to give you passage between them so you might again not walk in the road — to repeat the […]
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My favorite city in the world is Bogotá, Colombia and I have a hard time explaining to people why; it’s big, it’s dirty, the traffic and infrastructure are abysmal – how can I think that Bogotá is so great? This city feels authentic in a way that others just don’t. No strip malls or vegan cafes (or even vegetables really) people are polite and respectful and when I stay out of the touristy sections I feel anonymous walking among the crowds of Colombians living their normal lives. And when you are living a normal life around here you get a little sentimental to the dirt, grime, the familiar old man selling stuff on your street corner each day, the occasional unkempt gentleman urinating across the street from your building entrance. You develop a sense of community and togetherness with the anonymous people you walk by each morning on the way to start your day and then again in the afternoon when returning home. Part of this camaraderie comes about from walking so much. I walk most places unless I am meeting a friend who lives in a different district of town in which case I take an Uber to where […]
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