On the Road Again

Well, the time has come again to pack my bags and set off on another adventure. It has been over 15 months since my last serious trip, so I am more than overdue to do something crazy again. Tomorrow morning, I am catching a flight here in Salt Lake City, and tomorrow night, I will be stepping off a plane in Bogota, Colombia. Okay, "So why Colombia?" everyone keeps asking me. Well, you know that I like to go places that have a certain mystique surrounding them, an unbelievable past, and that are off the beaten tourist path. I am also addicted to adrenaline-- I admit it. I love the feeling of having all of my senses on overdrive, constantly. What better way to feel alive than to have to focus on each and every little decision, to observe every little thing around you, and forcing yourself into uncomfortable situations so that you can come out of them a changed person? In the process of changing yourself, you inevitably also change the lives of others. I have experienced this change in all of my other travels, and I expect this trip to be no different.
So I have told some of you (consider yourselves the chosen few:) about my three goals for this trip. One of these goals is to really improve my Spanish. For that reason, I plan on staying out of most of the "gringo" places as much as possible. This will be a little bit of a challenge since I will be traveling alone for nearly my entire trip, but this will also put me back into that zone where things begin to get a little uncomfortable, and also where every decision I make will be that much more important. After I step off the plane in Bogota, I will give myself one night of speaking English, and then I will try to pretty much limit what comes out of my mouth to only Spanish words (ha, I know that some of you are making jokes about this phrase:). I'll let you know how successful I am after a few days.
So, to break down my trip for you, here is what's on the agenda:
4 days in Bogota to see the capital of Colombia
5 days in Cali, the Salsa Capital of the World, to what else? LEARN SALSA! Oh yeah, and also to sample the crazy discotecas and check out Cali's famous, beautiful girls!
After Cali, I will fly to Ecuador, where I will take a few Spanish classes, travel around a bit, and meet up with my good friends Mark and Laura in Quito. Another one of our good friends, Aimee, will be joining us for a reunion in the Ecuadorian capital, which also happens to be the 2nd-highest capital in Latin America (almost 9,200 feet). This will be a blast and something I am really, really looking forward to. We'll show those Ecuadorians how we rock it, SLC style! After a total of about 4 weeks in Ecuador, I will be flying back to Cali and continuing my travels through Colombia, including the famous Coffee Region, Medellin (Pablo Escobar, anyone?), the colonial city of Cartagena, and then the rest of the Caribbean coast. This time will be all about having fun, meeting people, continuing to practice my Spanish, and making friends. My time in Colombia will come to an end just before Christmas. After that? Hmm, I guess both you and I will have to wait to find out.