Atlantic Coast Trip

As I said before, I am the only exchange student in my town, so for the first three months, I had no contact with any other students. This was definitely beneficial to my Spanish learning, with quite the opposite effect on my English because I had not spoken more than a couple of sentences in English at a time during all of those months.
When the first Rotary trip finally rolled around in late November, I realized that, aside from the obvious feeling of excitement, I was feeling anxious to meet them. This did not improve when, while I was with my friends, a German student called to make travel plans and she spoke better English than me as I sorted through English and Spanish responses and sentences. When I finally met her, and two other exchangers from Germany and Denmark, my anxiety disappeared and I found comfort not only in speaking my native language but also in talking with people who were in similar situations that I could relate to.

It got even better when we got to the airport and encountered all of the exchangers each a fantastic person I would have the chance to talk to a little on this trip. I quickly met a kid from Austria who would soon become one of my best friends. He caught my attention when as we were walking by a window facing the landing strip he glanced over and simply spouted out the exact model of plane that was there. As an aspiring pilot, this perked my interest and sparked a conversation that lasted until our plane had landed on the coast in Santa Marta.

We got a little time to take in the sun and dip our feet in the warm Atlantic Ocean before heading to La Guajira on a 4-hour bus ride. As foolish as it seems now, I thought that we had arrived when we unloaded the buses. Instead, we loaded up 10 to a van and headed out on an equally long trip on dirt roads to the camp. Even though the ride was cramped and bumpy, it was a lot of fun and full of loud music and singing.

The first camp was right on the beach and it was amazing to sleep in hammocks and listen to the waves all night. The next day we went to two viewpoints, swam in the ocean, and interacted with and learned about a local indigenous tribe.

By this time, it felt like I had known the exchangers for months. The third day was another travel day as we went from La Guajira to the Parque Nacional Tayrona. It truly is a beautiful place and I have rarely seen the stars as bright as they were there. The following couple of days was spent swimming and relaxing from one beach to another.

The final leg of the trip brought us to Cartagena where we got to explore the streets of the old part of the city and tour a colonial fortress. We also took a boat to different islands and went snorkeling.

It was very hard saying goodbye to the exchangers after having grown so close to them. The trip was incredible and life-changing.

Halloween

Halloween


Halloween here for the teenagers is like a town-wide game of Gang Wars! We all dressed up in themed/matching costumes for our gang and carried around balled up soccer socks with flour and had fights to protect and gain territory! My group was one of the smallest (9 people), but we were so good that we were able to extend really far. So much so that the other teams formed an alliance to take down our gang so at one point we were on a street near the town center and suddenly all of the gangs showed up in a mob and started chasing us socks swinging and all! I ducked into a cafe/store with three other guys and all of the people lined up outside and demanded to have Pichu (our self declared leader who had escaped to the bank on a different street unseen). The mob started to dwindle as a real fist fight started between two people in the plaza, so we escaped and watched until the police showed up and everybody slowly left. It was wild! 

It also rains a lot in October. And by a lot, I mean A LOT!