So my stay in Bogotá is coming to an end - in one week I'll be flying to Medellín, there to meet up with a friendly Metallica cover band who came for the weekend to play at Rock al Parque. It's the biggest free music festival on the continent, so I hear. But anyway, I'll be glad to get away from the city and see some different areas of the country, particularly the warm-weathered areas. The constant chill has driven me to start knitting a sweater (which, of course makes more sense than going out and buying one... actually my plan is to hold out until Bolivia and then buy a really nice one for cheap, as I was advised by Lisa,) out of the red yarn I bought the other day. It turned out to be 100% acrylic, and not up to standard for a baby jacket. I'll just have to wait until Peru and seek out some really nice alpaca wool. Until then, I'm knitting the Holly cardigan by Mishellee Zaharis, and this is what I've got so far:
My hairpin stitch-markers are way ghetto. Furthermore, I'm starting to wish I had a hobby that wasn't so time-consuming. But there you have it - it'll keep me occupied on the flight to Medellín, and then on the bus-ride from there to Cartagena, which takes 13 hours, apparently.
Other interesting things lately have included an excursion to the Botanical Gardens - we went to the rainforest section specifically hoping to see these giant lily pads, so huge that small children can jump up and down on them, but our guide regretfully informed us that they'd been eaten by turtles - and me accidentally stumbling onto Bogotá Pride in the middle of a huge rainstorm. It was all joyous, soaking-wet chaos along the entire length of the street leading into Plaza de Bolívar with people wrapped up in rainbow flags and running around with umbrellas and wearing great, sparkly costumes and dancing to random street rumba bands hiding under the awnings. It was like Christmas and a masquerade and the best block party ever all mashed together, with vendors in raincoats zooming up and down the street with their carts selling beer, aguardiente, sandwiches, roasted corn, tangerine juice, umbrellas, and pretty much anything else you could imagine. My only picture, being as it was too rainy and hectic to get anything else:
But it was my very first Pride (I always seem to miss them, being as June is traditionally my month for traveling,) and was thrilling. It seemed to be a real family event, too - I saw some parents bringing their small children out, and there were a few grandparents dancing salsa in the street and having a grand time. Colombia has legalized same-sex domestic partnerships and civil unions, despite Church and conservative grumbling, which I thought was surprising for a developing country. Colombia is just a surprising place in general. I'm already feeling like I wouldn't mind living here long-term - which for me means maybe three months or so - but first I will have to check out the rest of South America.
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