Spontaneous Camping Trip

So this past weekend most of the teachers went to Cali. Dereek and I are a bit tight on cash until he gets a pay check (yay beginning of October!) so we decided to stay around here and do a day trip to Salento. On Saturday morning, we weren't quite sure if maybe we wanted to spend the night there or come back, so we packed up some over night things just in case. We took a bus at about 11:30am to Salento. It was pretty chilly when we got there and a little drizzly. We walked around the shops and checked out the views and had a delicious lunch. We were really enjoying our time there so we started asking around for places to stay. We were directed to a hostel, estrella de agua, that we were told had tents we could rent and room on their property to camp. The hostel was really cool looking, the people really nice, and totally in our budget, so we changed our bus tickets and decided to stay the night. We spent the rest of the night wandering around, doing a little bit of hiking through some trails we found, and having dinner at a really cool restaurant/bar.

We spent the night at the hostel in the tent and it poured! The bottom near our heads got a little bit wet, but not too bad for how much it rained all night. The next morning we headed out for another walk. We came across a few other hostels out in the country side more outside of the city. We really liked one of them that had a super hippie vibe. The guy who owned it was very nice and the views from their camping grounds were incredible. We had perfect views of the snow covered mountains and he had a spot for a fire pit all set up. We're hoping to invest in a tent and do lots of camping while living here in Colombia. We're also hoping to climb those snow covered mountains and have gotten some price quotes on guides already. Afterwards we walked back and had a huge breakfast at a foreigner owned place called "brunch." The food was excellent and the place was awesome with the walls being completely drawn on and signed by all the travelers who come through.

It was a truly fantastic weekend. Dereek and I both really enjoy Salento and it's such an easy trip for a weekend. I have a feeling we will be spending quite a few weekends there. Check out the pics! =)

Views in the morning. A little cloudy and overcast

One of the few pictures we have of both of us. We need to try and get more together. =) 

Dereek found lots of friendly kitties

It was raining, so we stopped at this place and had some delicious warm coffee.

We went back to see if it was clearer, and it was! Nicer views after the rain.

We did a nice little hike on this trail

Views of Salento right before sunset

Great sunset over the town

Again...

When we were walking around we spotted this little house. I really want to be in that room with the light on. I think it'd be gorgeous. 

We walked around a bit at night and I snapped this cool looking picture of the main street

Back at the hostel with another kitty and our tent

Walking around on Sunday morning

So much green

This is the entrance to the hostel we want to camp at next time

A little hard to see because it's cloudy, but from the camp grounds of Yambolombia we could see these snow covered mountains

Right before we left I had to take some pictures of the doors

They're all wooden and painted pretty colors. 

So that's about it for now. We're getting close to October break so hopefully, even though Dereek is most likely working, the two of us can find some cool things to do then. 

Catching Up

So, I've been really bad about posting lately because my computer stopped reading my camera card, so I've been trying to figure out how to get pictures off the camera and onto here. I figured it out last week, but I need to go to a papeleria and have them do it. I've taken off some pictures, but not the most recent from this week. =(

So to catch everyone up, the weekend before Dereek got here, I went on a hike with a few teachers that had spectacular views of Pereira. Going up was pretty tough, it was really steep, but the views were definitely worth it! Afterwards we went swimming in a river jut outside of the city.

Views of Pereira

During our hike

All that green is coffee plants

The girls on our hike

The boys

Panoramic view of the city

River we went swimming in

view from the other side of the bridge

The next weekend was when Dereek came! He came at a good time since it was Pereira's birthday. We had celebrations at school and then on that Friday night there was a parade and food festival and on Saturday there was a huge horse parade and parties all day. It was a good weekend for him to arrive. 

The elementary school at an assembly

Kite flying afternoon at school. 

Parad in Pereira

Dance show at the food festival

All this happened at the end of August, and there has been lots of fun stuff going on in September as well. I've been enjoying having Dereek here and showing him around. He's enjoyed being able to walk around safely at night and finding milk and flour in the grocery stores. He even found a job already. Things are going well and I have a whole bunch more pictures from September and hopefully I'll get them up next weekend. I'm gonna try to be better at this now that I've figured out how to get my pictures off my camera. =) So when is everyone visiting?