And we're off!

It's been about five and a half months and we are returning to the states tomorrow. We're flying from Cartagena to Miami so for the next few days, we'll still get to use our awesome Spanish skills ("awesome" meaning sputtering out sentence fragments and looking confused). But South America is a trickster, and we are not escaping without some horrendous stomach issues...

On Sunday, we took several confusing bus rides to Parque Tayrona, a national park on the north coast of Colombia. On the hike in, I started to feel queasy and by dinner that night, it was full blown vomit time. I decided to walk out to the beach to get sick, and for about 15 minutes, I did the whole hands on the knees, bent over, sick thing. And of course I had to eat pasta which is the worst when it comes back up. Towards the end of my vomit time, I see this guy walk by and I was like, "Brandon?". He looked a little scared and didn't really want to talk to the girl that was barfing all over the beach, but he was nice and answered back. Turns out it was Brandon, an American we met in Rio on our first day in South America that stayed with us at our mutual friend Mara's house for Carnaval. So it was only fitting that we saw him at the beginning and the end of our trip, almost exactly six months apart. And since I haven't seen anyone (except Liz) from back home in that same amount of time, expect the same greeting. You know you're excited.

And vomit seemed to be the topic of that trip to the park because that night, when were crammed into some sort of hellish hammock spot (about 50 hammocks all next to each other all next to the stinky toilets and kitchen), the guards and workers in the park decided to get loud on the guitar and drunk, and one of them was staying in a hammock next to all the tourists, and this ARMED and drunk guard, leaned out of his hammock and threw up all over the belongings of the tourist girl next to him. THEN he just laughed about it and she had to clean it up in the morning. Gross.

Besides the vomit, the park is very pretty with nice beaches but I couldn't swim much due to lack of food and general queasiness. So we hiked out after one night in the park, and then stayed one more night in Taganga, and this morning took a mini bus back to Cartagena. That's about when Chris started feeling sick (but mostly out of the other end) so like I said, South America is holding on and doesn't want us to go.

Every traveller I meet has their own epic vomit or poop story and those stories usually come up within about 3 to 5 minutes of meeting each other, usually before we get their names. I guess that line of conversation has gone into this blog, sorry.

But besides the sickness, and some other random things, I am sad to be leaving already. So here's what I will miss about South America:

1. The general drive and ambition of people to help you or answer a question even when there is a language barrier or they have no idea what you want or where you want to go but they try and help anyway, even if the information they give is 100% incorrect

2. The ability to carry an open beer pretty much anywhere

3. The cheap wine in Argentina and Chile and the cheap fresh fruit smoothies in Colombia

4. The way Colombian people break out into song at anytime, including on the bus, waiting for the bus, walking down the street selling fruit, whenever. Kind of the same way Brazilians break out into dance.

5. Cheap spa services, including waxing and facials and massages

6. The lack of swimwear on the beach and the way everyone wears it with no shame (even when they should have some shame, in my opinion)

7. Meeting loads of interesting people from all over the world

I have many more, but this will go on forever, so here is what I will not miss about South America:

1. The general "machismo" that goes around on this entire continent. Last week, I asked a bar tender on the beach to give me an extra cup to share Chris's beer, and Chris jokingly said to me, "No, get your own". Well, all the bartender heard was "no" and he snatched the cup away and that was that. Chris's word is always worth more than mine and they listen to him more. I think most women rank just below the pet dog out here.

2. The way all fat Colombian men tuck their t-shirts under their man boobs to air out their guts and walk around like that ALL DAY LONG.

3. Long bus rides. A few weeks ago, Chris figured out we'd spent over 13 days (like, 24 hour days) on buses since we got here in February.

4. The gangs of street dogs; they are sad and terrifying at the same time.

5. General inconveniences like most items on a restaurant menu never being available or taxis only being around when you don't want one.

6. Having only ham and cheese to eat in Argentina and Chile even when there are loads of vegetable stands all over the place, no one seems to want that in their restaurants

And again, I can spout off more things, but I need to get back and work on the laptop to get the photos of Taganga and Parque Tayrona up. Hopefully I can post them in Miami. And just because we're in the states, that doesn't mean we won't have blogs and photos because we have 3 more weeks to play tourist and visit such missed locations as Cracker Barrel, Gatorland, and the Smithsonian. So keep checking back!