QueenPuya

Today we drove the entire length of Bogotá on our way to the Sumapaz páramo.  It was amazing how evenly the transition from wealth to poverty happened, block after block.  South Bogotá is a different world from where I've been living, but one I have seen before, in the flavelas of Rio de Janeiro, El Alto above La Paz and also south Quito.  I think it is important that I was reminded of the reality here.  We headed up into the mountains for the largest páramo on earth, Sumapaz.  We abandoned the car at a nice campesino's house, as it couldn't go any further and so we started to hike.  The elevation was about 12,000ft, and boy did I feel it!  I had to go pretty slow, keeping back all these burly men and blessed Diego carried my backpack yet again.  I felt kind of lame, but it is pretty darn high and I'm not exactly in the best shape about my illness.  I think we found the limit of most of my Puya's distribution, as this was the furthest south we will go and there were very few plants to be seen.  In contrast, Mauricio's plants were EVERYWHERE (see photo, not from this paramo).  These two great dogs left their farm and decided to follow us the whole way.  I named the small fluffy one Mud Dog, as it was terribly muddy and the same color as him and the other Badger, because periodically he'd whine and dig at the ground.  I think he was nervous being so far from home.  It was great having dogs around, though.  They were so good natured and attentive to our every move.  They made me miss the Snuggler something fierce.  We made it back to the car just in time to have a cup of coffee with the campesinos and then left as it started pour.  I fell asleep, as I was utterly exhausted from the 6 hours of hiking, but I awoke when we were back in the slums of Bogota facing a major flood in our little car.  The streets swelled with torrents of water and the sewers were exploding.  I was kind of terrified (if still sleepy) but we pushed through.  We got stuck in a major traffic jam as a whole bus was submerged up to the windows and got rammed by one of the huge TransMilenio double buses they have here.  We had to take all kinds of detours to make our way north and avoid the flooding.  Rains are the curse of global warming in Colombia, everyone is saying.  About halfway home, we were stopped at a traffic light when this crazy looking guy with dreadlocks came up to Mauricio's window and did a little dance, perhaps begging and we were about to pull away when he quick as lightning grabbed the side mirror, yanked it off and ran away!  I was shocked- we all were, and now we have to find another mirror for the rental car tomorrow so we can be on our way.  We'll probably have to go the exact market where he pawned it.  There is such desperation in poverty, I suppose, but it sucks nonetheless.  It took us three hours to get home and we were both totally done at the end.  I got to eat nice Colombian breads for dinner and had a hot cocoa.  Tomorrow we head north to a  new departmento, Boyaca, and the town Villa de Leiva, which is supposed to be very cute.  I'm going to hike a ton more and hopefully not keel over.  I've lost about 10 lbs since I've been here on my great Colombian diet (several days of major illness followed by several days of liquid diet followed by rigorous high altitude exercise).  I'd recommend it to anyone!