……..and having lunch at Fulanitos which is quite a treat as we tried several times before when we were last here. Fulanitos is a little restaurant just around the corner from our hostel where we spent our first few days in ColOmbia and comes highly recommended. We tried to have supper there on our first night but they told Jim and I you needed to have reservations for no fewer than eleven people…..we thought that was strange so we left as there was just the two of us. The next morning we thought we must have gotten that mixed up due to our poor Spanish and their poor English so I went back to make a reservation for supper this time bringing my Spanish/Englsh dictionary but once again left without a reservation because you needed eleven people…….again we thought this was strange and I wanted to go even more because the reviews were quite good. So, the next day when Dawn and Yves arrived I suggested to Yves, who has a good command of Spanish, that we check it out and we were again rejected because there was just four of us and we thought “what the hell” and went somewhere else but I was always puzzled by their strange request that you have a party of eleven people for supper. So today when Jim, Dawn and I were back in Bogota and in the neighbourhood of Fulanitos, and because it was lunch time, and not supper time, I suuggested we try again. They gladly took us in and we were the only ones there and were served the best meal we had since we’ve come to ColOmbia……excellent it was, and fairly reasonable, but we left with no understanding as to why you needed 11 people for supper. No doubt something has gone amiss in the translation! Speaking about lost in translation, it reminds me of the other day at the beach when we met a very pleasant young Colombian woman while swimming at Playa Concha. She was on vacation with a tour bus of some sort and heard us speaking English and quickly struck up a conversation and she was delightful, as was her mother who was with her. After chatting for quite sometime her male friend, late twenties, came over and she introduced him to me as Johnny. Not always wanting to speak only English I took it upon myself to say ‘bueno’ meaning what a beautiful day at the beach as I also used a little sign language indicating thus. Johnny blushed and said ‘gracias’ and I, of course, looked at him and the young girl and her mother burst out laughing and told Johnny I was saying what a beautiful beach and not that he was beautiful! Everyone laughed and then Johnny went off and told his friends, but of course I had No idea what version of the story he told them. Anyway, back to our last day in Bogota which was great, good weather but not hot and we found a little shopping….but as always not too much, so easy on the pocketbook. We were once again surprised by all the young men in police/military uniforms holding rifles by their sides and I asked myself “why did you ever want to come here?” and remembered a conversation that occurred four years earlier in Peru. Jim and I had gone to Lake Titikaka for a day trip and met a young couple in their late twenties who had spent four months traveling in South America. We asked them about their favorite place and when they said ColOmbia I thought to myself “not going there, too dangerous” and when I expressed this out loud they said that the government was trying to undo this myth and were working really hard to make it safe. A couple of years later Ian, our nephew, also travelling in South America fell in love with ColOmbia and recommended it as a neat and safe place to travel so I thought I would check it out further much to Jim’s delight because he was ready to go at anytime. Most of what I read was positive and the dangers were minimized by good common sense so we made a plan. To be on the safe side, however, I did register us with the Feds before we left which I might add is always a good idea in case you might be in need of the Canadian embassy which, thank God, we weren’t. I also took along a good whistle, in case of an attack, and a false wallet I took from my sister Bissy with a couple of pieces of useless ID and a few bucks in it in case I was ever robbed. Thrilled to report that within a few days I totally forgot where the false wallet was and only on one occasion had to use the whistle…..and it wasn’t because of an attack. We were on the beach in Palomina with a really rough surf and this woman came screaming in Spanish along the beach, a universal language, and pointing out to the water. Quickly you could see someone in trouble and a few guys trying to help so I blew my whistle and caught the attention of a few others who were in the know and went to help and all was well………felt like a bit of a hero, I did, so the whistle came in handy. A few years ago the ColOmbian government changed their tourism slogan to “The only danger in coming to Colombia is that you will want to stay” …….catchy and for some tourists, true! It’s a good time to mention, once again, that the people of ColOmbia overall are quite lovely and very helpful, and curious, about tourists. They also seem to have great teeth with fabulous smiles and the women, in particular, can be quite beautiful so Dawn and I felt quite comfortable in their midst(LOL if you must!). On one occasion a young man, well younger than us, asked Jim if he was Tom Selleck and we’re not sure if he was serious or just trying to sell something, but we all had a laugh and suggested to Jim that he accept it as a ompliment……although none of us had seen Tom S. for a while and assume he still has the moustache! So we’re ready to leave and say goodbye to ColOmbia as there’s little chance we’ll be returning……the world is just too big! Off to the airport we go, check in our carry-on bags so we don’t have to drag them around on our few stops on the way back home and then we meet the neatest young man. While the three of us were just standing around waiting for the ticket agent to open up, and making small talk, one of those young ‘policia’ officers I mentioned earlier walked up to Jim and said “passport please” and immediately I thought two things. One was “what have we done wrong?” and the other was “he’s just a baby in a uniform” but you know you have to do what he asks as you are in his country and he’s in a uniform and it doesn’t matter that he’s younger than your youngest……..so Jim hands over his passport. The young man looks it over and then says in pretty good English “where in Canada are you from” and Jim says he and I are from NS and Dawn is from Vancouver, and he smiles and says you mean “Hongcouver” which I had never heard before but Dawn laughed and explained to us that with all the Asian presence in BC Vancouver often gets referred to in this way. We introduced ourselves further and I, of course, showed him my passport with my proper name, Madonna, and he, like all the others before him just laughed and found it hard to believe and made reference to that other Madonna, ie. the one who CAN sing! This young man’s name was Andres and he chatted with us for almost an hour explaining that all the young policia we had seen were actually drafted and they all have to do a year of service for which they get paid the equivalent of about 100 Can dollars a month plus room and board in a barracks type accommodation. He had been in for eight months, did not like it and was taking every opportunity he could to learn English and ‘essential’ French because that’s what you needed to come to Canada and he was wanting to come to Calgary. He knew a great deal about Canada and said he chose Calgary because he heard there were a lot of Latin Americans there and that there were jobs. He asked about other Canadian cities like Montreal, Halifax, Toronto and Winnipeg and of course wanted to know how cold it gets in Calgary…….when we told him he got kind of weak in the knees! He also was collecting Canadian coins and I did have a quarter on me which he had seen before and wanted to see the one with the beaver so Jim went into his luggage and found a nickel and Andres smiled that large ColOmbian smile and was very grateful. We also had a dime with the Bluenose, which he had not heard of or seen, so we talked about that as well. Dawn also gave him the small Canadian flag she had on her luggage and he was happy to receive it. Before too long his buddies, other boy policia, were hanging around and laughing at him and with him and our plane was called so we had to get ready to board. He thanked us once again, and we him, and he said he would tell his buddies that he met ‘Madonna’ and he laughed! So off we go with great memories of ColOmbia and young ColOmbian people like Andres who are just trying to get ahead in the world even if it means having to leave their country to do so, as many immigrants have done before in coming to Canada…and many eastern Canadians have done in moving west! Happy we came, but as always, happy to return home……and once again realize how blessed we have been to have been born in Canada, especially in Newfoundland! Looking forward to seeing O’Reilly, our golden retriever, but more importantly, looking forward to seeing Kathleen and Andrea and other family members when we meet in Rhode Island in May for Haley and Adam’s wedding…..can’t wait and thanks for journeying with us. Stay safe, XOXO, Beany(aka Madonna) and Jim