Greetings all - Our blog for Sunday, Feb 14th,, 2010

We have completed our first two full days here in Colombia and the experience so far in a word: "exciting".

First, about our hosts. Alberto Garcia and his wife Lucia are absolutely incredible. They have gone to considerable efforts to make our trip and study tour very special for all of us. It is a tremondous lesson the importance of excellent hospitality and the difference it makes to strangers and visitors in a new land. We have felt welcomed and cared for. An experience of a lifetime!

On Sunday, they hosted us on a trip north into Colombia to visit among other places the Villa de Leyva and the Monasterio Santo Ecce Homo. Both of these are part of a rich heritage of the people of Colombia, both in politics and faith. They are national treasures that are well taken care of and very inviting. Our hosts walked through both these places, translating and explaining the many sights we were seeing. Part of the fun was buying gifts for families and friends at home where Alberto and Lucia helped in negotiating a fair price.

In this first day of our tour one realizes that Colombia is very much a place of contrasts. Leaving the modern city of Bogota we were soon greeted with road construction that first saw modern earth moving and construction equipment alongside of men with shovels and wheelbarrows. A little farther on it was not unusual to see cattle or sheep tethered to stakes quite near the road where they were eating the grass. At evening they would be watered and the next day moved to a new location a few meters down the road to begin the process over again.

The narrow roads out 100 kilometers north of Bogota are often narrow and windy. As our bus barreled down the road it would past just inches from mules carrying produce for the market. In colourful Spanish style villages along the way people would be sitting in the shade outside of white painted buildings, nodding at us as we passed by on our way to other destinations.

So we are well started on some very special experiences during our stay here in Colombia. And again it is because of our very special hosts who have so graciously welcomed us and given of themselves.

And it gets better! More tomorrow on our first day of business tours.

Richard