One Last Colombian Adventure

It is true...Bob was the one taking care of the blog from the start. I tried to warn people that once he was gone, the blog would suffer, but no one offered to pay his salary so he could stay...
While there have been many adorable photo moments with Bella, we haven't done any other day trips, other than to the botanical gardens. Due to technical difficulties - these pictures are the last that we will be posting on this blog. In fact, this will probably be the last post of the blog. (Probably ;-)

If anyone has been keeping up with the Judd's or Bechtel's blogs, you know that we had some drama around the time of our sentencia. I would prefer not to delve into the details of our almost-debacle. Suffice it to say that we are very, very lucky to be coming home at this time. For those of you who don't know, we will be returning late at night on Wednesday, September 10th.

Below are a few pictures of our trip to the famous Norberto's. Suzanne, Laura and I were pampered and painted (quite literally) and had a fabulous time.






Here is Norberto with his finished products.

While I cannot express in words how happy I am to be coming home, I would be doing Isabella a disservice by not mentioning a few of the things that I loved about Colombia. First and foremost, I have had the priviledge of meeting many wonderful people - I'm making a cut at a short list so please know that there were many, many more... The entire staff at FANA, especially Mercedes de Martinez, Maria Teresa de Maldonaldo, and Elizabeth de Escobar; Betty and the wonderful women who cared for us in her house: Sonia, Okenis, Alicia and Maria Antonia; Jorge Rico and his wife Patricia, Maria Teresa Perez our driver, and Dr. Polo our lawyer...the list goes on. There are wonderful people in the country of Colombia who want to help other people - that has to be the best thing that you can say about a country.

Colombia itself is beautiful. Bogota is developing at such a rapid rate, that I doubt I will recognize much of it when I return. It will be exciting to see the changes in the years to come and it is my impression that they have only just begun...


The flowers...I have never seen their equal. Roses in colors that I have never seen. This one is called "Alexander." It was the simplest pleasure to have fresh beautiful flowers to look at every day.


So here we are at Betty's house, ready to go in less than a week. Bella has gotten so big, and her face has changed so much!!!! I hope her Daddy recognizes her! Thank you so much to my family, especially my father, mother and sister, to my friends, and of course to the FANA family. Without the support of all of you this miracle could never have taken place. I love you all.
Adios for now.

First Meeting with Papa Coffey

Bella meets her Papa!!!



Papa gives his first bottle to Bella. It is the first of many - hey I'm going to need help once Daddy's gone.

Trip to Guatavita

If you click on this picture you will be able to read the legend of Guatavita which is part of the legend of El Dorado.

View from the top of the rim of the lagoon.

This is the lagoon that the Spanish conquistadors partially drained to look for gold. They were somewhat successful in their quest, and alot of the gold that was found is in the Gold Museum in Bogota. Unfortunately the museum is closed for renovations, which is too bad as it was one of the places to go on my list.




Here is a picture of Jorge's car - it runs on natural gas. Why are we not doing this in the states?


Here we are picking out trees to bring to Guatavita to plant in the babies names. Jorge is the forever conservationist.

Here he is with a tree that was planted with another family.


Daddy and his Bebe.

Bob's Golf Outting - San Andrés Golf Club

On Monday I joined Maria Teresa Maldanado for a round of golf at San Andrés Golf Club, Bogotá, Colombia. This was quite an experience. The course and club house were outstanding. The clubs Maria let me use (her husband's clubs) were Callaway Fusion irons, with a nice Big Bertha driver. We all had caddies, which was a first for me. My caddie Guillermo was great. He helped me sink some really long putts with his ability to read the greens. I started the front nine with a triple bogey (some sand fun 2x), but was able to finish with a 44. I had my first legit/real attempt at an eagle in about 15 years, but I lipped the 5 foot putt unfortunately. Struggled a bit on the back but finished with a 94 which I can't be too upset with.

This course was designed by Robert Trent Jones, who has had his hands on hundreds of major courses, including the redesign of Augusta National in Georgia.

Golf Course Homepage: http://www.sanandresgolfclub.com/Main.html
Course Designer (Robert Trent Jones) : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Trent_Jones



The club house had a workout center and an indoor swimming pool.






Here I am with Maria Teresa's sister-in-law.
To the right are the caddies with Maria Teresa and her sister-in-law.
My caddie was on the left (Guillermo). They were all very pleasant and kind.



First Tee box looking down fairway, and the starter's pavillion with scoreboard behind in the distance.






Here I am coming up 18 to wrap up the round. It was a great day of golf.
And one last shot of Guillermo, my caddie. I would have been above 100 without him, no doubt.

Couple Cute Photos of the Bambino

Here are a few cute photos of the bambino from the other night. She was having fun playing with her Mommy.



There's a happy Bebe!


Here's Bella holding Daddy's hand.

Last Night that all Father's were here.

Sunday night was the last night all of us were here together so we went for some Italian food at Archie's around the corner.




Then we returned home to Alicia and the 3 bambinos and had some fun taking photos.
Laura has mastered the art of automatic timer photography so we were able to get some good ones.

Here we are after we returned home from dinner with Alicia on the left, and Sonya on the right. One big happy familia.



Here we are all wearing our medical masks to avoid spreading the plague back and forth.
At least we have a sense of humor I guess.


Here I am with the closest thing to "Hazel" (my dog) I could find, so I had to get a picture with her. This dog was just around the corner from Betty's Place. I think she even barks like Hazel. We have heard her quite often, even in the middle of the night, so Isabella has had some Hazel training.

Trip to Monserrate & The Old City

On Saturday we went on a site seeing trip and hit a few spots. Our first stop was the National Park. This was just a quick stop before heading to Monserrate.

Here we are at one of the food stands at the park, to the right we found a pup taking a little drink from the fountain. There are a lot of loose dogs running around Bogota, some in packs, some on their own, all seemed pretty docile though.


On to the good stuff. From here we went up to Monserrate.
Monserrate is a mountain that dominates the city centre of Bogotá, the capital city of Colombia. It rises to 3,152 metres (10,341 ft) above the sea level, where there is a church (built in the 17th century) with a shrine, devoted to "El Señor Caído" (Fallen Lord).

Here is the entrance at the foot of Monserrate where you can pickup the cable car, or walk to the top using the stone stairs. To walk takes ~1 hr and 30 minutes. Most of us took the cable car, a few braved the walk. Given that this walk takes you up an additional ~2ooo ft in altitude on top of the ~8,500 ft, Jackie and I figured the cable car was the way to go (we have been getting our workouts at the gym here, and we wanted to live to see the top). The altitude really affects us folks who are used to a mere 500 ft above sea-level in Buffalo, vs 9 to 10 thousand feet here.



And away we go, up the mountain on a train track being pulled by a cable !!
You'll notice another car coming down the tracks towards us in the picture on the right. The track has this minor split to allow cars to pass, but for most of the path there is only one track.
Luckily the split worked out fine.


We made it safely off the cable car. Here is Jackie on the walk up to the church at the top.


Along the walkway they had statues that displayed the stations of the cross.



We came upon some interesting vegetation that only occurs at this elevation.
It looked like it was spray-painted white.

And here we made it to the best spot for a complete view of Bogota, all 8 million people in one shot. Below are 4 photos that are a panoramic, from South to North. I also included a short video that is a panoramic as well, see below.



Here is the video of the same shot.




After getting a good look at the city, we trekked over to the other side of the mountain. On the way we ran into some goats. As you can see they were off in the distance in the first photo ... then they decided to join us. (Don't worry Denice, they didn't try to eat our coats as you have experienced)


Here are a few shots of Jackie and I on the back side of the mountain. Some nice scenery on this side.

Here I am, rocking out with my little (very out of tune guitar).


After all the fun we took another cable car back. This one however had the cable attached to the top of the car, as opposed to the railroad type on the way up.
The white building is the restaurant at the top. You'll notice at the base of the first cable car tower there is a Rottweiler keeping watch (or sleeping).



Here's another cable car coming back up as we were going down.


On the way down I took a shot of the tallest building in Bogota as we reached approx the same height (~50 stories).


And here's the landing pad for the cable car on the way down.


After Monserrate, we were all starving so we went off to the Old City for some lunch.
We went to Fulanitos (as recommended by Jorge our driver). It was a great spot, great food, great views, and true to it's original decor.


Here are a couple of photos from the back patio of the restaurant.


Here is Jackie, and Jason and Suzanne Judd at our table.

After lunch we took a walk through the Old City, also known as La Candelarias.
On the right, you'll see a statue created by a local artist and donated to the city. Unfortunately the head of the statue fell off some time ago. Since it was a gift, there aren't any funds to fix it, so it has been this way for a while. We noticed there were 2 other statues done by the same artist on another street, luckily those had not lost their heads (yet).


Here's the road to the Plaza de Bolivar.

Here is the Iglesia del Carmen, an impressive Catholic church.

Here's a photo of the church with the back drop of the Andes.


Here is the Plaza del Bolivar.
Below is the Casa de Narino, the official home of the President starting in 1908.




Here's a photo of Jackie and I with one of the guards. Jackie commented, "I can't believe he let you get that close to his gun." Guess I was closer than I realized ...


All in all it was a great day, we covered a lot of ground, saw some cool sites, and had some good food.