Coffee, Fruit, And A Wonderful Baby........

What a day! We were greeted at our door at about 9:45 by Jorge Rico (wonderful tour guide). We set out for the coffee plantation tour. Those of you who know me well know about my great love for coffee. So I was really excited about our day. It's funny now looking back upon the day and realizing the coffee part of it was great, but there was so much more. On the way to the plantation we stopped at a little roadside restaurant and had arepe and some pappas. Arepe are similar to a pancake filled with cheese and pappas are potatoes. We fed and changed Luke while Jorge took a little siesta in his car (he said he didn't sleep well last night). It was quite a long ride, about two hours, but we learned and saw so much along the way. We rode through Southern Bogota, which is a stark contrast to where we are staying in the northern part of the city. It is an extremely poor area, where many of the homes are in ruins and many of the people homeless. Jorge was telling us that 50% of the people in Bogota earn 500,000 pesos a month, which is about $250.00 dollars. During our ride Jorge educated us on the politics of Colombia, the social/economic issues the people of Colombia face, and Colombia's health care system. Our conversation was eye opening and we learned so much. We arrived at the coffee plantation and Jorge took us through the entire process of producing coffee, from the time it was still on the plant to the finished product. After our tour we enjoyed a great cup of coffee and helped some of the workers package the coffee we purchased to bring home (picture included). While we were there I think we received a bit of good luck. We were standing outside near Jorge's car talking before we left the plantation, when I felt something hit me in the head. I thought it may have been a berry or some fruit falling. But no, it was a bird pooping on my head. We all got a laugh out of it and Jorge said it was a first for anyone touring the coffee plantation. I wiped it off and thought positively. This happening is said to bring good luck, so maybe a quick court number 13? Jorge then took us to lunch. Kenny and I weren't able to be too daring with what we ordered since it is Lent and no meat on Friday. So we each tried cream of trout soup (We now know we don't like trout soup). We also had salad, fried yucca, and more potatoes and they were all really good. Jorge gave us a choice of what to see next: the orchid garden or a huge food market. Since it was starting to rain and Kenny loves to check out different food markets, we decided to stop at the indoor market. We were outside of Bogota in a town called Fusagasuga. The market was great. Jorge thought it was important for us to see the everyday life outside of Bogota. We included a picture of the main area of town of Fusagasuga where the market is and several pictures of the market itself (the hooves pictured are used to make soup we are told). The market is local families selling their goods. We could not get over the price of things. We bought 2 whole pineapples, a ton of little bananas, and a bag of raspberries for $3.00. Jorge was telling us that a lot of the families may only make 5,000 to 20,000 pesos a day there ($2.50 to about $10.00/day). Jorge is a wonderful environmentalist and humanitarian. I think this sums Jorge up very well: the market is very important to him because it directly benefits the local family farms instead of paying extra to the supermarket. But Jorge takes his support one step further and spreads out where he buys from at the market, including buying a lot from the second floor vendors since they get less traffic being on the second floor as compared to the first floor. He's a really thoughtful guy. But anyway, we enjoyed the market and then started our trip back. We hit a ton of traffic and it took us nearly 3 hours to get back. Jorge was kind and started to give Kenny and I some Spanish lessons while we were waiting in traffic. (Kenny learned how to order pizza correctly in Spanish and actually came home from Pan Pa Ya with exactly what we wanted). And you would think Luke would have started to meltdown after about 5 hours in the car and most of the rest of the day in his stroller. But he was such a good boy. We were so amazed when we pulled up to our elevator at about 7:45 tonight and Luke was still smiling. We are so blessed!