Bogota Journal: Ready To Leave

In forty-eight hours I will be up in the air.  I have been careful to not let the German Wings crash in the French Alps alarm me about flying.  I am no stranger to air travel and as I have already mentioned, but for certain douchebag airlines the experience of flying is usually enjoyable.  I am already packed.  I want to make sure that I can fit all the books I've bought into my luggage and that I leave nothing behind in a possible last minute panic. I can just fit everything in and it's going to be a bit heavy to drag everything on the Canada Line when I return so fortunately I have budgeted for a cab when I get off the plane.  I double checked this morning with Andres, the husband of the couple who own El Campobello where I have been staying to confirm that the lady driving me to the airport has been informed and someone will be up in the morning to see me off.  I explained to him that because I work in a rather bureaucratic health system that clear communication is very important to me.  Don't tell mom without also telling dad.

I am eager to get home.  Bogota has been an interesting novelty but the people here are mostly idiots, I'm afraid, and I will gladly trade them for the lesser (or more familiar?) idiocy that I live with in Vancouver.  I am not going to miss noisy internet cafes (there are some real imbeciles present here right now) nor out of control drivers.  I am also looking forward to the rich, dense, highly oxygenated air of Vancouver.  Don't get me wrong.  I am very glad to have made this trip and the minor inconveniences are a worthy trade off for what I have gained here.

I remember well my first two international trips: 1991 to Europe and 1994 to Costa Rica.  At that time I was living in a very dysfunctional intentional Christian community and when I was in England I wanted to settle there.  Likewise in Costa Rica.  When I returned home from both trips there were major problems waiting for me because the people I lived with were, shall I say, very prone to problems, both having them and creating them.  In the last seven years that I have travelled it has been very different.  As much as I enjoy visiting new and interesting places I now always look forward to coming home.  I live alone now, in a decent apartment in a secure and well managed building.  What a difference.  I also appreciate a lot more now what we have in Vancouver.  I don't think this is going to stop me from traveling.  I learn a lot with each trip that I would never learn by staying in Vancouver.  It's also great for my Spanish fluency.

I just started a newdrawing this morning, number eight, of a Colombian hummingbird.  It's called a violet tailed sylph:
Cute birdie, eh?