Cleanliness at last!

We arrived in Medellin from Cartagena, a more modern city that sits southwest of Bogota. We were immediately impressed by the climate change, much cooler than the coast! After walking around the hostal area for a while, we finally came across one that wasn't too expensive and had a very nice environment, and more imporantly, a guitar (Casa Kiwi, which I would later find out was owned by a guy from Seattle)! The city was nice, and we had pizza and enjoyed walking around the Zona Rosa area, seeing some rain, and also getting to know some other foreigners, particularly two Aussie's who we shared our room with. However, the friday night in Medellin did little to impress us. We ended up walking all around with a group from the hostal, and splitting off from them to get a solid 30 minutes of the three of us dancing like idiots to bad music. But hey, you got to enjoy what you can get! The next day we planned to go into town and see the botanical gardens, which was a strange sight with carnaval like foods for what turned out to be a "cultural celebration". However, there was a restaurant, and outside were some 20 raised garden beds filled with basils, cilantro, onions, carrots, parsley, cauliflor, cabbage, and more! It made me so happy, and sarah and I began a harvest, even though it is probably not allowed...After that, we planned to go to a local soccer game! Yay! Medellin vs. Bogota. It was great, the first half was lovely, great weather, great crowd. It is common for passionate fans to go to the game and sit on the south side of the stadium, and they call themselves "Los Del Sur". And it's a good thing, because they don't just watch the game, in fact, they don't at all, they just jump up and down, singing and chanting songs along with a huge drum and some horn players. So yes, Medellin in fact does have  a cheerleading squad of some 2,000 people! It was nuts, entertaining, and quite hilarious. So, we really enjoyed the first half, and probably two minutes in to the second, the rain began to come down, but of course us prepared Americans had our rain coats while everyone else began scrambling to buy plastic panchos. The funniest thing was that those selling the ponchos often didn't wear them...so a man completely soaked was selling panchos...another irony. Soon the field was so soaked the ball couldn't even be kicked more than 15 feet, so they postponed the game and we headed home. There, we cooked one of the best egg scrambles with avocado and tomato and other goodies that reminded me of home. And off to the coffee country the next day!