Every adventure has it's own flavour, and this time around it was traveling the country while being five to six months pregnant. Our little Colombian/Canadian will be born here in Armenia, Quindio sometime in the last week of October. Everything looks good so far, and our doctor here assures us that he/she is healthy and growing fast! So far, it has been a pretty easy pregnancy, and I certainly didn't lie around with my feet up during our vacation. It was also a unique experience staying in backpacker hostels as a pregnant lady. Those young, fresh-faced 20 year olds don't really know what to make of someone who takes in adventure tours with a side of gestation instead of a six-pack of the local brew.
It has been a treat meeting Colombians while pregnant. Everyone is enthralled with the idea that a foregin couple have come to live in Colombia and like it enough to stay and have a kid here. The Colombian staff at school are delighted with my growing belly. Most conversations take place while they are rubbing my belly, or even giving it the occasional kiss hello. (So far, the kissing of the belly has been restricted to matronly members of the cleaning staff. While my sense of personal space has deminished to almost zero, I will draw the line if the soccer coach tries that one.)
During July our travels took us to Bucaramanga, Chicamocha park, San Gil (the adventure capital of Colombia), Villa de Leyva, the Amazon, Bogota, the Tatacoa desert near Neiva, San Agustin and Popayan. It was essentially a loop of the Eastern part of the country with some long bus trips (we flew to the Amazon) and spectacular scenery. Colombia continues to astound me with how beautiful it is. Before I discovered I was pregnant, our original plan had been to head south to Peru and Ecuador. Now, I'm glad that we took the time to see more of Colombia because everywhere we went was completely different from our travels in December.
Enjoy the slideshow. If you click on "Show Info" in the top right bar, you'll see some descriptions of where we are.
