Dutch/Colombian passport

I am wondering how many hits this title will get (actually having a blog you can follow how many people are reading it and where they come from; apparently we have even some Australian readers). I was just thinking "time to update the blog and put some new exciting information there" but last week was a rather normal week except of all those events that happened that, later on, make you realize that such a sabbatical of three months in Colombia is really quite an adventure. We need holidays! and that is what we will get; leaving on Monday for a nice week to the Carribean cost after we will first spend some other weekend in La Vega where we can sleep, read books, swim and sit in the jacuzzi the whole weekend. But enough about this; the news is that Marcela got her Dutch Nationality!! We just heard the news via an email from Marieke! We expected it to take some year but now after some 2 months it is already approved and so in some months we have to go to the City hall to go for the ceremony to receive Marcela's Dutch papers (including a passport which makes it much easier with the travelling around the world). I could put here a reference to our famous Dutch politician who would immediately post a twitter message about this way too easy acceptance of the Dutch nationality, which would probably increase the number of hits enormously but don't want to rely on that. But getting back to the main issue; this now just happens at the point that I was going to the Colombian office to apply for getting my Colombian passport! What to do? Where to go?

And just a picture to spice up the blog (by the way, showing about Colombian integration);

Integrating into Colombian society: Piel Roja (like the shirt although it is for a Colombian cigarette brand) and a mochilla, the bag from the indigenous Arhuaco's. Nice bag with the Dutch colors (that is why Marcela bought it for me) but unfortunately my laptop doesn't fit!

Colombian police, La Vega and roller-hockey

As I said in the last blog; the frequency seems to go down but after this weekend I have enough material for a whole load of blogs! Much of it comes down again on using a borrowed car here in Colombia. Where to start; Marcela told me me not to be too negative but actually told her that I don't have to since we also had some very good things happening but let's start with the somehow more "negative" news.

Negotiations about the tires to put on our car; re-use and recyle!
We got second-hand/OK tires for 60.000 Pesos (about 25 euros)

We got busted by Colombian police! Not that we are in jail now but we met some Colombian police officers that stopped us after I tried to be a smart ass making an U-turn where I was supposed not to make such a turn. This somehow reminded me of something similarly happening in one of the other Colo's that I am visiting frequently (Colorado). I also once got stopped by Boulder Colorado University policy making a U-turn where I was not supposed to make it having this policy officer being in her car straight behind me (watch your mirrors making U-turns). Anyhow, now we were stopped by some Colombian officers and after having explained why we made that U-turn (we missed some essential exit) the discussion somehow turned ugly and they decided that our car was in such bad condition that it had to be towed away and this was going to be costly. The main reason was the bad condition of the rear tires (and not so much the fact that I made as a real Fittipaldi an not-allowed U-turn). I could only agree on the bad shape of the rear tire (as you can see on the picture) but also thought that these guys are a "little" inconsistent. At some point where we were stopped you could see some of the smoking buses, much older cars or the "paard en wagen" (horse and carriage) passing at the same road. The front tires of the car are very OK and that matters most but somehow these guys wanted to let us feel that we as Colombian "foreigners" should know better. 

Anyhow, after having waited there for about half an hour (we assume that) they got hungry and realized it would take much longer for the towing truck to arrive. So they finally let us go without us even paying a fine for the U-turn faul! They told us not to leave Bogota with the car and so we decided to stop at a garage where we got actually the rear tires being changed in 5 minutes after 10 minutes negotiations with our car now having "Emmaus"/re-used tires for 60.000 pesos (25 euros)! At the premises of the garage there was some ceremony happening with the holy Virgen de Carmen (that is the patron(as) of the buses) being celebrated. That's why you can see all the buses (and some cars) with decorations where the padre passed by to "baptize" the buses. 

But so, after this experience we made it to our intended destination, the Finca of the family of Marcela's best friend Marcela Santemaria in La Vega. This is west of Bogota at about 1 1/2 hour distance and already much lower (~1500m) where you can really enjoy already much more Colombian tropical life with bamboo trees and the fruits growing in the garden. We had a great weekend there spending time with the family in a settings so different from hectic Bogota life.

But so we had to return sunday night  where everything went smooth until some point that we decided to do some more shoppings. Somehow, waiting in the car the alarm went off and couldn't turn it down anymore! After some 10 minute struggling we decided to bring the noisy car back to the apartment but then being on the road we suddenly noticed two police motor officers. We thought that we were going to meet again our police "Amigos" since we were driving around there producing there all this noise of the alarm. These guys never even looked at us to see if we were indeed some crooks stealing this car! It is probably rather obvious that these experiences don't make me being very convinced about the decisiveness of Colombian police (although we should be very happy not having received a fine)

You probably wonder why I put roller-hockey in the title of the blog but this brings me a to very funny start of this weekend; at some point I thought that we were going to watch on TV an ice hockey game here in Colombia and was really surprised about this. How could such a sport be so popular being broadcasted here on TV?. It all seemed to be a big match with the anthems being played and then at some point I realized these guys were not skating on ice but on roller blades/skates! This appears to be a big sport here where they were competing against a French team. Once more again some of these surprising experiences here in Colombia!

Hasta la proxima, Laurens

Colombian Folklore

(updated 4th of July since apparently some text fell out of the blog)
The frequency of updating the blog is slightly going down but this is also indicating that we (especially me) are getting more and more used to our life here in Colombia. The teaching is going well and I am in the last week with the students. They now have to develop their own Earth system model (a simple one) after all the classes and practicals we had last couple of weeks. The more exercises we do with the students on these simple models, the more I see the added value of using some of these conceptual approaches to study the complex interactions in the Earth system. As said, we get more and more used to daily life here but also then suddenly strongly think about life in Wageningen once in a while being reminded what is all happening there. Today we received for example the nice pictures of the "Buurtfeest" that we missed but we also hear the stories about our garden. Fortunately, we have some good friends that seem take good care of it and where Ronald (van Lanen) even appeared to have made a GIS map of our garden to support to fight against the weeds and especially the "kweekgras". Dear friends, hope you at least enjoy well some of the products of garden!

Anyhow, so getting used to life here we still have each day our surprises here. Last weekend we went again with the car on a trip to Tenza now that the car got fixed (it appeared that one of the spark plugs was released from the cylinder explaining some of the engine issues on our previous trip). At some point we joined the traffic jam of all the people leaving Bogota for the weekend since it was apparently another national holidays. The traffic jam allowed me to take some pictures and as you can see on the picture on the left, the names of the bus companies that really bring you fast, faster, fastest to your destination (that's also why we are happy that we can go now with our own car) has not been really well updated!
In order to cope with the traffic jam,  the police sometimes decides to stop the traffic going in one direction (in this case south to Bogota) and then use the available two lanes to create a highway for the traffic leaving Bogota. Great idea if not the police was actually not stopping the southward traffic on all entrances to the road resulting in quite some ignorant "Spookrijders" (Ghostriders?) entering the road at some locations. But since we noticed this issue quickly we used only the right lane and all went OK. So also in that respect, we get very used to Colombian culture.