Diary of a Wanderer

Reflections on Cuba during the nine days of mourning the death of Fidel Castro Our love affair with Cuban music had been short and sweet, brought to a sudden end with the news on the morning of Saturday 26th November, two days into our stay in Havana. The daughter of the owners of the casa approached me at breakfast with tears in her eyes. She told me how the country had heard some terrible news and that their commander and leader, Fidel Castro, had died the night before. She was ridden with grief and for the next two days of our stay she could barely look us in the eyes, let alone smile. Her state was to reflect that of many people we were to meet over the rest of the trip, saddened by the loss of their 'comandante'. Nine days of mourning were called, starting from Sunday afternoon. Music and alcohol were prohibited. The Plaza de la Revolucion provided a space where Cubans could come and show their respects to their beloved leader, filing passed a picture of him and...

Before we knew it, it was time to say our goodbyes to Havana. A bus ride took us west to the sleepy town of Viñales. In direct contrast to the busy, built up city we had just left, before us stood a quaint town settled amongst spectacular countryside that has been unexpectedly awoken since the tourist trade began to boom in Cuba. Small little houses lined the central street that ran through the centre of the town, none more than one floor or complete without at least two rocking chairs on the porch. All of them finished with guest house signs outside. As the bus pulled up, we were greeted with a mob of casa owners holding up signs, desperate to convince someone to stay at their house tonight. Luckily, we had already sorted our place out on the bus with a guy who had hopped on the stop before. He took us to his family’s casa, just off of the main road and showed us to our room. As the sun set we headed out to explore. Flag flying at half mast in the Plaza Mayor It was aro...

We woke up early to our huge breakfast, made by our wonderful casa owners. Eggs, fruit, bread and sandwich; needless to say we were stuffed afterwards and ready to face the day! We wandered along the never ending Calle Neptuno towards Havana Vieja, stopping off at Seriosha's record store on the way so that Ramsey could go "digging" for some gems. The shop was tucked away at the back of a dark store that had lots of stalls set up around the edges selling bits and bobs from children's toys to plumbing parts.  Ramsey in his element, digging in Seriosha's Record Store We then went to buy tickets for a tour of Partagas cigar factory from one of the hotels. At 12.50 she sold us tickets for the last tour of the day at 1pm. We hurried across to the factory, just two blocks away, only to find that the factory had temporarily moved location... After a few moments of panic we rushed outside to grab the first taxi we could to take us to "la fabrica del ta...

Cuba had always been a dream destination for me, and when the day came to fly to Havana it was difficult to believe it had finally arrived! Despite it being one of my top destinations to visit for years, when i heard the news of the embargo with the US lifting, like many people, I decided now had to be the time to go. Despite our measly stipend in Colombia we had managed to live on a shoestring and still save enough to book our flights and have some spending money for two weeks. Our ride from the airport Our ride from the airport was exciting in itself, our first time in a classic car, as we made our way to our casa . I was amazed at how many classic cars there truly were. In all colours and models, most working as private or collective taxis. Billboards were absent of advertisements but instead hosted slogans supporting the revolution, communism and Fidel Castro. It was official, we had well and truly made it to Havana! After dumping our bags, we headed out t...

Our day trip to Guatapé and El Peñon will forever stand out in my memories of Colombia. Natural beauty, views, colour, quaintness, adventure- this trip had it all. Our little bus took us directly from Medellin to the foot of El Peñon. There the enormous monolith stood in all its glory, as the zig-zag staircase that would take us to the top clung onto the side of it. We paid our entrance of 15,000 pesos and made our way up, up, up until 740 steps later we were surrounded by unimaginably spectacular views. The beautiful turquoise water, with its trim of orange from the clay edge, weaved around the land. It was like a maze which divided up all of the land and water, yet left it all connected the same time. The contrasting colours only helped to accentuate the beauty. It was truly amazing. We stayed and admired before contemplating the descent. When we arrived back at the bottom we found a tuk-tuk to take us into Guatapé. This quaint, colourful town did not di...

By the time the long awaited weekend break had arrived we were itching to get out of Cali and experience somewhere new! Albeit another city, we had heard nothing but positivity about Medellin. A four day weekend due to more school cancellations provided the perfect opportunity to discover what this city had to offer. Our neighbour had kindly written us a list of things to do, and it was clear that we definitely weren’t going to be bored. We arrived late afternoon and headed to our hostel which was situated in the west of the city, near metro station Suramericana, which was to prove incredibly useful to navigate us around the city. The metro system confirmed everyone’s description on the city as ‘organizada’, enabling us to travel wherever we wanted in the city with ease. With police situated on every platform, I felt a lot safer and relaxed; people even had their phones out and were using them without thinking twice about looking over their shoulder- wow, what a difference f...

This week has found me reflecting a lot. I feel that at times I have many unfilled hours in which I find myself thinking about my time here and how it has affected my perspective on the important things in life. It’s both a good thing and a bad thing- sometimes the mind can wonder and the imagination can take hold: whether it’s about what the next year holds and future adventures or about what I would do if I were to be robbed walking down the street. Ultimately I find myself reflecting about how much I have taken for granted in my life so far. And it always comes back to two aspects- education and safety. I already know how amazing my family and friends are and how lucky I am to have them, but these two points I had never really considered before. Education in England is of a really high standard and we often take it as a given. Yes, my Mum and Aunty (who are both teachers) will moan about the amount of paperwork and changes being made by Ministers who essentially are not in touc...

The last couple of weeks have seen me slowly start to settle into the daily rhythm of life in Cali. My early wake up of 5am has become less of a chore, hot showers have become a distant memory and the continual catcalls from men in the street has become a pet peeve that I have sadly had to learn to just ignore. Hissing, blowing kisses, shouting “mona/linda/bonita” – these ‘machistas’ really know how to treat their women! However it is far from doom and gloom. I have come to love my students, their cheeky humour, the way they look out for each other, and the affection they show us as teachers.  I am slowly attempting to learn all of their names, although memorising all 200 or so of them seems like a highly unlikely achievement right now! I have begun to take more of a lead in classes, trying to encourage students to speak in English and confront their embarrassment. Gradually they are coming to respect me, although not without first attempting to challenge my authority with con...

I went to bed on Sunday night with butterflies in my stomach, nervous about what the next day would bring. I woke up hourly throughout the night until 5am, anxious I would sleep through my alarm. A cold shower and two boiled eggs later, the sun had risen and at 6.15am I made my way to school. Walking to Comfenalco, I was nervous about taking a jeep on my own for the first time and knowing where to get off. I was nervous walking down the steps to the school, unsure of what to do when I arrived. I was greeted with open arms by Gildardo and my fears subsided! He took me to Edith, who proceeded to introduce me to a ridiculous amount of people, none of whose names I remembered. Leonor, my co-teacher was there to meet me and took me to our class, where she settled the class, introduced me and started to explain lots of things to me. Edith and her then took me around the school, into every class, to introduce me. I was overwhelmed and felt quite intimidated with so many kids looking at me, w...

Valley of Wax Palms We were up early after a peaceful night’s sleep, and after some breakfast we were off on the jeep to the Valle de Cocora. Ramsey clung on as he stood on the back, making the most of the scenery as we made our twenty minute journey to the beginning of the hike. We were also joined coincidentally by some of our fellow survivors from the hike the day before. Our friends from Armenia had done the hike a few days before and warned us of the lack of signage to take the right trail, but despite the warnings we still missed the turning the first time! A dead end forced us to turn back and put us on the right trail as we followed the meandering path through the valley of wax palms, which were absolutely incredible. Their immense height and yet strength to withstand the winds that were blowing was a feat of nature that I had not seen before. The path climbed up and up, it seemed never ending, but I’m not sure what we were expecting- it was an estimated 5 hour route! We m...

The country road The bus dropped us in the quaint main plaza and it wasn’t long before I had fallen in love with Salento. Narrow cobbled streets, artisanal shops and touristy buzz that filled the air. This wasn’t the Colombia I had known whilst being in Bogota, Cali or Armenia. A wander away from the town took us to our hostel, Yambolombia, 2 km away from the centre along a winding country road, amongst truly natural beauty with fresh Colombian air that our lungs had not yet experienced. Our two nights were to be Wi-Fi free and spent lying under a starlit sky. It never fails to amaze me how many infinite stars can be revealed when you take away the polluting, artificial light of man. Before the stars arrived however, we seized the opportunity to visit a coffee finca nearby. Finca El Ocaso was located about an hour’s walk further along the winding country road. We had picked up a companion along the way who had been slowly riding his bike when we were walking to the hostel. A...

As we have had the luck of having three weeks of school holidays before we even started work we decided to make the most of the time and took a trip to the coffee region. A luxurious coach journey, (with a film and wi-fi!) and we arrived in Armenia just under four hours later. We found our hostel and were greeted by the loveliest girl who seemed determined to ensure we had the best stay possible. She made us the nicest coffees (yep, that’s right, I’m slowly being converted to a coffee drinker, although only accepting the better quality stuff with sugar and milk!) and gave the place a warm feeling, full of positive energy. Our friend we had met during training in Bogota, Tom, is living in the city and so we met up with him. He introduced us to the glory of the Cuban sandwich and joined us in exploring the city. It was great to see another city and be able to compare it to Cali. Without a doubt it is less than half the size of Cali, with a completely different feel and atmosphere. A...

The secretary of education in Cali had its own welcome events planned for us, and on Monday we made our way, not without getting very lost, to Comfenalco, which would become an important reference point in my future navigation of the city. We had a conference where we attempted to danced salsa to a live school salsa band, with some very little kids showing us how it was done. It was here that I met my mentor and co-teacher-to-be, Edith and Leonor. Their eagerness when I introduced myself and announced my school was really quite overwhelming. They embraced me with open arms and dragged me outside to get chatting straight away. They were absolutely great, full of enthusiasm and passion. I left with a buzz, excited to start at school after their holidays came to a close in two weeks time.  Looking over Cali from the viewpoint at the Virgin We were also invited to a day trip, organised by the secretary of education, with the others on the program to a finca (farm) in the mo...

We couldn't believe the day had arrived to fly to Cali, the city that would be our home for the next five months. An early start saw us arriving at the hostel for around 10am and we headed straight to "migracion" to sort out our cedulas (Colombian ID cards). Unfortunately, Ramsey and I found ourselves at the end of a very long queue and spent over three hours waiting for our paperwork to be processed. In this time I confirmed I had forgotten my PIN number as I tried to pay for our cards and I also made friends with a woman who wanted me to hang out with her son, gave me her number and then proceeded to jump the queue and leave me waiting.  On our return from migracion we got our room, which we discovered was full of mosquitoes and had terrible plumbing that was to leave the bathroom floor drenched every time we had a cold shower. The view from the balcony is spectacular and enables us to look out over the city until the city skyline meets the sky. The woman at t...

Sunday morning brought with it our move to the hotel where we would stay for an unknown amount of time for our training. We are working on a bilingual program run by the ministry of education in which we support teachers at local secondary schools in English lessons. From the incredible standard of our rooms in this 5 star hotel in one of the nicest parts of Bogotá, it's clear they are pouring a ton of money into the program.  We were put into groups based on our location in the country and spent the rest of the week in lectures for 8 hours a day, in which we were tested on our ability not to fall asleep. We were talked at on the most irrelevant, dense teaching theory by people who have never experienced teaching in state schools. TEFL jargon was thrown around while some of the basics and useful resources were left out. I felt quite lucky that I actually have experience teaching so I knew what they were on about. Needless to say after 8 solid days with no break, we were q...