Diary of a Wanderer

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...