Mostly written on May 15 and completed on May 19, 2025.
Today marks the halfway point of May, and May 30 will mark the end of my ten-month Fulbright grant. Of course, I decided to leave the country a bit early to attend my brother’s wedding in Pittsburgh and then come straight back to Colombia for another full month. Naturally, that means I am writing this blog post from an airplane, nothing quite like it to free up my mind.
The past few weeks have been a blur! I spent a full three days celebrating my 27th birthday, went straight to San José del Guaviare for a long weekend and then spent only nine days in Villavicencio before leaving my house again, this time for the USA. #wickerwedding, here I come!
Back to work
After Semana Santa came to an end and my father and uncle flew back to their respective homes in Nebraska and Alberta, it was back to work for me! Two jobs, actually. I took on a casual part-time job helping a neighbor with some data entry and customer database work, in addition to teaching at UCompensar during my regular afternoon and evening schedule. This part-time job is a 30-second walk from my front door and includes many benefits such as getting to pet the fluffy German Shepherd and Shih Tzu dogs that live there.
I also had quite a bit of “resetting” and straightening up to do in my house after many days of traveling and hosting guests, so this week was mainly filled with work and housework. I also wanted to prepare well to be able to relax and enjoy my “precumple” weekend and birthday the following Monday. This preparation included getting my finger and toenails freshly done, of course.
Turning twenty-seven
Saturday, April 26
I started the day with a CrossFit workout, then headed out for a delicious lechona breakfast with my good friend’s older brother who I also enlisted to help me purchase a motorcycle helmet. Now I have no excuse when my friends invite me to ride on the back of their motos. Brownie Express with Aliya + Morgan for the grand reopening! That night, I headed out to Tejo Gomelo with a group of friends, planning to dance and play tejo and bolirana. Partly through the bolirana game, heavy rains caused the power to go out and never return, so our evening was ‘cut short’ and we headed home around 1:30 am.
Sunday, April 27
Good thing I went home ‘early’ the previous night, because I found myself at the start of the Vereda El Carmen by 6:30 am on Sunday morning. I’d invited approximately15 or 20 people (a mix of CrossFit, Fulbright, and hiking friends) to hike up with me as an early birthday celebration, and eight or nine people showed up! We had a wonderful time. I was forced, or perhaps encouraged, to complete 27 jump squats, 27 push-ups and 27 burpees at the escuela. Worth it, though, as I was then invited me to breakfast afterwards and treated to fruit-topped birthday pancakes to celebrate! I am loved!
Unfortunately, se nos hizo tarde and I missed the 11:00 church service by a long shot. After a quick shower at home, it was back out to Viva for lunch at Crepes & Waffles by invitation of two dear friends, Lorena and Iván. I finished out the evening at the “Fulbrighter house” watching Los niños perdidos with Aliya and Morgan. No better way to spend a Sunday evening and prepare for our upcoming trip to San José.
Monday, April 28
The actual day of my birthday! By now, I had been so celebrated that I was just grateful to have a slow morning to rest. My birthday also marked the start of Burger Master 2025 in Villavicencio, so naturally I took myself to the mall for lunch and tried the La Coqueta burger at Hamburguesas del Fuego. This choice was also, of course, a tactic to say hello as well to local influencer and soon-to-be friend @nielpresidente (update: it worked).
I headed to work, as usual, around 3:00 pm. My regular InDrive driver gave me the ride free, in exchange for a sprinkle cookie, and I entered the office to find my coworkers finishing the final touches of a beautiful birthday display and the most beautifully decorated cake I have seen so far in Colombia! To be loved is to be known. I am loved, indeed! We had a sweet little party with my coworkers before I headed to conversation club! My students kindly brought a variety of treats and snacks to share and gift me, and we chatted about birthdays while munching on cookies and chips. At 7:00 pm I participated in my online church class, Escuela de Madurez, and received another round of deseos de feliz cumpleaños after forgetting to take off my Happy Birthday crown before joining the Zoom call. After work, I headed to Food Truck Park with a couple other friends and tried yet another Burger Master candidate (this time from Burger Pop). A late-night Facetime call with the family, and it was time for rest. What a wonderful birthday!
Celebrating Edward!
Of course, since we had not celebrated fellow Fulbrighter Edward’s birthday together yet desde que él había cumplido otro año el 17 de abril, another La Coqueta hamburger and tres leches cake were in order! This time I wasn’t too shy to ask el Presi for a photo.
San José del Guaviare, Guaviare
After all that birthday celebrating, I needed a few days to recover, reset, … and repack my bags before setting off on the next adventure! Because I hardly traveled at all from August to December last year, this semester has felt like one excursion after the next. Thursday, May 1st is a national holiday in Colombia, Día del Labor or “Labor Day,” so fellow Fulbrighter and trusty travel companion Morgan and I set off on our second weekend trip together. Seriously, we make a dream team. She’s in charge of bus tickets and hotels since she achieved Level 4 status on Booking.com and can make free cancelable reservations, and I planned our daily activities via approximately 345 Whatsapp messages back-and-forth with a local tour guide.
San José del Guaviare is a place I’d been wanting to visit for months and one that I’d just seen featured in a documentary (Los niños perdidos on Netflix!). The town and its surrounding area have a complex and difficult history with FARC guerrilla groups and coca/cocaine production, and the area only opened for outside tourism in the last five or ten years. Ask anyone from the Villavicencio area whether or not it’s safe to travel to San José, and I’d say at least 50% or 60% say “no,” but enough local people + our friend Aliya and her boyfriend said “yes” that we decided to go for it, using caution and local tour guides, of course.
Morgan and I got on a small bus at 9:00 am Thursday. Surprisingly, it left right on time. Unsurprisingly, it got a flat tire only 1 hour outside of Villavicencio. Surprisingly, we were back on the road within 30 minutes. I guess bus drivers must get quite a bit of practice or at least good training, because he pulled over immediately. Within two minutes, the white dress shirt was off and he’d donned the “laying on the pavement to change a tire” T-shirt he must keep in the glove compartment. Someone even pulled an empty red Coca-Cola crate from the back of the bus to serve as our safety cone. The whole ordeal made me smile a bit, just thinking about the version of me who arrived in August 2024 who would’ve been quite stressed about having to stand on the side of a highway in rural Colombia for thirty minutes; thankfully, the May 2025 version of me was fairly unbothered. All part of the plot.
Unfortunately, the aforementioned “plot” also involved no air conditioning and baking under the llano sun until 3:00 pm when we finally left the Meta department, crossed the Guaviare river and pulled into San José. The rest of Thursday was mostly checking into our hotel and then walking around town to get fresh pineapple, bottled water, and eat said piña by the river at sunset. Since we arrived on a federal holiday, many people were out and about with their families. I absolutely loved the feel of the town, much calmer and safer than Villavicencio with wide streets and everyone on motorcycles.
San José also seems to be far more culturally diverse than Villavicencio; I saw quite a few Black and indigenous Colombians, and we also met a few people at lunch one day who live in San José but are originally from Quibdó and other places on the Pacific Coast. If San José weren’t located six hours from Villavicencio, which is four hours from Bogotá, which is then a full day of travel from my family home, it´s safe to say that I might already have moved there and purchased my own motorcycle. For now, a “Harley Davidsom” T-shirt from downtown Villavicencio and a sparkly blue-and-purple motorcycle helmet will have to suffice.
New department unlocked—el Guaviare! The Guaviare department is one of several in Colombia grouped under the Amazonías region. Even though I do hope to one day travel further into the Amazon rainforest and see the actual Amazon river, I can now officially say I have been to the Amazon. Check that off the bucket list.
Raudal del Guayabero
Friday was a rainy day, but even a solid downpour couldn’t deter us from taking a taxi to nearby Puerto Arturo and getting on a long narrow motorboat to take a tour of Raudal del Guayabero, a little community located about an hour’s boat ride upstream from where the Guayabero and Ariari rivers join to form the Guaviare river. I kept a keen eye out for any pink river dolphins, but the water level is sadly too high during rainy season for them to be easily seen. Next time! The man driving the boat stopped once at a small farm to pick up a huge bunch of plantains, which he later sold to another man when we arrived at Raudal. Once off the boat, we were given a brief overview of the area and then began a hike up into the jungle with another tour guide.
Our main goal for the day? See with our own eyes the pinturas rupestres or indigenous paintings this area is known for, rain or shine. This day did not disappoint! Since we were the first people up on the trail that day and in a small group of just three, we even glimpsed a whole group of wild monkeys eating in the trees near us when we reached the rocky lookout point. If it hadn’t been raining and thus foggy and cloudy, we would have been able to see miles and miles out in the Meta department. Nonetheless, the view was stunning! I almost felt like we were on another planet.
A hot lunch of fried dorado fish, rice and plantains was waiting for us back by the river, as was a group of very curious school-age children who were particularly enthralled by Morgan’s blonde hair and the fact that we were from the USA. They hung around us and even showed us the view from the top patio of a nearby building with an amazing view of the river, and then it was time to go back to San José. Still no pink dolphins to be seen, but we did make another stop to pick up two huge catfish from a different family home along the river. Later, when we casually mentioned this to the guide coordinating all of our travel, he wasn’t thrilled about our boat driver making personal stops during a tourist excursion—but for us, those stops were part of the adventure!
Los Túneles
On Saturday, we set off again, this time by land, taking a tiny yellow taxi about 8 miles down a winding, muddy, pothole-riddled dirt road to start our hike to los Túneles. We set off with an amazing tour guide, Andrés, towards these natural rock “tunnels” made up of eroded layers of rock and a series of caves. Besides all of the wild bats that we got to see flying right above our heads, the coolest part was more pinturas rupestres, these ones mainly without barriers and some that our tour guide hadn’t even seen yet. Under nearly every shelf of rock protected from the rain and sun, we could see red figures and designs along the rock surface. We also made two stops to swim in waterfalls and explore several natural pools. We finished the hike and ate lunch at another local restaurant, this time mojarra frita with rice and plantains.
Once back in San José, we got ice cream at Amazónico and tried several Amazonian fruit flavors I had never even heard of before! Then, all too soon, it was time to shower, pack up and make our way to the bus terminal. The 5:00 pm bus had air conditioning and only took us five hours instead of six, and our forty-eight-hour whirlwind trip to San José was done!
Gallito de Roca, Restrepo, Meta
After arriving at home around 11:00 pm, it just felt right to wake up at 5:00 am this next morning to go on a hiking excursion to the Gallito de Roca (“rock chicken”) waterfall in nearby Restrepo. The party never stops if you don’t, and my shoes were already dirty from hiking in San José. This group plan was my 5th with my friend & local influencer & entrepreneur Thanya, and no less than four of my friends from previous plans were along on the hike. To get to the waterfall, we had to hike about an hour and a half, in some parts down muddy steep trails. Once there, we went swimming in the cold water, and some of us scaled a fairly small waterfall with the help of our tour guide and rock climbing expert Oscar.
Thanks to rainy season, however, the waterfall wasn’t huge but had an incredibly strong current, so climbing up was a difficult endeavour. I managed to make it up, mostly to keep up my reputation as “willing to try anything,” by pulling a rope and being coached by Oscar. Getting down safely was significantly harder. I slipped a bit on the final descent and ended up with a wicked bruise on my elbow and knee, but it’s not an adventure if you don’t come back with a scratch or two. We finished the hike around 1:00 pm, and I managed to catch a ride back to Villavicencio with a couple new friends (but not before stopping for fresh pan de arroz and Coca-Cola in Restrepo).
Side note: naturally, I went straight from this hike (after a shower) to Parque Las Malocas for a monster truck exhibition with a friend’s son and her brother. Turned out to be nothing like the epic show that the tiny Texas town of Riesel had to offer back in 2022, but we had a good time nonetheless. I even took the Villavicencio urban bus for the first time after the event!
A night out on the town
Checked another Colombian bucket list item off the list when I went out to karaoke and dancing with a group of friends on Friday, May 9. Typically Colombians go out the latest and party the hardest on Saturday evenings, when they can rest all day Sunday, but we were able to rally a group of ten or twelve people to go out on a Friday. Almost all of these friends met through group hikes, so we had never done any singing or dancing together. One thing I love about Colombia is that almost everyone knows how to dance at least salsa, bachata and merengue (not the case in the general U.S. population!). I sang a few karaoke songs—“Colgando en tus manos” and “Mi primer millón” are my go-to songs lately, I especially love dragging out the “cuando estuvimos porrrrr Venezuela” line!
The DJ started to play different songs. The dancing began! Since our group had five men and five women, we kept rotating dance partners and I got to practice quite a few different steps. Salsa, bachata, merengue, vallenato, and some reggaetón, too. All of my recent dance classes have certainly helped me to grow more confident and less self-conscious about dancing, but I have rarely danced with a partner. Thankfully, my friends are very patient. We sang and danced from 10:00 pm to almost 1:00 am, then we headed to La Grama. This area of Villavicencio is known for its night clubs and restaurants. Two friends and I went to get a quick snack (chorizo and arepas) before rejoining the group around 2:00 am. From 2:00 to 3:30 am, we danced, danced, and danced some more. This club had a live band that played some Mexican music. I tried to remember my best norteña steps, not that successfully.
One thing about Colombians is their love for el perreo. Cómo explico eso, sabiendo que mis abuelos van a leer esta publicación. Let’s just say that one male friend tested the waters by trying to grind on me … within seconds, I shut him down and forceably pushed him away. The other four men just ‘read the room’ and were far more respectful, so the rest of the night was uneventful. We finally headed home around 3:45 am.
All in all, I had a wonderful night of dancing and practicing & learning new steps! Many of these friends are quite dear to me, and I loved the chance to spend more time with them in a context other than muddy early morning hiking and cold waterfalls.
Pittsburgh for the weekend
Alternatively, Episode 2 of “Trying to explain to my Colombian friends that I am leaving the country for a week but not permanently (yet)“
I am finishing this blog post from an airplane between Miami and Bogotá, after taking four days off of work to attend my brother’s wedding in Pittsburgh. The end of the semester and final exams are drawing near for my UCompensar students, which means my trip was somewhat confusing for a few friends who thought I was leaving for good already! I received quite a few “¿Ya te fuiste?” messages last week and had to clarify that I will, indeed, come back and say a proper goodbye over the next month. Only God knows exactly what the second half of 2025 holds for me, but it is looking like a toss-up between working at a university in Villavicencio, moving back to central Texas, or maaaaaybe possibly applying for a job in northern Alberta.
Of course, an international trip only ten days from the semester’s end is not the most convenient timing—but I am so grateful that my work was flexible enough to allow me to attend not only the wedding but also the bachelorette party two days prior. Thomas & Cianna got married on Sunday, May 18, surrounded by their families and friends on a beautiful rural Pennsylvania farm, and it was quite the joyful celebration! Praise the LORD for His faithfulness in bringing my brother and my new sister-in-law together! They are a gift to our family!
Emily Explores 
Leave a comment