Rural Colombia with the Cousins

While on vacation in Colombia we would normally head out to Villa de Leyva. This year we decided it was "a bit too much" given that we were graciously invited to the finca (out-of-town home) of Ivan's family. You might remember that Ivan is married to Caro who, in addition to being the sister of Andres and Adri, is also the cousin of Natalia.  As it turned out Ivan and Caro led the expedition, with Natalia and the girls in tow, while Laurence jumped into the car with Andrés, his wife Marianelly and their two lovely daughters Camila and Mariana. The idea was to spend 'down time' in Los Llanos, southeast of Bogotá just over the Andes mountains. Three and a bit hours away, just beyond Villavicencio we found the finca waiting for us, along with Tommy and Simba, the dogs. 

We spent three wonderful days there, far away from everything and practically living in the pool. Irini and Mariana had the following routine:  Wake up, go to the pool, have breakfast, go to the pool, have lunch, take a nap, wake up, go to the pool, have dinner, play, sleep. For three days they were happily engaged in each other and the rest of the gang. Ivan and Caro served up some wonderful grilled meet and potatos and pretty much everything one could think of as we all gobbled it up as fast as we could. There was some bantering about Caro being a bad aunt because she wanted to feed our daughters chips and cookies too much. There was a trip down the highway to visit the local ice cream shop. There was a good deal of chatting and laughter. All in all it was a fantastic weekend. Largely quiet with lots of 'down time' it was a great change from the city bustle. More importantly, it was a great way for Irini and Amalia to be exposed to Spanish, to their extended family and to farm life. Daily visits to the horses, the chickens and rooster, watching the birds (of which there was quite a colorful variety), checking out the toads and chatting with the parakeets (one of which said "quiere cacao?" all the time). 

What a great way to end our Colombia visit!  To make things even better, our return to Bogotá coincided with an offer to Javi for a new job in Barranquilla in a prestigious school there. He and Carolina are hoping this is only the first step to a new international career for them as well. We are crossing fingers for them and wishing them the best. :-)