Niagra Falls - 23 hours lay over in Toronto

A crazy trip home to spend Christmas ended up being a great opportunity to visit some friends in Toronto and explore parts of the Toronto area.

My plane was delayed from Bogotá,17 hours because one of the breaks on the plane did not work. Better to be safe than sorry ;) This also ment that I had a 23 hour wait in Toronto to catch the next plane home to Copenhagen. Luckily my friends Caleb and Glynis could pick me up at the airport, I stayed at their house over night and Caleb took the day off from work and drove me around to show me some of the sights.

A picture of us all before Glynis had to go to work

First stop on our tour was Niagra Falls. It was beautiful!! Cold wind and there was a bit of snow left even though it had been raining some days before:

Panorama of the falls

Thankfully Caleb and Glynis could lend me this very warm jacket, it was pretty cold!

Smileeeeee

Part of Niagra falls is also all the casinos and entertainment stuff, I was amazed that this apparently also was a big part of the attraction:

I am not really sure what happened here?

We even had time to go to the butterfly conservatory. They had some beautiful butterflies, and it was a lot of fun to try and catch some pictures of them:

The biggest butterfly species in the world (lives in Indonesia), it is much bigger than a hand... and it only lives for 3 days... We felt very lucky to have seen it. 

I had a great time in Toronto, and the very long wait ended up being a great time.. I am very happy that I got to spend some time with Caleb and Glynis, and I hope our paths will cross again some time soon. 

Now, Christmas hygge with my family for 2 weeks before I go back to the project in Colombia :)

Merry Christmas and a happy new year to all of you out there :D 

Tenerife - Beautiful village in Colombia

A friend of Ivonne's from the university, Laura, invited us to her familie's house on the countryside. Tenerife is more or less 2 hours away from Cali, in the middle of the mountains. Green, cold and beautiful. 

Laura's family has had land there for generations, and they cultivate spring onion, so you can imagine the permanent smell of onion everywhere, which is part of the charm. The soil is very fertil, so you can practically have everything grow there. The spring onion though, is something that Colombians use a lot in their cousine, and therefore it is known as "the green gold".

We went hiking in the area and it was breathtaking in several ways. First of all it was extremely beautiful and calm, but it is also 2600 meters above sea level, so you could definately feel less oxygen in the air.   

Me, Paul (Laura's husband) and Ivonne exploring the area

Spring onion everywhere

Country and city, it was not raining, but it is very normal in the city to use the umbrella to protect yourself from the sun. Laura prefered a hat.

Palma de cera, Colombia's national tree

Laura and Ivonne

Laura and Diego back memory lane looking at pictures from their time studying at the university

3 rock stars: Diego, Ivonne and Laura

Jeep with spring onion

Photo session at the river

Goodbye Tenerife, it was amazing it has been an amazing weekend!

Salento - Valle de Cocora

Camilla, a friend from home came to visit me, and we have had a blast. She even went to the school with me one day and participated in the workshop.

It was her first time in Colombia, so I got to show her what it is all about. We spent some days in Bogotá, Cali, Popayán and ended everything in Salento in the coffee area. It was amazing!

Salento is a small village with several thing to do. One of the main attractions there is Valle de Cocora. We went there om Thursday, and it was beyond amazing! We hiked up up up for and hour, and then the most beautiful view  of the whole valley. It was tough, but definately worth it:

Starting the hike

Hillarious guy, who just wanted us to take a picture of him

On the top

On the top of the world

Continue exploring

We did it

Palmas de Cera, Colombias national tree

They are enormous

We were quite exhausted after a 5 hours hiking and exploring in Valle de Cocora, so it was time for a coffee when we came back:

The girl who never drinks coffee had an enormous one :p

The houses next to our hostel

Mirador in Salento

We should all be feminist !!

The main street in Salento

The last day we went to learn some more about coffee in one of the local coffee farms, Las Acacias:

Coffee

The nice guys who all worked at the farm, including our guide

We met Caleb and Clynis there, a lovely couple from Canada. We had a great time with them, both at the farm, but also later in the evening back in Salento. Hope to see them soon again.

This lovely lady is off to Cartagena and her last week in Colombia. It was the best to have her visit, get to know my life and work here. Hope you will come visit again at some point, Camilla!