Bogota

Today it is rainy and smoggy and muggy. We are getting on a bus in a few hours heading up to the coast and Cartagena! We are both so excited, for a few reasons. After this we will be on the coast of Colombia for over a month, longest bus ride being the one to Santa Marta which is 4 hours, which after all the looong distance buses we have been on will be a welcome change. To be in one place more than a week just sounds so awesome, we are both tired and ready for some sun and relaxation! And for freinds to arrive! In a little over a week we will have 7 (!) people coming to meet up with us in Santa Marta and Taganga to party it up for Shannon's birthday!! So looking forward to that! Actually, we are having quite a few visiters the second half of our trip. Will be awesome!
On a sour note, I had a scary experience last night. After getting food, Wyatt and I went to the grocery store to grab some beer and I decided I wanted a little sweet fix, so we got a brownie to share. It had almonds on it, but other than that the ingrediants sounded pretty tame. When we went to eat it I had the usual sensations I get from eating peanuts, ugh, and went to brush my teeth to try to prevent more of an allergy than I needed to by getting rid of any traces. That's when the regular uncomfortable itching in my mouth turned into a throbbing weird pain, and weird swelling sores started to appear on my tongue. This has never happened before in my life, so naturally I freaked out a little. Wyatt got me the Bennedryl, and I just had to wait it out. My tongue swelled up to about 3 times its normal size which along with being uncomfortable, made my speech difficult and very lispy. Wyatt also said my face swelled a little (pretty picture, huh?)The swelling went down a little in the next 2 or 3 hours I was awake, but then I passed out without much change. When I woke up this morning, thankfully, it was almost normal, but I was left with an uncomfortable question in my mind. Is the allergy I have had going on 30 years changing NOW and getting new symptoms? Or, am I allergic to something ELSE I don't know about? Either way, it was not listed on the ingrediants list and I have no way of knowing.
On the other hand, our time in Bogota has been pretty nice, we went up one of the hills on a cable car last night at sunset to watch the lights come on in the city. It was beautiful, and the city is huge and sprawling, and the veil of thick smog made it so none of my pictures really captured much while the sun was out. Oh well. It was still very nice and worthwhile, and the lights at night were lovely.
We also went to this crazy flea market on Sunday full of amazing amounts of old....stuff. Definatily some was crap, but there were some awesome things in the piles as well. It was also a nice change from the artisania that I was expecting.
We bought our plane tickets yesterday for the Central America leg at the end before we come home too, so most of our travel is mapped out and taken care of as well. It feels nice to have a loose plan, to have room to wiggle if we want to but have an idea of where we are headed. Not much else to report, just a good feeling about getting to our next destination, and entering the second phase of our trip. The 21st of September marks the half-way mark of our trip, which I can hardly believe!