No Coca-cola trucks or snow here but we do have lots of lights and Christmas trees/music around, but it is very hard to feel Christmassy in 30c heat! but we are trying to get into the spirit with the decorations going up yesterday, nativity rehearsals in full swing and plans for our party and trip coming together. But all of this shows that it has been soo long since I last wrote my blog, and a lot has happened during that time.
Firstly, the "Stars in their eyes" show was great, I ended up being a judge which was so much fun, especially since as it was the English students I could speak English so my quips were a lot better than they would have been in Spanish! In the end an 11 year old kid from a local school won with a song and dance by some Colombian artist I have never heard of, but he certainly put in a lot of effort in the costume and choreography. Second place went to Amy Winehouse.
Then the week of "fiestas" happened, unleashing chaos throughout the city, so as last year I took our German gap year student and escaped along the coast to Santa Marta. This years gap year student Julia wanted to visit Tayrona National park, so off we went, now the last time I was there was with my mum and sis so we did the "glamping" thing - stayed in a 4* indigenous style cabin with all mod cons! however, this time we were on a budget so it was a case of walking through the hot and humid jungle for 3 hours up mountains and along beaches, at one point actually having to wade across a river and another walking shin deep in mud, to get to a campsite where we reserved a hammock each for the night! Now don't get me wrong, the park is an international area of outstanding natural beauty and is just that, beautiful - paradise really, but paradise is great to look at on postcards, but when you are in it it is hot sweaty and full of bugs that vary from annoying itchy bites to downright deadly!! and hammocks are lovely and relaxing to lounge in during the day but not so comfortable to sleep in, especially when your neighbours include a loudly snoring English man who is drunk on rum, and a screaming 2 year old who's parents seem to be very deep sleepers! Thankfully I had downloaded James Corden's autobiography on audiobook so spent most of the night listening to that! 
Not wanting to walk all the way back the next day we decided to walk the first hour to another campsite where we then took a horse the rest of the way, thinking it would be a nice gentle ride back to civilisation, how wrong can one be?!!! It was a different route for the horses, but still involved going up and down narrow mountain paths, by narrow I mean about a foot wide at floor level with rocks either side sloping away so the horse had to walk with one hoof in front of the other! and our legs scraping the rocks in the stirrups. while climbing at more than a 45 degree angle, then coming down the other side at what seemed even steeper slope! all the while the horses up to their knees in mud! this however didn't stop them wanting to run in places!! (naturally there were no helmets or any other safety equipment for us!) It was good fun though! On our return it was back to work at full speed until christmas, will blog in a few days (or weeks oops) with all of our christmas exploits :D Until then, have a great Advent
Blessings
Petra
PS prayer request - mum has sent my christmas presents (not anything too expensive but still, things to unwrap at christmas) but they havent arrived yet - please pray they do arrive and dont go AWOL like many packages do
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