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Another Trip to Colombia

Its a new year and I am back in Colombia. Currently in Guaduas or Monday, but may go to Bogota tomorrow depending on when my spouse wants to go.

We left Fort Lauderdale, Florida on this trip and had about the same 3 to 4 hour flight to Bogota on Avianca and arrived earlier in the day than the last trip and had over one hour driving in the city looking for our ride to Guaduas. We arrived at our hotel two and one half hours after finding our ride to the hotel. It was a rather invigorating trip, traffic being somewhat heavy. Guaduas and the hotel are much as I remember them, quiet and comfortable.

Much of my time is spent on the computer and I am happy with the working wifi at the hotel. I am able to keep up with my email and general news and events. It is nice not being exposed to the chaos and hyper news cycle from the states unless I want to dip my toe in, a welcome respite.

A project I started in December and January I continued this trip. Thinking about solar retrofit at the hotel. It is a traditional colonial style building with a few rooms. They are surrounding a courtyard with one roof facing west and one more in each of the other three directions. The roof is a typical tile roof and all in all looks very picturesque. In some ways the building looks like it could have come from the Zorro television set.

A solar retrofit would entail putting solar panes on the south and west facing roof and the primary benefit in Colombia would be reduction of electric bills and maybe more consistent power. Electricity is generally good, but there are intermittent power outages that are usually of a short duration, but may last for several hours.

Unlike the states, Colombia generates most of its power from renewable sources, principally water. The residual power comes from diesel generators. Here about 65% of the power is water generated. It is refreshing being in a place that  uses what is naturally available in the environment to that degree. Well, lunch is being served and I am beginning to get hungry, so bye for now.

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A Closer Look at Guaduas

The next day began with more time spent in the hotel consuming some local fruit for breakfast and a cup of excellent Colombian coffee, the nectar of the gods.

View (above) nearby the hotel on a street in Guaduas. It must be early as there is little foot or vehicular traffic.


 A scene from the patio inside the center parking area at the hotel. It is tastefully decorated with hammocks surrounding the center of the hotel, an open air atrium, pleasant during most of the day and cool in the morning, but a very nice place for coffee and pastries.


A further view from inside the atrium of the hotel. While there is another tree of a similar size, this is an ever green cedar or conifer providing a splash of green and a bit of shade for our enjoyment. Well that concludes this short post and perhaps the blog will be more animated with  pictures and video in the future.










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A Quick Trip Exploring Guaduas

Stepping out of Hotel San Cristobol, puts you right on the sidewalk and very near the street wit cars driving by. The hotel is in an old Spanish colonial house between two and three blocks from the central plaza. Small shops, another hotel and a bakery are on the way to the plaza. The streets are cement and smooth as is the sidewalk. The weather is pleasant, a bit cool in the shade and decidedly warmer in the sun.

The five minute walk to the plaza gives one an opportunity to take in the sights, sound, and smells in Guaduas. Near the bakery the aroma is of cooking pastries tempting one to indulge with excellent Colombian coffee.

We would like a more substantial breakfast of eggs and some breakfast meat. So we walked to a restaurant about six blocks away and joined a table of about six people and had a meal of eggs, soup, rice, and arepas, a flat corn flour bread. Along with the meal we had that excellent coffee and delicious fruit juice, either mango or orange.

After breakfast, we pro…
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This the first content post about traveling in Colombia. The airplane ride to Bogota was rather uneventful trip on December 27, 2018. It was a reasonably pleasant use of slightly in excess of three hours in Avianca's good hands.

El Dorado airport is a large building and very busy at all hours of the day and night. Our arrival at about 10 P.M. was no exception, but we navigated through immigration and customs without a hitch. We then started looking for my wife's friends, which took about 20 or 30 minutes. Upon finding them we all commenced the trek to the parking lot to find the car. After finding the car our friend, the driver, began a 20 minute process of finding a way out of the parking lot and joining the traffic of a bustling city of about 14 million inhabitants. So we were out of the airport and were off to our eventual destination, Guaduas, Colombia, a much smaller city of about 30,000 inhabitants.

The trip to Guaduas from Bogota covers about 71 miles or about 122 kilom…
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