What happened to Colombia?

Cartagena map courtesy Google maps

Certainly for anyone that has ever followed my blog, you may very well have asked yourself the title of this blog: "What happened to Colombia?".  Or maybe, "What happened to Ryan?"

Well, on February 8th the three of us left for Cartagena, Colombia.  We spent three months there, and while I would like to blame my blogging inactivity on spotty internet, the blame lies with me.

Sure, for the first few weeks it was simply nice to unplug and kite as much as possible, but that is still no excuse for not following through with blog updates.  The fact is, living in Colombia was amazing and every day I was piling up new experiences like a hoarder piling up new possessions in his house, but like a hoarder, the more experiences I had the greater the "clean up job" was going to be...or in the case of this blog, the more things I had to write about the greater the anxiety about writing it all down grew.  And then the longer I went without writing, the more it seemed like a daunting task to catch back up.

Instead, I took the easy but less fulfilling route of posting a pic or two to Facebook periodically.

Last night I decided to do something about it.  So, much like cleaning up a really messy room, rather than be daunted by the whole room at once, I am simply going to pick a corner or a task and work my way free of it....

So.....Cartagena.....gorgeous city, wonderful people, amazing wind....truly a magical place.

For those that are kiteboarders or those that want to visit Colombia, we arrived February 9th.  Jet Blue flies direct, so if coming from the States, this is probably the most convenient and inexpensive way to get there.

And the wind, well...it definitely did not disappoint.  In fact, it blew for 87 straight days after my arrival.  10m most days, but a good handful of 7m days.  More about that later.

When we arrived, my buddy John, who would be our roommate for a little over one month, had located a apartment in El Laguito.  While the downside was that we had a decent sized hike to our kite spot every day, I will never forget the view we had.

The first night there we missed the sunset because we were out eating dinner at the time.  However, here are some pictures from the second night we were there.  We got to experience sunsets like this for three months straight.  Pretty Epic.  Almost on a nightly basis the four of us would gather on our deck, bathed in golden light, and watch the sun until it had dropped below the horizon.

So, my plan is to write a small bit again tomorrow.  Expect more sunset pictures as we go along as well...we took a few of them.  ;)