Pavement and Velodromes: A Day at Maribel

Carolina's grandfather named the estate "Maribel" after his sisters Maria and Isabel. It began as a farm, surrounded by many other farms, but now there are only factories and apartments surrounding the land.

Each day we begin by waking up and rolling out of our beds.

We then walk to the kitchen and ask Luz to make us breakfast.

Breakfast consists of arepas (thick tortilla-like pancakes made from corn, yucca, or other similar things) on which we put butter and fresh mozzerella, and eggs with tomatoes, onions, and seasonings. Accompanying this is hot chocolate!

Then we change and head out to the pool,

or to lounge in the hammocks for a bit.
Elisa:

Dasia:

Lesley:

There's also a huge yard for walking around in

and seeing the animals.

Then we eat lunch, and head out on some sort of afternoon adventure. Today, we took the metro

to the Botero museum

with its fat statues. "Gato":

Then we took the cable cars up the eastern mountains

where we saw the beautiful new library

and caught a great view of the mountainside. You can see the side of the cable car station on the far right, and just to the left of that you can see the cables (like a gondola at a ski resort!), and then the houses upon houses. Tia Viki told us that it used to be an even poorer part of the city. But when they built the cable car system, it really improved because it took people minutes, instead of hours, to get to jobs in the city. The houses began as stacks of cartons, then people started building walls, and then building on top. Not very safe. And now they finally even have electricity and plumbing.

Then it was time to head home with the little cousins, Martin and Susie,

spend some time reading on the veranda,

and have dinner. Tonight was a fresh salad, fresh watermelon, arepas of all kinds, a baked plantain-meat dish that was super-tasty, and lentil soup over rice. It got decimated by all 18 (yes EIGHTEEN) of us before I thought to take a photo.