Taganga, Magdalena, Columbia

Great shot, onward and upward!

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Leticia, Columbia

To tell the truth I had no idea what to expect when landing in Leticia, the southeastern most city of Colombia that borders Brazil on land and Peru just across the river. The town survives on border crossings and eco tourism, with several companies selling day trips to ‘Monkey Island’ and other similar adventures. Many of the so called ‘ecotours’ that I have read about in South America are anything but eco-friendly; allowing tourists to feed wild animals, handle them, and occasionally the tour group will release exotic animals into the area shortly before the tour arrives. I want to say that this is the main reason that we have not taken a tour, but we have held out primarily because our budget does not allow for many guided tours and we are trying to save up for Bolivia and Brazil.
Nina and I spent 4 nights in Leticia, longer than expected, and I would say it was at times relaxing, others times exciting. In general I found our introduction to the Amazon to be eye-opening. People seem to do strange things in the jungle, especially in border towns.
We enjoyed the sights and sounds of many beautiful birds, lakes filled with fish and turtles (Ninas favorite) and, most notably, one very large spider, which had made its way into our mosquito net, our sole layer of protection as we spent 2 nights in hammocks sleeping in the jungle. We had found a nice Spanish man on couchsurfing.org who allowed us to string up our hammocks under a roof 11km outside of Leticia, but after two sleepless nights and no accessible food, power, or reliable water on the property, we left the jungle property and decided to spring the money for a nice hostel inside the Amazonian city. Below is a picture of Nina with some young girls we encountered, outside their home by the creek in Leticia.

And that is the power of children, happy despite poverty, a lesson for us all.

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Columbia, Maryland

Ann writes, “Once a year, for the past several years, the gang of Love Life Images does a project called Day In The Life.  It’s the one day a year that we turn the cameras from our clients to ourselves.  It’s a candid, unscripted look into our own lives, through our own eyes.  Sometimes we plan our days based on the fact that DITL is coming: “Oh, I should do that for Day In The Life,” you’ll hear someone say every now and then.  But even when we plan to do specific things because of their potential visual appeal, (I actually tried to schedule a dentist appointment on this year’s DITL, but it didn’t work out…), our days don’t go quite as planned.

What a perfect analogy for life this is.  Sometimes you’ve just gotta roll with the punches.  Or down a hill, as I did.”

Ouch!  Nice one!

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Guatape, Antioquia, Columbia

Looks like there is a nice breeze happening.

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