Imagenes de la tierra querida

Sometimes images say more than a thousand words... as I've beeen a lousy blogger recently (of course due to a huge workload here), I decided to post some pictures taken here! enjoy! btw, they are not in a special order just some pics I kind of liked, chronologically taken out of the cam...

This first one shows some of my family in Bogota, all of them cousins! I hadn't seen them in a while, when this nice groupshot was taken... good to see them.

On the next one: Let me introduce you to a special friend: "Aguardiente" or "guaro" as they say here... light&tasty, made of sugar-canes from Colombia's beautiful valleys and anis from it's numerous mountains... fits to every occasion and can be drunk everywhere together with your "parceros" or "concañeros" (in the background).

Pic from a house party in Suba, Bogota... house party means spontaneous jam-sessions with everyone there singing (and actually quite good, apart from the gringo)! It also means drinking lots of ...water...hehe. The musician you see is: Andres, co-worker at CCIT.

Another of Bogota's sides: view at an "invasion" (slum) in the northern part of Bogota. Almost 2(!) mio people of Bogota live in such informal housing, say unofficial estimates.

My cousin Luis on visit and his lovely daughter Gabriela.

The compulsory "siesta" in the "hamaca" after a delicious and vast saturday-afternoon-bbq, performed by my uncle John.

Picture of the aforementioned bbq on the terrace of my aunt Margarita's (bottom left corner). Also on it: aunt Ilse and uncle Raffael, as well as my cousin Sean.

Where I go to work: CCIT "Camara Colombiana de Informatica y Telecomunicaciones", posing with me are Gloria and Camilo.

"Picadita" on our way to Girardot, a town 3 hours south of Bogota on "tierra caliente" (warm land... but it's actually HOT), featuring: costillas, morzilla, chorizo and yuca.

My cute cousin Lina "linis" on a golf cart, that is used as a hotel taxi in Girardot.

"Campin cinco": 5 on 5 football-action in the middle of Bogota on 2500m over sea-level! And it's taking place every Wednesday... a lot of fun! I don't have to worry about eating too much!

The other "Swiss" guy on the team: Enzo, from Bündnerland, living in Bogota for roughly 1.5 years.

For the march-"puente" (that means a long weekend, as the festives in Colombia are always shifted to a Monday!), I went to Villetta, also on "tierra caliente" but this time north of Bogota. Nice weather, nice people, nice food!

...went there with my aunt and uncle Raffa and Ilse and their cousins... very peaceful and a lot of siesta!

This one picture means action again: "Tejo" a very typical (because it's not played anywhere else in the world) game in Bogota and region... difficult to explain, but there's stuff exploding and you can throw things, so it's a lot of fun...

... that iron ring in the dirt is the target, and the pink "mechas" are the things exploding when you hit them...


... and the rent for the "cancha", the court, is payed by consuming beer! When you're done, they throw you out.

Welcome to Colombia's roads... trip to Santander in "Semana Santa" (easter holidays)!

On that trip to San Gil, we did a lot of fun stuff and it was quite adventureous! I went there with my awesome cousin Diana (on the pic) &  lovely friends ... "que chimba"!

We took LOTs of pictures there in San Gil and other places... and they are all on Facebook, where they can be easily checked out if you like... because next post I will write some of the adventures down, I promise... really, this pic-uploading is almost more time-consuming than writing!

... AH, and  last but not least, check this out: