Anne-Sophie follows the sun: Colombia and its little towns

Time to make some funny generalizations! Considering the size of this country is 37 times the size of Belgium, let's assume that everything I write applies to the coast region.

The weirdest thing I ate so far: a chicken leg! (in San Alberto)

^Food is very important, which makes me feel home even more! Breakfast can be very different but mostly heavy. I tried arepa (corn pancake) with cheese and scrumbled eggs; fried arepa with an egg in it, hallaca (cornmeal dough with beef, pork,...), caldo de pescado (a broth),... You can imagine that the few times I tried to make my breakfast (oats with dried and fresh fruits) people looked weird at me. Lunch is even better and bigger and forces you to take a siesta afterwards (in combination with the 40 degrees climate). Moreover if people know you didn't have lunch yet, they will offer you, it is very sacred. For dinner you don't eat that much, depends on the family. To conclude, luckily I'm a very flexible person and I eat everything.

^When I don't understand something because of the language barrier, they will repeat every word but just louder! It occured me once that some stranger thought I was deaf as my friends were shouting and talking in very short sentences to me.

^ They speak and eat fast! By the time I finished my soup, they already ate their whole lunch. People from the coast are known to speak very fast, the more south the slower they speak. Lucky me!

Regular street in Taganga

^ According to them, garbage belongs on the street either in a bags either you just throw it there, as long as it is not on their front porch. This way they can put their rocking chair on the porch and observe everyone going by.
Streets don't have sidewalks. You either walk on the street with the risk of stepping onto garbage or on the front porches with the risk of falling as every private porch is different in height.

Me and Gladys saying hi to everyone passing by - Pailitas

I've learned how to manage a motorbike!

^ An average household has a television, a pair of speakers and a motorcycle (to transport those objects). The bigger the television screen and speakers, the better. The speakers are daily used to make sure that everyone can enjoy your music taste and in case it isn't loud enough (because you might get deaf) you just put them outside on your porch. Motorbikes can transport anything, in fact you would be surprised how many people would fit on 1 motorbike!
Btw don't expect a warm shower in the coast households, very shocking fact in the beginning!

Maybe a 4th person?

^ Parents love to introduce me to their children, especially when they are my age and when they speak English. As if they are selling one of their sons to me. Or even better, when the sons are not around, they just call them and pass the phone to me. I had already several awkward phone calls!

Travelling by bike allows me to stop in the little towns, which is the most interesting part. I always end up talking with locals who are trying to convince me to stay a little bit longer. Well, after biking almost 400km I finally made a longer stop in Pailitas. This little town has a surface of 512,5 km2 with only 20.000 inhabitants. Comparable to a little town in Belgium, Zele, with similar amount of inhabitants, only significant smaller!
Don't expect any culture or history, just mingle with the local people and you'll have fun. Ask for Gladys and Lalo, they are the most hospitable people and very proud of their little town!

Enjoy.