Things to Be Thankful for...

Happy Thanksgiving to All!! (a week late).
We celebrated Thanksgiving by moving on from our beloved Cartagena to Santa Marta, another Coastal Caribbean city. We spend the majority of the day (after the 2hr bus ride) searching for a fitting Thanksgiving dinner. The best we could do was a pretty sub-par Chinese restaurant. It was a bit sad.
So, we decided not to linger any longer on the coast, and took a 20hr. bus trip to Bogota- the capitol of Colombia. We've been here in Bogota for 6 days now. We've really been surprised with Colombian cities. It's another beautiful colonial town, mixed with highrise office buildings, and huge cathedrals. Everything is cobblestone and brick with a very close-in European feel. It's very stlyish with great cozy coffee shops on every street. That's probably the real reason we've been hanging out here so long. We're just so thankful to have good coffee at such easy access!
We've spent three days in Museums... today at the Museo de Oro (Gold Museum), and two days at the free art museum. The art museum is mostly dedicated to Colombia's most famous painter, Botero, but it also had a few paintings by Picasso, Monet and Renoir...along with a lot of modern and colonial art.
Oh, and one other thing about the city...Bogota is built right up against the Eastern Cordillera of the Andes that runs through Colombia. It's on a really high plateau...higher than Denver...and I mean right up against the mountains. It makes Lookout Mountain in Golden look silly. So, yesterday we took a cable car up to a cathedral that is on top of one of the first mountains overlooking the city. It was probably 1500ft almost straight up out of the city. You can see the city directly below, and then spreading out in all directions across the plateau...to the Central Cordillera mountains in the background. We stayed there for sunset, and came down the cable car to the lights of the city at night.
So, that was nice.
And really, now that we've been in this country for almost two weeks, I feel obligated to defend it's reputation. There is a very well established tourist track here in Colombia. It's very safe, and we've met so many other people here who are doing the same thing we are. Most travellers here are on long term trips, a year or more...staying mostly in Backpacker hostels. It is such a beautiful country, the people are very open and friendly, and the cities are fascinating. I can tell that it is quickly becoming a big tourist destination...as it should be. The strange thing is that Colombia has been so shunned by Americans that locals never guess that we're American...usually English, German, or Swiss (for me, Annie). Whereas in Costa Rica or Panama, it was just assumed we were from the U.S.
Anyways, today we ran into another couple that was on the boat with us from Panama. We also met them previously in Panama City. Their names are Marco and Anna... Italians who live in Germany. They are taking a night bus tonight to San Augustin, and we're going to try to get on the bus with them.
So, that's the latest update! We love you all and hope you had a very Happy Thanksgiving!