we biked into medellin two days ago. medellin is a huge, crowded, polluted city of 2.2 million people. all the buildings seem to be made out of the same red-colored cinderblocks, stretching out up into the surrounding hillsides. so much pollution gets trapped down here in the valley. today peter and i tried walking into the center, and the pollution was so bad we both started feeling sick and ended up turning around and going back to our hostel. we met a belgium traveler who walked all the way to the center and said it was the most "shit city" he's seen in his whole life. he returned with burning eyes, a sore throught, and a headach.
yesterday peter and i went paragliding out above the city. it was pretty cheap, only $25 USD for about a half hour. at first i really liked it and it felt just like being a bird. we went way up into the clouds and floated above water falls and rural hillside huts, but near the end i started getting a little nausious, and then we plummeted back down to earth so quickly, i totally wanted to puke. all in all it was pretty cool though.
i'm really into colombian food. they have this thing called "bandeja", which involves a huge place of rice, sauted potatoes, salad, fried egg, beens, and i'm not totally sure what this thing is, but it's some kind of pork fat that is like the skin of the pig with some bacon like fatty thing on it (sounds gross, but tastes awesome), and then on top of all that, you get to pick what kind of meat you want to go with it. also, you might could get a bowl of steaming organ meat soup. the only bad thing about colombian food, is the arrepa. arrepa is made out of ground up white corn, and seems to be a close relation to the corn tortilla. when the arrepa is flattened out like a tortilla, it's pretty good, but most of the time it's in ball form (as in this photo), and it's not that awesome. basically it's a ball of raw corn masa that has been lightly grilled on the outside, but they serve it room temp. mmmm....
i am really enjoying biking through colombia. the other day we biked from sea level to 8,000' over about 35 miles. it was so, so awesome. probably one of my favorite days out of the whole trip. we went through all these crazy towns built up along the side of this mountain and just kept climbing higher and higher into the clouds. all along the highway were small houses and huts filled with the world's friendliest people. it was kind of insane because some of these families were living in huts made out of branches and black plastic trash bags.
the light in this photo isn't great, but you can sort of make out one of these garbage bag homes. it's totally crazy to compare my life in the united states to the way people lived along this highway.
when we got to the top of the mountain, peter and i stopped in this restaurant, and the family that worked there was super into us. the grandma kept coming over to us and asking me where i was from, and i'd tell her california, and she's would say, "oh, california!" and walk away, and then come back a couple of minutes later and ask me again where i was from. then one of the daughters stated talking to us and asked me what i thought of colombia. i told her colombia was beautiful and that all the people were so nice. then the whole family was talking to us about our trip and how we met each other, and the mom kept telling me how cute she thought peter was. then she asked us if we were boyfriend/girlfriend and when i told her we were just friends she could not believe it. she was all, "friends like this?" and started smacking her fist into her palm. it was totally funny. peter then tried to pay, and they told us all the food we'd just eaten was free. god they were so nice. anyways, i hope everyone is good, i gotta stop staring at the computer screen now. love,
-jessie
the other day peter and i were riding up this hill, and i say hi to this cyclist. we start talking, and he ends up inviting us over to his house. he was super excited to get to know us, and called up his brother-in-law who'd lived in NYC to come over so peter would have someone to speak english with. his wife totally cooked us up an awesome dinner, and then we all went out to these hotsprings on the outskirts of town. it was so fun. they guy (named alejandrino) was a police man and showed us were the narcotraficantes owned hotels. 
then yesterday as we were leaving cali, we ran into these profesional bike racers both of whom were named orlando. they were so, so nice, and like took us out for coffee and pastries, and one of the orlandos owns a bike shop in cali, and he is sending someone over here to popayán, like 75 miles away, in a taxi to bring us bike jersies from his shop. how crazy nice is that? i just like cannot believe how nice people are here. i want to come back to the US and tell everyone that they have to go bikeing around in colombia. it's that awesome. love,
