Random Observations About Colombia

Random observations about Colombia:

• The money is in thousands of pesos. The most common bill is the 20,000 peso bill, which is about $10. It is marked with the three zeros as 20,000. The 50,000 bill is only marked as 50 mil, and does not include the three zeros. I heard a story that a european traveler thought the bill was only 50 pesos because he didn't know what “mil” means, so he gave a lucky taxi driver a massive 50,000 peso tip by accident.
• No one ever has change for any bill greater than 20,000. Most of the time they don't even have change for that, so we always try to carry small bills.
• When you spend a lot of time with British and Australian people, you catch yourself talking like them and using weird phrases like, “Do you fancy we leave soon?”.
• Almost everything is on the honor system here. Even when you go to a fast food place, you don't pay until after you've eaten. If you want a soda from the fridge at the hostel, you just take it and put a little mark on a list next to your name. When you check out, they tally it all up.
• The power goes out a lot, almost every day.
• Somehow they manage to not refrigerate common perishables like eggs and milk, but they don't go bad. How do they do that?
• The pizza here is really really bad and weird. Even at the more expensive places. Most of the toppings are difficult to identify. I'm pretty sure I saw a slice of pizza yesterday that was topped with chocolate and strawberries. That won't go well with ranch.
• For some reason, about 50% of the toilet seats won't stay up.
• They don't go out here until really late. The other night we didn't leave to go out until almost 1am. Then again, we didn't get home until the sun was up and the birds were chirping.
• If you are in a hurry, don't be, because everything here takes forever. Very conducive to relaxing.
• No matter where you go, there always seems to be music playing nearby.
• I like goat meat pretty well, but I'm not a fan of a random pile of stewed goat innards. It is gamey. I'm also not really a fan of roasted ants. When the legs get stuck in your teeth it is disturbing.
• When we walk down the street, occasionally carloads of girls will wave at us and scream uncontrollably, like we are the Jonas Brothers. It is fun being famous.
• Fireflies go great with a lightning storm.
• Instead of a hot water heater, at this hostel and the last one they have these shower heads that are wired into the electricity and warm the water as it is coming out. It just doesn't seem safe, but so far so good.
• The cheese here is absolutely flavorless. It is usually mozzarella. I have yet to see cheddar, but when I do I'm gonna eat a block of it.
• 99.99% of the people on the street don't speak a word of English. It is sometimes inconvenient but also kind of fun. When we go out we usually run into a person or two that can speak English fluently. If a person here can speak English, they are always eager to talk to us.
• Whenever you think you've seen the most beautiful place in the world, Colombia will surprise you the next day with a place even more beautiful than the last.