We woke up this morning with high hopes. Our hostel was advertising a free pancake breakfast included in the rate, and we had visions of fresh fruit, delicious Colombian coffee, and of course pancakes. Not even close. There are probably forty or fifty people staying here, and there was one girl on one stove making one pancake at a time. Literally. The coffee was pretty bad, but as it turns out that really isn't their fault; our guidebook told us most of the good ...

We're a day and a half in and already found the groove. I've discovered that no matter which developing country we visit our feelings consistently evolve from 1) wow, this place is a dump! to 2) why did we come here? to 3) I guess it isn't so bad to 4) this is actually quite beautiful to, finally 5) I love this country, when are we coming back? The trick is to work through these five stages as quickly as possible, and Colombia set a record. We had read that the p...