For the past ten years or so, I always thought, I am a traveller, when I was asked about my hobbies, I always said travelling, and I thought that travelling (next to football and birds) is a thing that I am really passionate about. Well, I guess, I was wrong. And if not, then at least I have come to the conclusion that "travelling" is a very loosely defined term and if I ever say again that I like travelling, then I have to make sure to define it properly.

The last month I was volunteering in a hostel in Pereira. Pereira is a small city (of about 200.000 inhabitants) about 200 km north of Cali, about 500 m higher in altitude and on the other side of the valley between the western and the central mountain range of the Andes. Pereira is also the capital of the coffee region of Colombia. And it happens to be a place, where lots of tourists pass through but where there really isn't anything proper touristic to do. Accordingly, in the hostel I met lots of different people but (luckily) very few tourists who only looked for touristy things to do. Either way, I learned, that there are a lot of ways to do travelling and that some are more like my type and some less. And that, out of all of them, my type of travelling probably shouldn't be called travelling in the first place. I decided to stop saying I travel and replace it by saying, I live in different countries. Because living is not travelling, I noticed. And I admit that this is my personal subjective opinion, but for me, living is much more real, whereas travelling is more like a way to escape reality - like going to to the cinema, reading a book, or taking drugs.

Until now, I always only made the differentiation between "tourist" and "traveller". Tourists being the people who just go somewhere in order to take pictures of beautiful places and do not even bother to look behind the facade. Traveller being someone who goes to less touristy places and tries to get to know the culture more than taking the most pictures of beautiful places. This is not necessarily related to time spent in a place but, clearly, in a week you won't be able to even start to understand a culture that is in any way different to your own. Still, both are very aware that they are leaving their "home" behind in order to get to know (in which ever way) a different place and then return to their "home" and their "real" life. And whether a person travels for two weeks or for a year does not do much to change these facts.

I now understand that I don't fit in either of these categories, because my goal was never to visit as many famous places as possible, to cover as a big a distance as I could in the time I had, to get to know as much of a place as I could before I go back "home". I started feeling guilty for not having seen this or that, for not having gone here or there, where seemingly everybody has gone and everybody says, it is so beautiful, you have to go. Well. I clearly had a different goal. And I had to stop myself from feeling guilty. Because, after all, going somewhere in order to see something beautiful does not really do much to help you understand a culture, to help you decide whether you want to stay in a country for a longer period of time, to help you make a decision on how you should go about getting a visa that allows you to stay if you decide you want to stay, to meet new locals to make friends so you have a little community around you which is absolutely necessary if you want to stay in a place. Clearly, living somewhere and travelling somewhere are two very different things and I am not actually travelling. At least not now. Unsurprisingly then, also my experiences and impressions of the places I lived in are very different from what "travellers" will tell you.

It was still very interesting to work in the hostel and get to know all those people. Many of them just had between 2 weeks and one month and they just did what everybody does, who has a limited period of time - basically follow the route laid out by the Lonely Planet. I also met several people who quit their jobs, or took a sabbatical to be able to travel South America for a year. They are, of course, very different people. Or at least, they travel very differently. And still, they do all the same things but more relaxed. And they do more of the same things. Much more than I could possibly digest in a year. I mean, I was literally one month in Cali and one month in Pereira and I am still trying to digest all my experiences and trying to understand the culture. I cannot even start to imagine how people go about this if they actually go somewhere new every few days.

Because, from the first moment I arrived here, I understood, that Cali is very different from Pereira. And both are pretty close to each other in a huge country. They are located in the same valley, in a similar climatic zone and only two (small) provinces apart. The country also has a large part of Amazonian lowlands, a Caribbean Coast, a Pacific Coast, high mountains and a border region to Venezuela, which, at the moment, you should supposedly better stay away from. And here are two cities in the very same valley only a few hours by car apart. The first thing I noticed, when I arrived, was the air. It felt like I could suddenly breathe again, even though I had never noticed that I could not, when I was in Cali. But, obviously, in a much smaller city, the air is much cleaner, but also the temperature is about 5 degrees lower (because we are 500 m higher), which makes it easier to breathe. These are rather obvious things but less expected was the fact that the food here is actually different from Cali. The people are different, the schools are different, sports are different. And probably everything else as well. When food in Cali was really mainly meat and potatoes, potatoes are rather rare here. Not rare as in hard to be found but rare as in: there are other things as well. They have different pastries and different types of bread with cheese. While in Cali children still only go to school half-days, so the other half day the school buildings can be used for the other half of the children, here school lasts until 4 pm. Don't ask me, how they suddenly fit all of the children in the available classrooms, because I was told that this used to be different here as well. Where in Cali I had the impression that literally every other man (and many women) were wearing football shirts at all times, here this is by far not as common. This may be partly because the local football team is not that good whereas in Cali there are two teams playing in the first league. But I also notice that there are a lot fewer sports fields here (per area). Where in Cali you could barely walk to blocks without seeing at least an asphalt football field, here you actually have to search for them. There are also way fewer running tracks and exercise equipments. There are also by far fewer cyclists on the road but this is probably mainly due to the topography of the city: Cali is all flat, whereas Pereira only every goes up and down and is quite exhausting to cycle. Well, these are just some of the differences I found, just so you get the idea.

Another, much nicer, difference is that the rivers here are actually clean. There is one river (Otún), which passes through Pereira and you can actually bathe in it (not swim because it is not deep enough, but you can go into the water without risking your health due to chemical pollution). You can also cycle along the river to the protected area that has been developed specifically to protect the river. When you go to that nature park, you can see all kinds of pretty birds (most of which you can also see at other places) and monkeys (which you can see only there). From there you can also climb to the mountain range, that is over 5000 m high, but I did not go (yet). It takes more time and money than I had.

I am now staying at a coffee finca - which is much different from the finca I was staying at in Mexico, and not for the better. If you ever want to know the difference between sun and shade coffee, I can tell you everything about it, and I certainly know, which one I prefer. Not as bird friendly here but the coffee produced here is fair trade. As one of the commitments that come with the label, the finca offers English classes to the children of the workers (which are two, currently). But I also teach English in the local primary school. I dare say, there are easier ways of teaching English and I assume that using an easier way would also help the children to learn better, but you have to work with what you have and I do my best, hoping it will help the children in the long run. To be honest, it came as a surprise to me as well but knowledge of English seems much more important in the education system here than in Mexico - strange seeing how close Mexico is to an English speaking country and how far away Colombia but so it is. This doesn't mean that children in Mexican schools don't learn English, because they do. But in Colombia they learn it a lot better than there. But, obviously, still no comparison with Europe…

I will leave you with this, just wanted to say hello again, really. I tried to post photos but the website doesn't let me (not even the pic for this post, I had to use an old one). I will try again some other time, or when I have better internet again. I hope you are all well.