After flying back on Tuesday last week from Cartagena to Bogota, the week here has been uneventful with work and meetings. This weekend is a long weekend, so I am enjoying a couple of long walks in the city in which I have now lived already again more than 9 months.
This morning I started with a coffee and the newspaper, which had a full section on the fact that the Colombian men's soccer team has qualified for the World Cup tournament in Brazil in June 2014. They missed the last 3 tournaments (which takes place once every four years). In that section there was an announcement of the Colombian team going to play two friendly games in Belgium (Nov 15) and Holland (Nov 19). That will be the first time ever the Colombian and Dutch teams play a game against each other. I will be in Ottawa that week, so little chance to see the game, but still...
I met with a colleague of the Colombian Ministry of Tourism for lunch today (I made a few blog posts in July of a visit I made with her to Huila, one of the southern provinces in Colombia). We decided to meet in Usaquen (see some of my blog posts of that place from January). On the way there (a walk of a good hour) one passes the Canadian Embassy. It is housed here in Bogota in a large office building called the Scotia Bank building....
Across the street is a nice place for lunch, and next to it is the entrance of the Usaquen market area (of which I made in January already a post). We talked for almost 4 hours about ideas on how to promote tourism in Colombia, a country so incredibly rich in tourism potential but of course badly tainted in its reputation over the past 40-50 years. But now that a lasting peace seems to be possible in this country, maybe the potential can be developed during the coming decades.
Colombia has the largest diversity of flora and fauna in one country in the entire world. It has truly magical sceneries, wonderful people, a rich variety of local cultures and good food. What more do you want? Yes, a solid peace and safe country side to travel, and an improved reputation world wide. I will for always be an "Ambassador" for this country, that is for sure...
The coming week I will be at an international education conference in Monterrey, Mexico (presenting on successful exchange programs developed at Niagara College, and also presenting on our "Education for Employment" program in the Andes (Colombia, Peru and Bolivia)). The week following I will be in Lima, Peru for regional meetings on our EFE program. Then one more week work in Bogota and back in Canada for coordination meetings in Ottawa together with the SENA colleague who will take over most of my tasks on the EFE program as of January 2014.
Action packed weeks ahead, so maybe a few less blog posts....
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