Yesterday, I woke up and was out closer to 8:00. Because of the pub crawl the night before I had a problem waking up, so I awoke later.
Today I had a barrio transformation tour scheduled for 02:00 pm. The plan before then was to maybe take the cable cars to the end, where there was supposedly a park. So that is what I did. I walked to the metro, which is about a 20 minute walk, stopping for all sorts of fried treats along the way, including, empenadas, bonuelos, and other unhealthy, heavy, fried foods which are served everywhere here.
After the walk, I made it to the Metro. I took the metro roughly 6 stops, to another metro line. This metro line, I took another 8 stops, which took me to a cable car lines.
Cable cars are a main force of transportation here, particularly from the "barrios" on the hills. So the price of the cable car was included in the price for a ride on the Metro (roughly 90 cents). I rode the cable car up up up the hil, riding past the barrio, with brick and cement houses crammed alongside the mountain. The ride zipped along, and made a few stops, up the mountain, and then down the other side, and up another mountain, all crammed with houses jammed up against each other.
After 1/2 an hour, i got off on the last stop to look for the park. The park was tiny, and there wasn't much there. I stopped, walked around and looked at the various shops in the barrio. I went into a pet shop and found little kittens I started to pet. Then I got a drink of sweet orange drink, and sat on bench, and watched the comings and goings.
Then with roughly 4 hours to go until the tour, I took the cable car back to the metro, and took the metro back to the first line of the metro, where i rode a few stops and got off at the University, which looked intersting. I ran into a "Mother earth" celebration, which amounted to roughly 30 people under a tent beating drums in tune, to celebrate the earth. I met a violin teacher at the university named Ana, who spoke almost no English, so I worked on my limited Spanish.
After spending a copule hours, here, i talk to the Metro to the meeting point of the tour, where I basically waited for an hour.
Once the tour started, it was quite interesting. It was focused on a section of town called Morovia, which used to be swamp, until people started throwing their trash on the swamp, in which it became a giant trash heap. After that, settlers from the country started building their houses upon the trash heap. And it became a barrio, which was dangerous because the waste from below was causing health problems.
Over the past 15 years-the city basically gave other housing to the residents, and cleaned up the barrio and made it into park. Some houses remained though-some refused to move. We walked around and could see inside the houses, which looked ramshackle.
Then we walked around to another barrio, which was teeming with life. We we're shown a community center,with free classes for the community. We had snacks of sweet mango and more fried food. Residents from all over greeted us. Some wanted to say hello in English.
By the time the tour was over, it was getting dark. The other headed back to the main part of town on the Metro. i wanted to stay behind and take pictures. One woman from the tour, who looked to be in her 50's, asked if she could join me, and although i wanted alone time, I let her. We walked around-I learned she is from New Zealand and has been travelling for 6 months. We walked past the community center, and actually ran into a resident of the barrio and some fellow tourists, and we found out she was going to a special program at the commnity center, so we joined her. I don't know what the program was about because it was a lot of talking in Spanish.
We later walked out, stopped for a beer, and found a metro. We decided to take one of the cable car lines to the top of the hill (a different one then what i took earlier), so we could see all the pretty lights of the city below. We waited for a good twenty minutes que from the metro to the cable car, and entered. The lights we're indeed stunning, and apart from the others in the car speaking, it was silent, just dogs barking below. At the top, we decided to go for dinner, at a little streetside place, where the table was on the street. Far from being romantic, it was more authentic. Children we're begging for food, and dogs and a cat came up to us. We both had heavily fried fish with fries, and what we didn't eat we fed to the dogs and cat.
Later, we took the cable car back down to the metro. and went back to our hostels (hers was not far from mine). I was still tired from staying up late last night, so I went to bed quickly.
