My Experiences Studying and Researching Abroad: Mi visita a Colombia (Part one)

Hola!

Happy October everyone! I hope there's been some good fall weather at home, though probably not for my friends in Florida... Here September/October means more into the rainy season, so it's just a lot wetter. We had a period of about 36 hours straight rain at the beginning of the month, which was not fun.

I ended up spending most of September away from UGA through three different trips. The first one was to Medellin, Colombia--the one I mentioned in my last blog post. My next two trips were more unexpected. I visited a friend near Piedras Blancas National Park (in the southwest part of the country) and then went with the other interns to the beach for a few days. This post will cover the first part of Colombia; more posts to come!

I went to Colombia with James, another naturalist here. The travel to Medellin was a little crazy: we got a ride to town, then took a bus from Santa Elena to San Jose, took an uber to our airbnb, took an uber from our airbnb to the airport the next morning, flew from San Jose to Bogota, Colombia, raced from our international arrival to our domestic departure, flew from Bogota to Medellin, took a bus from the airport to a mall in the city, and finally an uber to our airbnb in Medellin. We left campus right after lunch on Saturday, 9/1 and didn't get to our airbnb until sometime around 4 or 5 on Sunday 9/2. We were only there for a few days (we flew back to San Jose and reversed that travel on Friday 9/7), but we packed them full of awesome activities and delicious vegan food.

Made it to Colombia! (taken at the airport in Bogota)

Our first view of Medellin from the bus into the city

Our view from the airbnb

Here are the highlights (mostly through photos!):

The zoo!
We went to the Parque Zoologico Santa Fe on our first full day in the city. This was my first time in South America, so also my first time at a zoo in South America. It was very much in the city, so it wasn't huge (no room to spread out) but they had a ton of different species and some really cool exhibits. We went expecting to stay for an hour, maybe two, and do something else in the afternoon. We ended up exploring there for ~4 hours and it was great 😊

View on the walk

So cool to see an animal like this (scarlet macaw) in a country where it's also found in the wild

James made a friend

Such cute hedgehogs!

Medellin as a city had some incredible graffiti, and the zoo was no exception

Small zoo, lots of animals!

The man working in the butterfly nursery saw James and I freaking out about the butterflies and caterpillars, so he offered to show us some specimen up close!

Crazy caterpillar

"We are biodiversity"

Having worked at a zoo for two years, it's really interesting to see how other zoos convey conservation messages. This zoo had some great signage, like this one, which asks "Why are they in danger?" (referring to frogs). These signs were also a good way for me to test my Spanish.

Some of the species at this zoo are the same as ones we have at Disney's Animal Kingdom, like the black swan. That was cool because I had some fun facts to share, like: the black swan and the black necked swan are the only two species of birds in the word with truly black feathers!

Parque Arvi

Parque Arvi is a park that's right outside the city. It's accessible by public transport, which is super convenient. You take the metro to a cable car to get there. Once there, most of the trails are only open with a guide that you have to pay for, so we explored more along the road and by the picnic areas. Still lots of incredible views, and an environment that was cool and dry with evergreen trees (i.e. very different from where I'm staying in Costa Rica).