The End of the Beginning...

As we come to the end of our time here in Bogota, and Colombia, it seems appropriate to reflect on what has been a truly life changing experience for us. We consider ourselves very fortunate to have had the opportunity to come to such an incredible country and to return with our beautiful daughter. We have tried to soak up every minute of our time here to the full, and to leave with treasured memories that we can share with Charlotte when she is a little older. We are very proud that Colombia will be a big part of her heritage, and we hope that she will be proud to. We very much hope that one day we can all return here, and ensure that Charlotte will have a brother or sister to share her childhood with.

There are so many people to thank, those who have helped us, those who have been there when we needed them, those who encouraged, those whom we have have had the good fortune to meet during this process and on our travels, those who commented on the blog and sent us emails, and all those good people who will be part of Charlotte´s new family. If you are reading this, then this thank you is meant for you.

Thanks especially to SDN, particularly Linda Filosa and her wonderful family, and to Chiquitines, without you none of this would have been possible. Our dreams are being realised, and for that we truly thank you.

And I guess that is about it for our travelogue. We have had a tremendous amount of fun putting the blog together during our stay here, and in a way we will miss it. We shall catch all of you on the flipside, so until the next time we all meet, thanks again and take care.

xxxx

:-)

Big in Bogota

Here we are in Bogota, and what a dramatic change from Cali! Bogota is at a 2800m elevation (around 8000ft!) and much colder than Cali. The altitude causes shortness of breath when you walk and also headaches. It´s either that or we are both really out of shape! The area is very lush and green, with a little more rain than other parts of the country. We are in the northern part of the Andes mountain range and it has a distinctly European feel, like Switzerland or Austria but without the clean air!



Discovering the ´bouncer´ with mummy

The neighbourhood where we are staying is in the northern part of Bogota, and our host is the lovely Flor, who has been taking care of families from Canada for many years. Nearby we have many restaurants, churches and parks set in amongst very quaint streets. Things can get a little noisy at night but generally it is a nice location. We are close to a couple of shopping malls and here we can get access to cafe latte, and the internet which seem to be our favourite pastimes!



Chillin´ out with baby girl

Our main task in Bogota is to get Canadian and US travel visas for Charlotte so we can head home. Thanks to Flor the Canadian visa was easy, Charlotte had to pose for some more pictures and this time it only took one attempt although this was not her most flattering pose! The US visa was a different story, and the ONLY reason we need this is because we travel back through a US airport. The US embassy in Bogota is HUGE, and when we arrived there were literally hundreds of people waiting for documents. It was very daunting and with many, many lines of people I honestly didn´t think we would be out of there for a couple of hours at least. Security was very tight with many gates and checkpoints. Fortunately Flor knows her way around and we seemed to get into just the right line. After about an hours wait our documents were processed and we were set to return in the afternoon to collect Charlotte´s visa.



Pretty in Pink, and taking a nap at the shops

Having collected Emma and Charlotte we returned in the afternoon to collect the visa. After the big build up I gave Emma about this place it was completely deserted on our return. We collected our visa, and after a few questions from the consular staff we were all done. Now all we have to do is go to Delta to change our flight, easier said than done. After much negotiation we have a return flight booked for next Monday, with an overnight layover in Atlanta before we get home on Tuesday. Not the best solution, but it does mean that we can hook up with my sister, Sarah, who is coming across from Charlotte to see us. Little Ellys can be the first to meet his new cousin!

So, we have a few days to kill here in Bogota. We will use the time to see the best of what Bogota has to offer; the Gold Museum (finally!), changing of the Presidential Guard, Salt Cathedral, botanical gardens, a trip to a coffee plantation and a nice treat for me as I go and catch a soccer game on Sunday. Go Millonarios Santa Fe!

Adios Cali

With our judgement finalized it's time to travel to Bogota for our visas so that we can finally head home. We spent our last few days in Cali relaxing and visiting some of the sites we hadn´t already visited. A trip up into the hills to the "Christo Rey" gave us a wonderful view of the city. You probably see the resemblance to the same statue in Rio de Janeiro, and many cities in South America have one of these overlooking them.



We also spent some time in the centre of Cali, visiting some of the wonderful old churches and enjoying some of the architecture both old and new. No day out would be complete without some gift shopping and at least one stop for ice cream!





Sunday came, and it was time to pack up our existence and say goodbye to everyone at the Hotel Arboleda. Some tearful goodbyes follow and we realize we will miss the friends we have made here. We have to say a big thank you to Allessandro, Valentina, Fabiolo, Roccio, Sineada, Lewardo and everyone else who helped us during our stay, and made our visit so enjoyable. We leave behind us two families; Albert, Rosanna, Laura Maria and Juan Diego and James, Sarah, Erica and Miguel who all shared in our experience.


We wish them the very best of luck and a speedy resolution to their adoptions. We will miss you guys!

Onward to Bogota!

Sentencia Finalized

Stop the presses! Great news late last Monday. Our Sentencia (Adoption Judgement) was passed down in the courts here in Cali.


Yeah! Open the wine, we're headed home soon!

We can now go to the city with our lawyer to collect this, and finalize Charlotte´s passport. Exciting stuff for us and we are heading out for pizza to celebrate. Our time here in Cali is coming to a close and we will head to Bogota shortly to put the last pieces of this jigsaw puzzle together and we can think about heading home with Charlotte.

There are two other families with us here at Hotel Arboleda, both adopting children from Chiquitines. One family is Australian, and the other from Finland. Comparing notes only helps confirm what we all already know, that this process takes way to long for everyone involved and that there are many children here in need of a family and a home.



Go! Go! Familia Umansky!

The wait is certainly worth it, but not something we are likely to forget in a hurry. It´s also great to think that there is a network of Colombian children all from Chiquitines, and mostly from Cali, growing up around the world. There is nothing more fascinating than listening to a Colombian child speak fluent Finnish after spending their childhood there.

Fact 1: Charlotte looks at her feet every time a camera comes out, it took 10 attempts to get her passport picture.

Best to take the pictures from here if you are going to look down...

Fact 2: Charlotte giggles out loud now, and we have spent most of our time coaxing these out of her by blowing rapsberries on her belly

"...so an Englishman, an Irishman and a baby walk into a bar..."

Fact 3: Now Charlotte can roll over expertly she only wants to sleep on her belly, and despite our anxiety there doesn´t seem to be much we can do about it.


"Don't even think about turning me over"

Return to Chiquitines

After the excitement of our beach holiday we are back in Cali to finalize the adoption. We had previously scheduled an appointment to return to Chiquitines for a meeting with a representative from the mothers home to hear a little bit about their programs and to discuss more details about Charlotte´s background. We had gifts for the people who had taken care of Charlotte during here time here, and we also had clothing and other donations we had brought with us from Montreal. We also wanted to spend some time looking around the orphanage and meeting with some of the children.



Proud Mum and Dad with Charlotte



Charlotte, her carers and the Doctor on the day we collected her

Our meeting was quite an emotional one and we now have more information we can share with Charlotte when the time is right. This is a story just for her, and a special gift for her when she is a little older. We also have a lovely picture of her at about one week old, oh how she has come on since then! Our little bundle is now four months old and doing very well.



Chiquitines is a special place, and the short time we spent with the children there touched both of us. It´s quite true, once you meet them you really do want to bring them all back with you. It´s a moving and heartbreaking experience all at the same time. One can only hope that all the children we met will find their special homes very, very soon.

Beach Bums

After a brief absence we can finally update you on our adventures out here in the wild west. We lost our internet connection at the hotel and after much ´manyana...manyana´ from the Spanish equivalent of Basil Fawlty at our hotel we finally had to make alternative arrangements.

Our trip to Santa Marta, on Colombia´s northern Caribbean coast is a two leg, two hour trip from Cali. The resort is on the edge of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta national park, which contains some of the most spectacular beaches and ocean views in this part of the world. Since the area is both mountainous and very dry the hills are filled with giant cactus. It only rains here very briefly, in November and December, each year. Santa Marta is a sleepy village really, famous in Colombia as the place where Simon Bolivar spent his final years. In South America he is the revolutionary hero who helped liberate many countries from Spanish control and put them on the road to independance.

We took the short flight from Cali to Bogota, and then onwards to Santa Marta, our day started early, 3am, but getting the first flight out of Cali meant we could be at the hotel in time for breakfast and on the beach by 11am. Charlotte wasn´t too impressed at being woken that early, but seemed to enjoy her first flying experience sleeping through most of it. Our trip took us to one of the hotels in the Decameron chain which are very popular in Caribbean. It was bright and clean, although the main hotel had probably seen better days, dating from some time in the 60´s or 70´s by our estimation. With an all-inclusive resort like this one though, there is little to worry about except for showing up to the restaurants on time. In the end we got exactly what we came for, 5 days on the beach and a change of scenery for Charlotte.

She LOVED the beach, and most days happily slept the day away on her towel or rocking in a hammock with mummy. She dipped her toes in the sea with daddy and also went for a splash in the the hotel pool. Our challenge was keeping her entertained whilst we went for dinner, which usually involved lots of roaming around in our stroller before we fell asleep. She was also very popular with everyone we met on the beach, reducing at least one Colombian lady to tears because she thought she was so cute!

We did have time to take one very nice trip to the beautiful outdoor aquarium which was just around the coast. After a bus ride, and a short trip in a boat (another first for Charlotte), we spent the afternoon being entertained by dolphins and seals, and marvelling at their collection of wonderful sea creatures including sharks, giant turtles and even clown fish! Charlotte´s liked the sea turtles best and got very excited every time he swam by her in the tank. We bought her a lovely carved sea turtle, made from soapstone to put in her room to remind her. We spent the rest of the afternoon on a golden beach called Playa Blanca and Charlotte had another chance to run her toes through the sand.

Our time passed, like any good beach holiday, too quickly. Before we knew it, it was time to head back to Cali. We were all a little sad to leave, but excited also since our adoption judgement is getting closer. Charlotte managed to catch a summer cold and is now oozing green snot, poor dear. Learning how to blow our nose is not easy, so mummy and daddy have been helping. We did find out that Charlotte had pneumonia in December which she had picked up whilst at the orphanage. She was very lucky, and recovered after a brief spell in hospital and some antibiotics. We will take her to see the Doctor at Chiquitines when we get back to Cali. Hasta Manyana!

Gremlinos - Stupidos!

Apologies to all those who have been logging in to see our blog updates. We have been experiencing major internet access problems since we returned from the beach last weekend and have only recently been able to get back on again. We think someone had been trying to steal the cable or phone lines and access has been down for days in the local area. Service has just about returned to normal but we now have to head out of the hotel to get online.

Stay posted, we will post some updates on our recent adventures shortly. Ciao Amigos!