Day 9 in Bogota!

Day 9…how the days are flying by and blending together! Shane and I kept asking each other what day of the week it was! It’s getting really hard to keep track.

Our day started out early with a trip to the doctor at FANA to get Owen checked out. Since it was a holiday in Colombia, traffic wasn’t bad at all. Our taxi driver had some problems locating FANA and took us down some interesting roads (if you can call them that!) but we eventually found it and arrived right on time at 9:00am. The doctor spent about 10 minutes feeling his belly and listening to it with a stethoscope, which he did NOT like. He was pretty terrified and looked at me with those big eyes wondering why I was letting this happen to him. It was heart wrenching! Luckily as soon as she was done, he recovered quickly and was back to his happy self!

Here's Owen all happy at FANA after his exam (he sure likes his shoes, just not on his feet!)

The doctor told us how she wanted us to proceed…in Spanish. With our limited Spanish skills, we were in dire need of a translator, so the doctor called Flor to translate for us. She told us to continue giving him the medication that he has been getting and he should be just fine in a few days. Thank goodness!! Before leaving, we made sure to get a couple more pictures with Owen at FANA.

We got back to El Refugio just in time to go with the Sibley’s, Henry’s, and the Bertuccio’s (from New York) to the Salt Cathedral in Zipaquita. It was a bit of a drive, but Owen did great in the car. The Salt Cathedral is built in an underground rock salt mine where salt is still being extracted. There are miles of tunnels from where the salt has been extracted. Before going into the tunnels, we had a sack lunch outside the Salt Cathedral that Rosita at El Refugio packed for us.

After we were done eating, we were all getting ready to head into the tunnels when the wind hurled an umbrella from one of the picnic tables into the crowd right where the kids had just been standing! Luckily, the kids had moved. Unluckily, our driver had moved right into that spot and was hit in the arm with the umbrella. Fortunately, he was ok.

We then headed into the tunnels...

14 stages of the cross are carved through out the tunnels, each created by a different artist.

The tunnels were pretty tall and wide and had low lighting so that people could see where they were walking. When we were about halfway through the stages of the cross, the lights went out! It was pitch black and there would have been no way of finding our way out without a light! Luckily, Taciano saved the day! He had a flashlight and led everyone back from one of the stages of the cross to the main tunnel just in time for the lights to come back on. At the end of the tunnel was a small movie theater where they showed a 15 minute movie on the salt tunnels. Owen was tuned in and watching every minute. About midway through the movie there was a scene where a scary looking creature jumped out and scared him! Poor little guy started crying uncontrollably. So Owen and I went to the back of the theater, but he soon started watching again and luckily, no other scary scenes!

After the movie, we headed back through the tunnels to our car and headed back to El Refugio. The rest of our day was pretty typical...playtime, dinner, bath and bedtime.