Nov. 25, 2023: Laguna de Guatavita

Laguna de Guatavita--we reached El Dorado.

Thanks internet for this photo!  Isn't it pretty?

Back in November I took the kids to Laguna de Guatavita (famous for being the start of the Legend of El Dorado.) We went with the Nueva Lengua Spanish school (it was geared to tourists) I was attending for 8 weeks for 4 hours a day/5 days a week. Do I speak Spanish now? No, no I do not. But I did meet a lot of interesting people from all over the world, which was cool. Anyway, Guatavita was meh, except that we saw like 5 different types of hummingbirds. The one in the picture is a Swordbill Hummingbird. Expectations are the root of all unhappiness--we thought we were going on a two hour hike, but no, it was a 20 min hike with stops for a tour guide to talk for 15 mins for every 3 mins we walked. Ugh. The town was cooler--very colonial Spanish with a bull fighting arena. I don't think going with the school was the best choice, but the kids were great and it was nice to get out of the house. The little boys actually said their favorite part of the day was riding the Transmilenio bus to and from the school.

We were waiting in line here. I thought it was so funny because on the drive to Guatavita, another student from New Zealand asked if Jubal, Nicolas and Efraim were triplets.  I can kind of see that for Nicolas and Jubal, but Efraim is a head shorter than the other two.

Swordbill hummingbird!  So cool!

Random tree photo.

The kids were really good considering I was really on their case about behaving since we were with a group from the school, but this is what we did when not listening to the tour guide. The tour guide only spoke Spanish and at this point, my kids understood nothing.

Such pretty views.

Photo in front of Guatavita where you can't even see it.  

I love my kids' smiles!!!

Oooohhh....aaaahhhhh.....

Guatavita wasn't the only scared lake to the Muisca, they had a whole layout of different lakes corresponding to stars and directions that were scared to them.

😍😍😍😍

Umm,  way to ruin the photo.  😂

I think the Muisca were cool because frogs were sacred to them.  What other culture can say that?!?!

Pretty hair flower thanks to Efraim.

It is pretty.

We FINALLY got to leave the tour guide behind!

Elena is being spoiled by Isabel because somehow she's 17 but can't tie her shoelaces so they stayed tied. 😐

And then the kids just took off running and ran the rest of the trail, which was slightly annoying because then we had to wait forever for the rest of the school group to get to the town, and keeping the kids occupied and out of trouble in the little tourist shops is always problematic.