Thewesternprovinceblog

Hola Todos. Feliz Año Nuevo! Happy new year! Blwyddyn newydd dda! 🎊 We’ve made it into 2026! Hope everyone has had a good Christmas and New year! This one is more of a general update blog as don’t think there is much point going over every day we spent in school as it is much of the same as week 1 albeit different topics. Si habías estudiado Español alguna vez en tu vida, pues ya sabes! 

Entonces, Que Hicimos? What have we been up to? Well most days have been between 4-6 hours of classes with homeworks which left not a lot of time afterwards to go and explore much in the city. Outside of the school classes I had been doing some Salsa and Bachata classes 💃 to get the basics nailed down before heading south towards Cali. Think it will be useful going forward for meeting people especially locals in the next few places.

New years day we had a day off but nothing much happened just a chill day to facetime family and friends for a catch up. No big dinner or anything much to say about though I did hit the whiskey on NYE and might have made a few too many wishes under the table🍇😂. All good fun.

After a bit of indecision I decided to extend my stay here by one week for various reasons though  halfway through week 3 and I have been getting itchy feet. Been good but 100% ready to move on now. If I’m being honest 3 weeks of study was too much and especially on the back end of week 3. If I was to do an intense immersion in a language school for a longer time like 2 or 3 months as some here are doing I would do 2 weeks on 1 week off I think as this would allow more time to explore round and probably help with retention. It’s another one for the log I suppose. CONTINUED IN COMMENTS 👇 & WORDPRESS 

¿Where to now fearless leader? Well my next immediate destination is most likely going to be Manizales which is a chill small university city in the hills about 5 hours south of here by road. From there I will visit Bogotá the Colombian capital before heading south again to Ibagué or Pereira, both of which are meant to be pretty chill places and then down to Cali, the Salsa 💃 capital of the world or so I’m told. I had a catch up with a pal of mine who goes there a lot who tells me practically every hostel has a dance school and every bar is a salsa bar. Sounds exciting. 

Will pass through there and then make my way South Towards Ecuador. I have a rough idea to get into Ecuador and reach Quito by early Feb but let’s see how it goes. I am anticipating the journey between Cali and Quito to be the hardest leg of this trip in more ways than one but that’s some weeks off yet. For now I will be slowly meandering my way through Central to Southern Colombia and hopefully the RNG will be kind for the next wee while!

Ojalame buena suerte chicos!!

Oh and it is probably also worth a quick word about recent events in Neighbouring VenezueIa I cannot speak for everyone there though I do have a Venezuelan Friend who is currently there and possibly still in Caracas. She told me people are generally glad that Maduro has been removed and credit where due, the US did it cleanly only hitting strategic targets and few if any civvie places got hit.  but now there is a lot of suspense and confusion and we won’t know how this plays out probably not for at least a couple of weeks. Life here is still going on as normal and a few locals I asked about it generally feel indifferent or slightly positive on it though on the other hand with trump saying Cuba/Mexico/Colombia may be next or there may be a 2nd US attack wave into Venezuela. From what we also know Colombia deployed (extra) troops to the border crossings but there hasn’t been a huge rush of refugees flooding in at least not right now. Who knows. I could write a whole thread speculating on this but I will not. That said we are watching history unfold here and it hits a bit differently when it’s practically happening next door to you. That said I will need to keep an eye on this I am not making any changes to my plans at this moment in time. The day after I wrote this passage Trump and Gustavo Petro had spoken over the phone and seems like things have cooled down a bit for Colombia but again see how it goes moving forward.