Hola!

Here we are! And behind us (below us, actually) is Bogota. This picture was taken this past Saturday when Guillaume was in town visiting. There is a small church on top of the mountains that surround Bogota, which overlooks the city. We were at close to 10,000 ft. This vew was so incredibly breathtaking- and it's not because there wasn no oxygen in the air to begin with, we were so high- but because you could see the most southern tip to the most northern tip of Bogota. Absolutely amazing. Definitely felt like were in the clouds...

Like I say in every post, I'm having the time of my life. Everyday there is something going on, things to do, places to go. I finally made out to Cartagena for Labor day. I can't believe it took me almost a whole month to get there. I mean, how could I be so close to the beach and not be tan? I went with Claudia and Yvonne (another NAS worker) and we had fantastic time. The city has so much history and is so incredibly beautiful. Unfortunately, i forgot to take my non-existent camera, but it just means that I'll have to go back.

This coming up weekend, I plans to visit a city just north of Bogota, Bucaramanga (say that 10x fast), but my travel request got denied by the Regional Security officer due to some FARC activity and we can't travel there until next month. There is a beautiful canyon there, and we had plans to go rafting, but it will have to wait.

I meeting new people everyday and have developed some very close friendships with several here at the Embassy. As much as I miss being home, I'm already very sad about leaving December 11. I have adjusted very quickly and could definitely see myself staying here. I truly hope that at least ONE of you guys can come out and see what i'm seeing. No picture, email, phone call could do it justice.

As for the reason I came down here, work has kept me extremely busy. For the next two weeks, we have inspectors from the GAO (shout to Nan) here to learn more about our Aviation program, especially given that this program is the 3rd largest assistance package the US gives in the world (next to Afghanistan and Iraq). So, I'll be working with them. Next week, on Monday i'll be traveling out to Apiay (i have no idea where that is, but we're flying) to visit our Colombian National Police Fixed Wing unit, on Tuesday I'll be going to San Jose (south of Bogota) to visit another spray base (a larger one than the one Caucasia that i visited a few weeks ago) and then flying over to Tolemaida (west of Bogota) to see our Plan Colombia Helicopter program. On Wednesday, I'm going to Guaymaral (only an hour outside of Bogota) to meeting with Colombian army aviation unit. Whew.

With guillaume's visit, i managed to snap a few pictures. I'm going to save them on my Yahoo! photos account, so if you want to check them out, my screen name is 'munina1029' and my password is 'natalia.' There are only pictures from Saturday when we visited Monserrate (the church) and then followed by Andres Carne de Res- that crazy restaurant I wrote about last time.

ok! gotta jet, going shopping! I promise to post more.. there is just SO much to say!

besitos!!!!!

-n