Group Travel: Vacation for Active Bodies and Busy Minds

Our day began with coffee and Covid tests. I’m relieved to report that everyone in our group tested negative. We will be let back into the States, should we choose to return. 

Afterwards, our eyes still watering a bit, Sy and I went for a mother-son coffee at Johnny V.s (aka Juan Valdez—see prior blog post.) He got a granizado topped with chantilly and a chocolate donut; I had an iced cafe du origin with leche de almendras. We sat on the elevated cafe’s terraced couch and people watched. Then we met our first American expats, who talked soccer with Sy and told us about life in Manizales. 

Diana, my madre campadre, and I had a fresh, multi-course pre-fixe lunch for $5 each at a nearby restaurant. Unsweetened tropical juice, homemade vegetable white bean soup, fish with a side ensalada and rice, and rice pudding with ground nutmeg. So civilized, they even gave us baggies to put our masks in while we ate.  

For the boys’ final soccer stint, they kicked around on the large turf field outside the Palogrande in a downpour. They are so committed to their sport even in the face of a rapid weather shift. Then we boarded the bus for a drive to Termales del Otono, the volcanic hot springs. Perched up high overlooking turf green valleys were multiple pools of varying degrees and classy mountain water slides. The boys played aqua tag while the grown-ups sidled up to the swim up bar. When it started to thunder and rain, the kids joined us for virgin versions of our drinks. No one told anyone to get out of the water. Dinner was on the grill poolside, the kids sliding and splashing even after dark. 

Tomorrow we leave for our flight to Bogota in the late afternoon. I will write my final post upon returning home, but until then, a thought about group travel. I think it’s the most magical thing in the world. The way that in just one week you come to appreciate and enjoy every single person for their charm and quirks; get to know each others’ children, seeing them one day in one light and another day in another; accumulate an assortment of inside jokes; and share photos and stories and memories. Traveling with a group is the elastic coming together and stretching apart of a tribe over and over again for a discreet period of time. I credit my love of groups to the fact that I am an only child. For me, traveling with others is like an extended sleepover, summer camp and retreat rolled into one. 

And finally there’s the gift that for a protracted moment, you get to be a passenger of life, following and trusting in someone else’s decisions and plans, without an agenda or a checklist of your own. This is what I call a vacation for my body and my mind.