Celebrating Spring Everyday In The City of Eternal Spring

The calendar says that spring should be knocking at your door. But for those in the northern part of the United States, the snow on the ground may tell you otherwise. The Spring Equinox ... that beautiful time of year when the hours of daylight equals the hours of darkness ... is greatly welcomed by our northern friends. Everyone joyfully anticipates longer, warmer days ... along with plenty of sunshine and blooming  flowers once again.

But in this land so close to the Equator, every day ... all year long consists of twelve hours of  sunlight and twelve hours of darkness. Sunrise is always around 6 am, and the night is still young when the sun sets twelve hours later.

So while the locals may not understand the hype that we ''northerners'' have with the ''official'' arrival of Spring on March 20, Colombians do love to celebrate ... anything ... anytime. So I suspect that most of our paisa friends would agree with one of my favorite comedians when he said ...

Spring is nature's way of saying, 'Let's Party!'

Robin Williams 

And Medellín knows how to party ... complete with fireworks to celebrate a victory of their local fútbol team!

From the City of Eternal Spring, Medellín, here's a glimpse of the fiesta that is awaiting you when the earth rids itself of the layer of white and puts on its

Spring Colors!

The signs of spring around us fill our senses with 

... sweet tastes of the abundant fresh fruit,

... aromatic fragrances of blossom-laden trees,

... unique textures of intertwined timber,

... melodious songs of colorful feathered friends,

... and sights of pure wonder and joy!

Because of its mountainous terrain and year-round favorable temps, Colombia is home to over 4,200 species of orchids. Here's a few for you to enjoy ...

Our time in Colombia is passing quickly as we fill our days volunteering at a community English class, attending language exchanges, traveling to surrounding pueblos, and recovering from GI issues ... yes, there was something in either some food or water that my gut didn't like. I'm grateful that I finally felt good enough this past week to take one of our favorite hikes in Medellín. As the saying goes, the journey is as good as the destination.

In this case, the city's Metro (subway), Tram-via (electric cable car), Metro-cable (gondola-type lift system) and a two-block walk up one of Medellín's steepest, narrowest, and most interesting streets got us to the start of the trail.

Trees shaded the path through Pan de Azúcar garden,

... but that didn't prevent just a little sweat as we made our way up the 1000 or so stairs to the summit.

As we approached the top we saw that ...

''If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.''

Frances Hodgson Burnett

Sometimes it's just covered with a lot of buildings ...

or waiting patiently for the snow to melt so that ...

it can burst forth with its amazing beauty!

Happy First Day of Spring from Medellín,

 the City of Eternal Spring !

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