A break

We just got back from the mountains.  One of the downsides to not having a car is that we don't get to get outside of the city very often.  But we decided to take a trip out of the city to a town called Colonia Tovar.  It's about 2.5 hours away by car.  There's something fun about this town.  It's a little German village, complete with German food, in the mountains.  So it's pretty, it's not the city, fresh air, good food, there's grass and it's cooler.  Did we mention it's in the mountains?

People working on the side of the mountain.  This is
probably a strawberry field since the mountainsides
were covered with them.

A farther away view of the people working
on the side of the mountain

Bart loves the mountains, thus this trip happening.  But there is something really great about being able to get outside of a loud, dirty city to a place where you can hear the church bells ring every hour and half hour.  We didn't need fans.  We didn't experience mosquitos.  We started a fire in our room.  Twice.  Not because we needed to, but more because we could.  The kids really enjoyed that.  Our room even had a little kitchen area, so we could sit and enjoy our banana bread for breakfast every morning.

Watching the fire

We were amused by this wishing well.  It had coins but also
many bills worth 2 or 5 (sometimes even 10) bolivars!

Bart was in heaven with all of the sausage, sauerkraut (this wasn't quite as common) and the potato salad.  I would have to agree that it was a nice change to the normal food we eat.  We were able to buy peaches, strawberries, jelly and all kinds of good chocolate.  It's so strange.  It's almost like we leave Venezuela.  So many good things that we rarely come across in Valencia.

Two of the many chocolate suckers we HAD
 to buy while we were there

One of the great things about being away was the cabanas (as they were called) were on the side of the mountain and had a nice big hill and a play area.  That's why we went to this specific hotel so the kids could enjoy our time there.  They loved running (or falling, sliding, rolling, whatever) down the hill.  They LOVED wrestling and playing with Bart in the grass, creating base to have a safe place where they wouldn't get tackled.  We had a nice long pretend play time in the "house" as the kids called it during one of the few times there weren't other kids around.

Funny faces during our pretend time

More funny faces

The kids didn't love the hikes up and down the to get to center of town and back.  We had to carry them periodically or put them on our shoulders.  We can't blame them.  It's literally kind of a hike with the hills.  Overall, it was just a really great trip to get away and have some time to disconnect from the world and connect with each other.  We started doing hi's and low's at dinner and the kids love it.  Leah's low doesn't usually change, but she's 3.  Our standards are low.

This is what happens when the taxi you arranged to come
pick you up arrives over 3 hours late....