Barrancabermeja or Barranca for short.

We traveled to Barranca last weekend for missionary interviews and we attended church and found ourselves as the speakers. The town is very hot along the side of a river. One half block from our hotel I took these photos. This is the town with many iguanas.

The streets were full of people wearing these hats.

As I walked the streets of Baranca, I noticed there were many people wearing these straw hats.

Hats off to everyone.

The hats represent the different areas of Colombia and are sold in many stores. They are all so interesting.

How many hats can one man wear?

I saw this street vendor cross the street with his cart of hats and I chased him down. He was pulling a cart through the streets selling the many beautiful hats of Colombia. It will be hard to chose one when it comes time to buy.

The friendly street vendor.

This man was very friendly, and didn't even try to sell me a hat, but let me look at many of them.

How do I look?

The man put this one on my head. It would certainly be good to shade you from Baranca's hot sun.

Peanutbutter and honey.

This is one way to buy your honey for your peanut butter sandwich. This is honey sold right in the honeycomb. I failed to get the price because there was too many flies around it. Next time I will have my peanut butter ready.

Not in jail.

Sometimes the houses and businesses have cement walls around them. The person can open a little window to see who is there and to communicate with the visitors.

Tis the season.

Tis the season to put away our Christmas decorations. Luckily two missionaries stopped by just in time to help us take the tree down. We had to wait until after Jan. 6, Three Kings Day. It is not a big deal here in Colombia, but part of our hearts are still in Puerto Rico. We knew it would be a day of celebration there.

Our favorite Christmas tree decorations.

Our Christmas tree was beautiful, but our favorite decorations were those from all of our (at the time) 15 grandchildren. We now have 16.