The Retreat

A few weeks ago my therapist convinced me a retreat from the city might do wonders for me. It was a retreat that she was organizing and included meditation by the fire among other activities that the place we were going to offered. These were canopy, horse backriding and rock climbing just to name a few. Well, it turns out of all the people who at first signed up for this, I was the only one who showed up. 

This changed the game since the owners of the place were friends with my therapist and her husband, and therefore, the trip was more like a family trip. The place is about an hour away from Bogota, in a town very well known for its rocks and its climbers, who religiously go every weekend. We got there on saturday noon, witnessing the continuous change of weather you only get to see around here. The owners made lunch for us, and I realized a lot of people came by for the day, just to enjoy the activities and then go back home. I had a room for myself with a shared bathroom, which I had to be honest, in all the travelling I've done I had never shared the bathroom. I guess I felt different this time, it was more like being in a family home, and there was no room to be picky. This place has two houses, sort two speak. The one I stayed in is where the owners live before the finish up their apartment (in the other house). The second house has the restaurant and three other rooms, each one with their own private bathrooms. I got a chance to see one of them, and they are pretty cozy.... 

Anyway, after lunch I went for a nice hike around the mountains. The thing is, even though I am from here, I don't get around too much, and I think I got forgotten the beautiful landscapes you can see just an hour away from home. When I decided to go, one of the main reasons I was encouraged by, besides the resting, the change of scenery and the meditation was the horse back riding. I don't have that many chances of doing it, and I realized once again how much I enjoy riding horses. When the night came, instead of the meditation by the fire, we did more of the wine by the fireplace thing. It was a night among friends, even though they were not my friends, and the friendly environment made me feel welcome and warm (that and the fireplace, because that place is really cold, at least for my standards). It's weird how without laptop, tv, cell phone or other electronic devices, time just go by in slow motion. All right, I did take my iPad, but I only used it when I was alone in my room and time started to go by very quickly as I filled out lots and lots of sudokus and read a book about my favorite painter: Van Gogh. All of this got me thinking about what I wanted out of this retreat, and the real reasons I had gone, instead of staying home and doing the same here, after all it was warmer and I already knew all the people here (my parents). 

It also got me thinking in what a retreat is. I've been really curious about since I finished Eat, Pray, Love. I practice yoga quite often and I really started to consider going away to an ashram like Elizabeth did on the book. This little trip gave me perspective on that. I wasn't meditating or in complete silence and we didn't anything yoga-related. But it was in fact a retreat. From what I'm used to, from my people to make room for new people, and from my prejudices about people I just meet. It was in fact a change of perspective and the truth is, I didn't have to go too far away to feel like something had changed and that I'm definitely more open to new people.