Santa Marta and Cartagena

Cartagena

Our next stop was Santa Marta, and our first experience of an overnight bus in Colombia. Definitely not the greatest night's sleep, with a bus change at midnight just as we had managed to doze off, and a visit by the police before we left on the second bus to check everyone's passports. We arrived in Santa Marta at about 8am, sore and in definite need of more sleep.

We had booked a nice looking hotel with air conditioning and a pool, not very close to the centre but we guessed there would still be things around the area. In fact, the hotel was down a dirt track just off a highway, and as the taxi driver struggled to get over boulders in the path we tried to apologise for any damage to the underside of his car.

We were greeted by the owner of the hotel, who we initially started to speak to in broken Spanish until we realised he was American, making life a lot easier. We couldn't check in until 2pm, so sleep would have to wait, and we dragged ourselves out to look for some kind of breakfast. Unfortunately, there was nothing around except for a shopping centre a 15 minute walk away where pretty much everything was closed except for a supermarket which thankfully had a cafe. Later we realised it was yet another public holiday, the Colombians really dont like going to work on a Monday!

After checking in and a brief nap, there was nowhere else to go but to venture to the town. Luckily, there is no need to search for a bus stop here, you just stand at the side of the road and within minutes a passing bus will pick you up. When you need to get off, you shout and the bus driver stops. We like this system. Again, as it was a public holiday, the town did not have much to offer either but we had a walk by the seafront and found a couple of restaurants open.

We had planned a few day trips from Santa Marta, the first being a beach, but the weather decided otherwise so instead we went to a small town in the mountains, Minca, which we heard had some nice hikes and coffee tours. An hour's minibus ride away from the centre, and we arrived in Minca and started walking towards one of the coffee farms, a steep 45 minute hike which would have probably had some lovely views were it not for the thick cloud cover.

Waterfalls along the way

Not such a sunny day

We arrived at the plantation just as the heavens opened, and were invited to join a tour that had already started but we could hear the beginning part later. The owner of the farm spoke about what was involved in growing and processing the coffee. He was aiming for the farm to become organically certified, and explained the methods they use instead of pesticides to keep insects away, including buying wasps (imagine being that desperate for wasps you would pay for them! Maybe we could try a system where every time one ruins a picnic in the UK, we can put it in an envelope and send it to the farmers here). He also revealed that pretty much all the coffee grown in Colombia was exported to other countries, and they imported lower quality coffee for their own use. So if you were hoping to come to Colombia for the fresh Colombian coffee, you have a higher chance of getting some in your local supermarket.

I have heard if you put a Toucan to your ear it sounds like the sea

Speaking of coffee, the Colombians seem to only make it two ways- strong and black (tinto) or basically one granule in hot milk (cafe en leche). If you try and ask for coffee with a little bit of milk, they revert straight to cafe en leche, no in betweens. This often produces a very disappointing coffee, but a nice bedtime beverage.

The following day we headed out of Santa Marta again to Tayrona National Park.We underestimated how long this would take,and did not get entrance to the park until 11.30am. Most people go to the park for hiking and camping, and there are beaches at various points. As we were short on time (the park closed at 5pm) our tactic was to hike to the furthest point first and then we could make stops on the way back as time allowed. What we didn't realise was that the heavy rainfall caused most of the paths to turn into swamps of mud, which took longer to negotiate than if it was dry. 2 and a half hours later we arrived at the place we were aiming for, enough time for a 15 minute lunch break before having to walk straight back to make it before the park closed. By this time Jonno's boots had given up on being waterproof, and we were definitely done with mud.

Stepping around the bog of eternal stench

Only a little muddy

Upward facing lizard

Optimistic picnic friend

As soon as we got onto the bus towards Santa Marta, the heavy rain started again and  we got back to the city it was evident Santa Marta was not geared up for this amount of rainfall. There was no drainage system on the streets, so the town had become a Colombian Venice. Some people had seen this as a wonderful money making opportunity, and had made bridges for people to cross over the road with rocks and planks of wood, and were charging them for the privilege of slightly drier feet.

Wet Santa Marta had failed to charm us, so onto the next place, Cartagena, a 5 and a half hour bus trip. Typically, the whole of this day was filled with brilliant sunshine, We arrived in Cartagena at about 7.30pm and went to find a taxi to our accommodation. There was a sign on the wall with the areas of town and the fixed taxi prices to get to the places. We worked out it should not cost more than 17,000 pesos (£4.25) and made our way to the nearest taxi. There was another backpacker who was on our bus who said he was staying about a kilometer from our accommodation and could we share a taxi...Sure, no problem. Apparently this was a problem for the taxi drivers, who then told us we would have to get separate taxis or pay 30,000- over double the price. The backpacker, who spoke a lot more Spanish than us, fought our corner and insisted we could go together, we would agree to pay 20,000. An argument ensued, with Jonno and I both standing awkwardly, only being able to pick out a few of the words being said. Eventually, the taxi driver agreed to take us all, but the argument continued even in the car. During a quiet moment, the backpacker mentioned to us he had heard some taxi drivers in the area had been known to kidnap tourists and force them to withdraw money from ATMs. Not the most reassuring revelation. As soon as we reached our accommodation we made a quick exit, relieved to be away from the situation.

Our accommodation was in a gated area, and was run by the friendliest guy, who spoke amazing English for what we were used to. He gave us information about the area and what we could do. Most of the things in Cartagena are based in the old town, a walled area with pretty colonial buildings. But of course, the first day we were there it rained so heavily we avoided going outside until late afternoon, when we braved it with raincoats for another free walking tour. As we couldn't fully appreciate the city through the torrential rain, we took the next day to wander the streets to see what Cartagena had to offer. The area was definitely more aimed at holidaymakers than backpackers, which meant more upmarket restaurants and shops.

The ladies in the brightly coloured dresses come from a nearby village and sell fruit

Models showing the occupations of the local people

As we were on the coast, we took the opportunity on a relatively dry day to spend some time on a beach. The main beach most people went to was Playa Blanca, known for its white sand. We had also heard it was overcrowded and touristy, so on the recommendation of the guy who owned the guest house, we took a boat to a less pretty but quieter beach, and despite it being overcast, still managed to get sunburnt.

Cartagena was nice for a day or two but again, did not have that much appeal for us. So time to start making our way south and another overnight bus to Medellin.

Pretty streets of the old town

Sunset at the walls of the old town

COLOMBIA - Bogotá and San Gil

¡Buenas! Well, we’re off again! After a year of working and saving up, learning a tiny amount of very basic Spanish, fitting in three separate weddings with our own included, and managing to damage one father and one dog, we’ve set off on our trip around South America!

Our flight left Gatwick at what I would call horrific-o’clock, but most would refer to as ‘morning’, and headed to Orlando, where we’d get a connecting flight to Bogotá and arrive around 1am their time. Whilst the flights themselves were fairly uneventful (which is always a good thing), we did manage to break the seats in Gatwick Airport, as we felt a slight creak and several minutes later found the leftmost legs had completely splayed and we plummeted to earth. Being a flight to the USA, a few people made comments on suing the airport, but apart from a grazed heel I didn’t have a lot of injuries to boast about. Perhaps I could have claimed whiplash and emotional distress, but if that were the case, I think they would suspect we weren’t quite cut out for South America.

A great start!

We arrived in Orlando without any issues. This was our first glimpse of the USA, and unfortunately we didn’t have a whole lot of time to explore as our connecting flight was in around 5 hours time. We did however experience:

• An odd system where you don’t just transfer to your next flight, but have to check in and drop off all your bags again.
• Grown adults walking around wearing all the Disney merchandise you can (and can’t) imagine.
• A ‘medium’ coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts that came in what can only be described as a vase.
• Large people, and some very large people.
• TSA security checks where the queue quite literally doubled back on itself and filled up the airport.

Got our moneys worth I guess

Naturally as we were in America, so it seemed sensible to go for the finest Mexican cuisine, which is of course awesome. We’ll give the country a fairer review when we’ve had chance to visit and step outside the airport, but currently it’s lived up to all our expectations.

Onwards to Bogotá. We arrived in the pitch black and had our first hotel reserved, so we found an ATM and withdrew a mere 300,000 pesos. Not wanting to be stung for ATM charges, we hit the ‘check costs’ button, which immediately dispensed our money without another prompt. We later found out it doesn’t charge, so now we always hit this button just on the off chance out luck changes as soon as we just assume there won’t be one. We headed outside to the taxi rank, where we were immediately collared by someone to take us to our hotel. With my limited Spanish, I successfully gave him the address and agreed to pay what we now know is an extremely inflated price. With hindsight, we should have shopped around a little, but at 1AM (24 hours travelling at this point) we just wanted to get there. Soon into the drive, we were reminded that driving tests are very much a trait of highly developed countries, as we overtook everything in sight at double the speed limit on blind corners. We’ve arrived.

Our first experience of the place was our taxi driver telling us in Spanish and a tiny bit of English that the area was ‘un poco peligroso’ at night. That’s, a little bit dangerous. And why? Well that’s because of all the hookers of course! As we looked at all the street corners nearby, very little attempt to cover up the trader (in every meaning of the word) was visible. Oddly enough, the police seemed to be here too, we’re still not entirely sure what the deal is here. Either way, we paid the taxi driver and hurried into our hotel, where we were greeted with an excitingly basic room with nothing in the way of insulation, and it was notably chilly. Still, we had plenty of sleep to catch up on.

We headed down to breakfast the following morning, and asked in Spanish how we’d like our eggs. That much I understood. The options we were given were:

• Revuelto
• Frito
• Pericos

Frito I knew, no problem there. Revuelto I found out meant scrambled, so that was okay. Then I looked up pericos. Well, this seems to mean the following.

• Parakeet
• Toupee
• Giant Asparagus
• Urinal
• Cocaine
• White Coffee
• Apprentice
• Scrambled eggs

You can imagine our confusion.

Upon looking at a map and the location of touristy things to do, we concluded we were about 30 minutes drive away from anything useful. A little concerned about the volume of prostitutes in the vicinity, we decided that after this night, we’d find somewhere a little more local to everything. In the mean time, and hearing lots of stories about yellow cabs, we ordered an Uber into town.

Our driver was a little chattier than I was able to keep up with, again, only speaking Spanish. What I did manage to deduce however was he was telling us there had been a serious accident that morning in a yellow cab where it had hit a pole on the side of the road and everyone died. Yay. We arrived at Bolivar Square, with little idea as to what was going on. By the square were approximately 30 police officers and almost no other people. The driver told me the police were there for security rather than a problem, which was a relief. We said goodbye and had a look around.

So, what did we find in this area? Statues of fat women of course. All over the place. On bicycles, dancing, whispering to each other next to a pile of dogs. And why wouldn’t there be? Well, the reason for that would be revealed later.

We decided to take a walk through the centre and see what was going on. A lot of the roads were shut, and there were hundreds of cyclists about. As well as this, dogs, so many dogs. Everyone was out walking their dogs. We went to a nearby park to find hundreds of people there, all with their dogs. Now we weren’t complaining at all, but why on earth is everyone just cycling and walking dogs, surely these people have jobs to go to…? Well, we later found out it wasn’t just the most cyclist and canine friendly city in the world, but it was actually a national holiday on that day and they were holding a cycling event. Fair enough, although admittedly a little disappointing.

A traditional dish - the Bandeja Paisa

That afternoon, we decided to do the free walking tour of the city, where you just pay a tip at the end based on how good you thought the tour was. It was very comprehensive, covering everything from the liberator of the majority of South America from Spanish rule, Simon Bolivar, to the famous Colombian artist Fernando Botero who created paintings and sculptures where he’d play around with the volumes (a reference to the fat ladies we’d seen earlier), to the legend of El Dorado, the city of gold that the Spanish had been trying to discover. The tour also took us to a small cafe, where we sampled the traditional alcoholic drink chicha, and a type of hot beverage made by grinding together lots of different types of nuts and beans called chucula, which tasted like hot chocolate. They assured me it had no sugar in it, but I imagine they just meant it wasn’t 100% sugar unlike a lot of the other products here.

Chicha from a traditional drinking vessel

The following day, we moved all our stuff to a hotel far more central to everything. The door was about 8 foot tall and held shut by a slither of metal, the toilet had no toilet seat (which we’d soon discover is actually strangely typical here) and the bed was solid as a rock, but it would do. We then took a trip to the cable car up a nearby mountain with a church on top, with what would probably have been amazing views over the city, but unfortunately the weather was not on our side. The weather is extremely unpredictable in fact, you can be in beautiful sunshine to the point you almost burn, to almost monsoon-like rain, back to glorious sun again. All within an hour. Still, the views were interesting, and the tourists who got in the cable car, stood right at the front with their cameras out, then proceeded to admit they hated heights and stood there facing the opposite direction were good for a sensible chuckle.

Day three, we headed north of Bogotá to a town called Zipaquira, famous for its salt mines. More specifically, an entire cathedral made of salt built into a cave. Upon arrival, I was expecting a 5-10 minute look around a small cave built into a hill, with a little altar at the end, sort of how in Asia they’d pop a little altar and a statue of Buddha in a cave somewhere. Oh how wrong I was.

The cathedral is 200m underground, and started off as many individual aspects of Christianity, as the miners whilst down there would carve out crosses as they progressed. Eventually, they had the idea of joining everything together. From memory, it contained 14 small chapels, a balcony overlooking the main chapel, hundreds of statues and lights, along with a huge cross and pews in the main chapel. Services were still held every Sunday, it was a serious feat. And the walls tasted like salt, out tour guide kept mentioning you could lick everything. This was the first church I’d been to made of condiments.

Not a picture of a steep drop or a mirror, but 3cm of extremely salty water in a pool

We liked Bogotá. The buses were extremely crowded, but a fairly reliable way to get around as they had their own lanes in the middle of the roads. Unfortunately, the drivers were unaware they were driving triple carriage buses containing hundreds of people, and still drove them like they were riding a quad bike. My forearms were still aching for a while after, trying to grip on for dear life, as steering, braking and accelerating were all governed by whatever the Spanish equivalent of ‘go hard or go home’ was. Additionally, fruterias are common around Bogotá, shops selling fruit salads and fruit juices of all various types. This makes Diana exceptionally happy.

Our next stop was San Gil, a town around 6 hours north of Bogotá by bus, heralded as a nice place to see, as well as for its adventure sports. Initially we weren’t too fussed about the idea of the adventure sports, but after a while we considered that the paragliding in the area would be a good plan as the price was reasonable and we’d heard the views were incredible.

Firstly though, a walk. I suspect there will be a lot of these to come, but sure, lets give it a go. We travelled to a nearby town, Barichara, a little old square with tuktuks and narrow cobbled streets overlooking a canyon. After spending a couple of hours enjoying the views and charm of the town (and a cold coffee that was practically a desert), we began our walk from this town to the nearby town of Guane. Fortunately a mostly downhill walk, overlooking beautiful views. Calm, relaxing, as good as a walk can physically be I guess. That was, until…

Minding my own business taking photos, Diana suddenly piped up with something along the lines of ‘Uhm.. Wow okay..’. Looking up briefly, wondering what beautiful sight she’d spotted, my heart suddenly sank and I froze in position. Now, some of you may know I’m fine with little spiders, but anything fairly big or thick, I nope the hell out. So when I laid eyes on a tarantula the size of a plate walking across the path, I wasn’t exactly sure how best to react.

Sorry for the poor quality, but it's hard to get a photo of Satan himself whilst trying to keep your distance

My first feeling was of course fight or flight. Fight kicked in first, as I thought if I just push Diana over I have plenty more time to run as it devours her first. No, okay, not a great plan. I’ll just briskly walk around whilst trying to be brave enough to grab some photo evidence. I vaguely succeeded in that, and the image still sends a small shiver down my spine. Diana also survived to tell the tale as I decided not to sacrifice her to the arachnid gods on that particular day.

The rest of the walk was a little more apprehensive. Watching our footing a lot more carefully. Diana saying ‘Oh!’ as she spotted a cow on the path that we hadn’t noticed as we were paying more attention to the path making me jump a wee bit. The usual after you’ve just spotted a wild 8 legged predator, I’d like to think.

A larger than usual arachnid

Fortunately, apart from a tethered goat (I presume to appease the aforementioned arachnid gods?) there was nothing else along the path that was quite so uh, remarkable. The town of Guane was nice, quite similar to Barichara but a lot smaller. Some old guys sat on a bench told us to go down a path which led to a viewpoint, which was beautiful but almost made us miss the bus back, for which we had to run across the square in the hopes the driver would spot us.

We hope El Dios Araña will accept this ritual sacrifice

The following day we arranged the paragliding, something neither of us had done before. We met at 8.30 AM and took a fairly long minibus ride to the top of the canyon, where we were given a rundown of what would happen. The pilot spoke a little English, but gave a lot more information in Spanish. Fortunately he spoke slowly enough I could understand a fair amount, which I relayed as best as possible to Diana, who would be going before me as they went up with the lighter people first. For anyone who hasn’t done it before, the process is simple enough, they strap you to the pilot, get the wing up in the air, and then you run off a cliff, a normal activity for most humans. He did also mention that in emergency we should roll, and that if we land in the wrong place it could be a two hour walk back. But that doesn’t normally happen. Encouraging.

Diana was up, and they went through the process. Strapped her in, checked everything, told her not to touch a couple of the clips, which is great advice when you realise they’re the ones holding you in. The wing went up in the air, and I watched her run towards the cliff (admittedly I don’t know if her feet were even touching the ground but she tried). And then she disappeared over the edge, along with the wing which hadn’t grabbed any air and crumpled to the ground. Hum, now I’m a widower and have inherited a student debt and a load of green fabric. Wonderful.

Panic over, it wasn’t a cliff, just a fairly steep hill. They trudge back up and go for round two, this time successfully keeping the wing up. Around 20 minutes later Diana lands, almost kicking a number of people in the head as they came in to land as a strange angle, and walked back over beaming at me. About 30 minutes later and it was my turn, and I got to find out why, as the views over the canyon were absolutely amazing. You just sit there and get taken around, up and down with the hot air currents. A lot more relaxing than you’d imagine, that is until the last 5 minutes where he just said ‘Adrenaline?’ and I said yes. Several spirals and the feeling of being on a huge swing in the middle of the air later, and we came back down, fortunately in the expected landing zone rather than two hours walk away.

Our final day before we headed up to the coast, we spent the morning in Parque Gallineral, an area with various wildlife, flora and fauna, along with a river passing alongside it. Upon entering the park, we saw red squirrels and a parrot, however for some reason they both seemed to have odd lumps in various places. A parrot with a swollen neck, a squirrel with a lump on it’s cheek, and it’s friend with wildly disproportionate testicles to the size of its body. Lovely.

Tumorous face

Tumorous neck 

Chill out mate

Finally, we grabbed all of our bags and bits from where we were staying and sat in the square of San Gil for a few hours people watching, mentally preparing ourselves for the fun and games of a 12 hour overnight bus to Santa Marta on the northern coast of Colombia. Again, we liked San Gil, with it’s combination of a charming square and network of narrow streets, and the options of more fast paced adventure too . The nearby Barichara was our first experience of a laid back Colombian pueblo, and a great place to relax with a coffee and watch the world go by.

A void where stuff happened

Yeah there's a big gap here. We volunteered in Cambodia and then went to Japan and then lived in Cambodia and then went to New Zealand and then lived in Cambodia again and it was awesome.

We then went home and went back to our jobs and went to weddings including our own and then decided to go to South America and stuff.

So... Here we go again..!