Week 33 - Portobello, Panama City, Boquete, Bocas del Toro (Panama)

After a busy couple of weeks, the last week has been relatively relaxed.  We woke in Panama City for a pancake breakfast before heading to the bus terminal for a bus north back to the Caribbean coast to Colon where we changed buses to get to Portobello.  Colon is a dirty scary city and we were glad to be leaving straight away.  Once in Portobello it took us a while to find the hostel owned by one of the Darien Gapster owners, just a dorm room under a bar/restaurant on the hill.  The town itself is sweet, like something out of a ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ movie with ruins of the old fortifications and canons scattered amongst the brightly painted wooden buildings set around a deep water bay filled with sailing boats.  When we were in town they were filming for a new Escobar movie and there were film crews on the main street.  We only arrived late afternoon and we were a bit fragile from the previous night out so spent the day in the hostel watching TV and ate dinner in the restaurant upstairs.

The next day in Portobello was a rain day and we were pretty happy as it meant we didn’t feel guilty about not going out.  We ventured into the village to pick up supplies for lunch but no further.  We spent a delightful day lounging at the hostel watching TV on the laptop.

Friday was Rhys’s 28^th birthday and we decided to leave Portobello and head back to Panama City.  Although not the best way to start a birthday with a 4 hour journey we were back in Panama City by lunch time and checked in to the Hard Rock Hotel in the new town.  It was incredible, we looked pretty out of place checking in, you don’t realise quite how scruffy you’re getting when you’re with other travellers all the time.  Our room was huge, on the 44^th floor with a massive bathroom, luxurious complimentary toiletries, fluffy bathrobes and views out over the skyline and into the bay where you could see ships waiting to traverse the canal.  We changed and headed to McDonalds for lunch (a treat for Rhys’s birthday!) before visiting the infinity pool for a swim and a beer (where we were politely asked whether we were actually staying there and in what room!!).  We spent the next couple of hours in our room with a bottle of gin and a bottle of rum in our bathrobes listening to music while the sun set and the lights of the city came on.  We even had a knock at the door and were handed chocolates without a word, it was a wonderful place.  Later we headed to the Hard Rock Café for dinner and a mojito in one of the hotel bars. 

We had intended to leave Panama City the next day but after a great night’s sleep in the super king bed with fluffy pillows and a feather duvet we couldn’t bring ourselves to check out until the last possible moment which didn’t give us enough time to make it all the way to our next destination.  Instead we checked out at noon and headed back to the hostel in Casco Viejo, back to a 10 bed dorm and roughing it – a bit of a downer after the Hard Rock.  We spent the day watching TV, catching up on correspondence and eating ice cream by the cathedral before spending happy hour in the bar.

We left Panama City on Saturday for a bus to David and a connecting bus on to Boquete in the highlands.  Arriving after dark we checked in to a little hostel where we were the only people and ate the baked beans Tim had brought out as a belated birthday treat for Rhys. 

It was another rainy day when we awoke and the couple who were working at the hostel were in bed and of absolutely no use in helping us plan our day (anyone going to Boquete, avoid Hostal Nomba, not only were they of little help, we had to actually ask if we could have the free breakfast were first offered a room without a working light and the room we did end up in was dirty).  We headed to another hostel, Mama Llena, where they happily gave us advice on the treks we could do in the local area.  We chose Sendero Los Quetzales and caught a taxi to the trail head arranging for a return pick up 5 hours later.  The walk was pretty, through forest and quite steep and muddy in places but wasn’t mind blowing and it drizzled all day so wasn’t as magical as it could have been.  We walked half the trail to a mirador before turning around to head back to the collection point to wait for the taxi.  That night we had a visit from James and Fleur, an Australian couple we met on the Darien Gapster who were also in town and had a couple of beers before they headed off and we had the remaining beans for dinner.

We were ready to leave Boquete and the weird hostel the next day and caught a bus back to David and an onward bus to Almirante.  From there we caught a taxi to the port and a boat out to Bocas del Toro, the main island of the Bocas archipelago.  We checked into a 6 bed dorm where two of the others had been there for so long they’d unpacked everything everywhere.  After a couple of rums on the hostel balcony we headed out for Mexican before bed. 

Rhys in the pool, Hard Rock Hotel, Panama City.

The view from our room on the 44th floor, Hard Rock Hotel, Panama City.

Sendero Los Quetzales, Boquete.

Week 32 - Turbo, La Miel, San Blas, Panama City (Colombia, Panama)

After a late night ice cream in Cartagena, we were up early to walk across town to the meeting point for our travel group to the Panamanian border.  Along with 7 others we jumped in a minibus organised by the Darien Gapster team to Monteria, 5 hours away, with Rhys perched on the bitch seat (definition – worst seat in a vehicle).  Once in Monteria we swapped to another van for the last 4 hours to Turbo.  Turbo has a terrible reputation and you wouldn’t want to explore the streets after dark which is part of the reason why we’d decided to join the travel group rather than making our own way to the start of the boat trip.  

The next morning we headed to the port to catch our boat to Capurgana a few hours away across the bay.  It was a beautiful little fishing village surrounded by lush forest and we wished we’d got there a few days earlier to explore.  We spent a couple of hours there waiting to get our passports stamped to leave Colombia, the electricity was out so we had to wait for the guy to text all our details to his head office to get clearance.  While waiting we ran into the oddest American guy ever, one of those people who should never have been allowed to travel alone, if you’ve ever seen Shooting Stars and are familiar with the character Angelos Epithemiou you’lll have some idea.  When our passports were finally stamped we boarded another smaller boat for a short trip to Sapzurro where we met our captain, Adam, on the dock and loaded our big backpacks into the boat for storage. 

From Sapzurro a short walk over a hill took us to the Panama border and down into the small bay of La Miel where we were to spend the night in hammocks at a hostel owned by the Darien Gapster team right on the beach.  The hostel is still in the process of being built so it’s pretty basic but is on a beautiful little beach with warm sea and lush green forest – although the end of the beach away from the hostel is completely covered in plastic litter.  To get there you pass through military checkpoints and past avocado trees full of fruit.  Once there we headed out to swim in a natural pool in the river in the forest behind the hostel before walking back into the village to grab some lunch cooked by some woman in her home kitchen.  That night we met the other 9 people who we would be spending the next 3 nights with and spent hours sitting on the beach drinking rum spotting shooting stars.

The first day of the Darien Gapster we walked a short distance to the next bay where we climbed aboard our boat.  The first stop was at Puerto Obaldia, essentially a military check point where we bumped in to the crazy American again and spent a couple of hours waiting to get our passports stamped by a very friendly chatty immigration guy.  Adam then spent another hour trying to convince the military that they didn’t need to empty and search the entire boat and managed to persuade them to find the sniffer dog to check it over.  Finally we were off and on our way to the San Blas.  We stopped for lunch at a deserted island and spent a couple of hours snorkelling and sun bathing before heading to Caledonia, a Kuna village where we were allocated hammocks for the night.  It was a great experience; we were the only gringos there and nothing had been put on for show, people were just going about their daily business.  We wondered around the village watching the kids play football and ate wonderfully fresh seafood in a small restaurant (and the only one on the island I think), Rhys had conch and I had octopus.  That night a lot of rum was drunk.

Our second day on the boat we had the longest at sea, a 3 hour trip to Isla Iguana.  The island was stunning, white sandy beaches, palm trees, coconuts and warm Caribbean Sea.  Other than a Kuna couple who looked after the coconuts we were the only people on the island and strung our hammocks in little huts.  We spent the afternoon on the beach and snorkelling, although the reef was a little way off the island and Rhys got stung by something unidentified.  That night was a lot more chilled, a campfire using the driftwood found along the beach (Rhys was in his element), dinner, a few rums and we were in bed relatively early.

The third day we packed up camp and headed to yet another stunning deserted island where we spent the morning and had lunch of fresh fish, rice and lentils brought over by a Kuna man.  This island was tiny and you could walk around it in 5 minutes.  It was a little slice of paradise.  The reef wrapped around like a half moon and offered great snorkelling with a huge sting ray.  After lunch we boarded the Darien Gapster again to head to the last island of our trip, Isla Senidup.  Still beautiful I think this was probably our least favourite stop, it had two hostels on the island, only little cabins on the beach not huge buildings or anything but still it was the first stop where we felt like we were back on the gringo trail.  Lunch was announced by a conch trumpet and we spent the afternoon snorkelling, swimming and reading on the beach.  As an addition to dinner we’d stopped some fisherman on our way to the island and brought their entire days catch of lobster and had it served up on massive platters, you’ve never seen anything like it, each lobster tail was the size of my forearm.  After dinner we went to sit on the beach away from the disco ball in the bar.  At about midnight the discovery was made of glowing plankton just off the beach so we all jumped in to splash around making the plankton glow like fairy dust in our wake.  We slept that night in beds in cabins, the first beds we’d had in days. 

Our last day we were woken for breakfast by the conch trumpet and spent the morning relaxing on the beach recovering from the previous night’s rum.  We transferred our bags to a different boat so the Darien Gapster could stay moored at the island and motored the final 30 minutes to Carti.  After weaving through mangroves, the boat docked in the middle of nowhere in the Kuna Reserve where we paid our fee and climbed into 4WD’s bound for Panama City.  The next hour of driving was like a rollercoaster the roads were ridiculously bendy.  I had the bitch seat and Rhys had to hold me in place to stop me flying around.  The 4WD dropped the 7 people in our jeep at Luna’s Castle, a hostel in a colonial mansion in the old town area of Casco Viejo where 5 of us ended up staying.  We were all pretty worn out (it’s surprising how tiring sitting on deserted islands drinking rum can be) and only ventured a couple of blocks from our hostel for dinner at a cheap café before heading to bed.

Grateful for a good night’s sleep, after a pancake breakfast we spent the morning exploring Casco Viejo.  It’s a really sweet little colonial area but is in quite a state of disrepair with crumbling buildings and cracked pavement everywhere.  There is a lot of investment in restoring the area at present and it’s starting to turn into a smaller version of Cartagena with flower filled balconies, art installations in the crumbling buildings and boutique shops and hotels lining the streets.  We spent a lovely couple of hours just wandering around and looking at the artisanal stalls and admiring the plazas and views of the skyline of the new city (which could rival some of the big North American cities).  After a brief visit to the fish market we headed back to the hostel before grabbing a cab with Caitlin and Brandon for a round trip to the visitor centre at the Miraflores Locks of the Panama Canal.

Although we’d been told that the Canal was a little boring we had a great time.  We saw a massive cargo ship pass through the lock followed by a tanker and some smaller fishing and tourist vessels.  The toll fees paid vary from $420k for the largest ever ship to $0.36 for a guy who swam it and the boat we saw had paid $400k – it seems expensive but apparently it would cost 10 times more and take 10-20 days to pass around the continent rather than through it.  After spending an hour on the viewing platform we headed to the theatre for a 3D showing with some great Canal facts before whizzing through the 4 storey museum and back to meet the cab for the drive back in to town.  The Canal is in the process of being enlarged, by 40% in width and 66% in length, due to complete next year and I can’t even imagine the size ships that will pass through then.

Back in Panama City we said goodbye to Brandon and stopped at a microbrewery around the corner from our hostel.  A few pitchers and a tour of the brewery later and we headed back to the hostel to find Gina, one of the girls from the San Blas, had been to hospital with a blood infection that she’d picked up from a sand-fly bite – scary stuff.  We spent the rest of the evening in the hostel bar in an outdoor courtyard making the most of $1 happy hour vodkas.

Isla Iguana, San Blas, Darien Gapster

Isla Iguana, San Blas, Darien Gapster

Isla Pelican, San Blas, Darien Gapster.

Sting Ray,  Isla Pelican, San Blas, Darien Gapster

Rhys with our lobster dinner, San Blas, Darien Gapster

Isla Senidup, San Blas, Darien Gapster

Panama City, view from Casco Viejo.

Cargo boat traversing the Panama Canal

Week 31 - Cabo de la Vela, Punta Gallinas, Palomino, Taganga, Cartagena (Colombia)

Our first day in Cabo de la Vela, considered the treasure of the La Guajira peninsula, we woke and jumped in the sea in place of a shower since there was no running water.  With the aim of getting to Pilon de Azucar beach, about an hour or so north of the village, and back before the midday sun kicked in we started walking around 8am.  The walk was hot, winding along the sandy tracks surrounded by miles of scrubland and hundreds of cacti.  After stopping a local on a motorcycle to check we were heading in the right direction we tackled the last dune and made it to the beach.  It was beautiful, other than a couple who were staying at our hostel in town it was deserted.  Although not a tropical beach, the desolation and golden sands made it one of the nicest we’ve been to in South America.  After an hour or so of relaxing and swimming in the Caribbean me and Rhys walked up to the view point where there is a statue of the Virgin and marvelled at the views over the bay and for miles beyond.  As it got close to midday and all shade was disappearing we headed back to the hostel leaving Tim on the beach.  Tim spent the afternoon walking to the lighthouse (apparently not worth the walk) and met us back at the hostel a few hours later.  Me and Rhys spent the time chilling on the beach outside our room, drinking beer and snorkelling a few metres off shore – plenty of fish considering it was just a clump of sea weed, we saw a ray, a plaice (we think) and lots of brightly coloured tropical fish.  That night we ate at a restaurant a little further along the beach and had the most amazing red snapper – Rhys chose large and no joke it could have fed a small family.

The next day we were awoken by a knock on the door at 7am.  We’d been told we’d booked on to a day trip to Punta Gallinas leaving at 8am.  The 4WD was already outside waiting for us.  Then as we were about to leave, the hostel owner rocked up and asked us if we wanted to store our bags at the hostel as we wouldn’t be back until the morning – a bit of a surprise but we hurriedly packed up our bags and rolled with it.  Lonely Planet had advised us we’d have to drive to a nearby bay where we’d then take a boat to get to Punta Gallinas and the hostel owner had given us the same story.  In actuality there was no boat – as it’s the end of the dry season it’s possible to just drive the whole way.  It was a bumpy few hours and by the time we got to our first stopping point we were excited to be out of the land cruiser.  Along the way we had been impressed with the road blocks put up by the locals – a piece of string across the track that gets lowered once you’ve made payment of a bar of soap.   

The first stop was Playa Taroa.  The scrubland gives way to huge golden sand dunes that run straight down into the sea.  Of course the first thing Rhys and Tim did was run down the dunes and jump into the sea (well Rhys made it to the sea, Tim stacked beforehand).  After 2 hours of soaking up the views and enjoying the sun we were back in the car to drive to the lighthouse – the most northern point of South America.  You really think they could have made more of an effort, I’ve seen more complex bits of scaffolding.  Next we were back in the car to drive to a lagoon with hundreds of shell fossils, bright blue water and mangroves.  Another beach stop and we drove back to a hostel (well a roofed area with some toilets and running water!) on the cliff overlooking the lagoon.  The view was breath-taking, in the middle of the desert suddenly there’s  this beautiful lagoon with trees of every shade of green and as the sun started to sink the colours just made it all the more magical.  We ate lobster for dinner while watching the full moon before retiring to our chinchorros – large hammocks made by the local people with big floppy sides you wrap over you like a blanket.

The next day we ate breakfast at the hostel before jumping in a fisherman’s boat for a quick 20 minute jaunt across the lagoon to where our tour guide Michael was waiting with the land cruiser.  About 2.5 hours and one speedy tire change later and we were back in Cabo de la Vela.  We collected our bags from the hostel and Michael drove us to Uribia where we jumped in a collective to Riohacha and then a bus back to Palomino.  I spent at least 30 minutes of the bus journey reading English to a little Colombian boy who was super excited to play with my Kindle.  After a 10 minute walk from the main road towards the village and the beach we managed to check into the last 3 beds in the Dreamer hostel where everybody seems to stay.  Within 5 minutes of walking in we saw Monique (who we’d last seen in Banos) and a group of Irish people we’d met in Taganga.  As we didn’t get there until 4ish we had a quick swim and spent the evening playing pool, eating pizza and drinking at the hostel before heading out for a midnight bonfire on the beach.  All three of us loved Punta Gallinas and were really happy we’d made the decision to head up north rather than go to Tayrona National Park, not only was it incredibly beautiful but there’s a smug satisfaction in knowing you’ve got off the gringo trail a little and made the effort to get to a place few people actually get to.

The following day we joined a group to go tubing – supposedly a really relaxing experience with toucans and monkeys everywhere I think the sheer number of tourists has made it a bit more difficult to see anything more than a few locals fishing and cleaning clothes in the river.  Other than a fleeting glimpse of a toucan the most wildlife we saw was a herd of cows wading the river.  We really enjoyed it though, sun burn, lost sunglasses and all.  A 20 minute truck ride with Rhys and Tim holding on for dear life and a 40 minute walk through the forest was followed by an hour and a half floating down the river to the beach, being pushed along by two guides when the current wasn’t strong enough. 

Back at the hostel we packed up and headed back to the main road to catch a bus back to Santa Marta and a taxi to Taganga.  Back in Taganga the hostel we liked was fully booked so we checked into a cheap and cheerful option next door before meeting up with Benjamin and Mathieu, the two Belgium guys and heading to a restaurant called Pachamama where we had one of the most amazing meals we’ve had in South America, the biggest steak and the most delicious fish.  After dinner we headed to happy hour at a quiet bar on the beach before me, Rhys and Tim decided to go to a nightclub to see Tim off in style.

Needless to say we weren’t feeling on top form the next morning and after moving our bags over to the hostel where beds had freed up we spent the day dozing in front of the TV, swimming and playing pool.  That night we headed out for dinner at another restaurant that had been highly recommended but that didn’t have a scratch on Pachamama – Babaganoush.  We were all pretty tired so we headed back to the hostel and I went to bed while the others stayed up on the roof for a while to have one last goodbye drink. 

Yesterday we said goodbye to Tim, Benjamin and Mathieu.  It has been amazing to have Tim with us and we made an awesome threesome, Tim is very easy to travel with and can understand more Spanish than me so made my life easier.  After they’d left, me, Rhys and Monique packed our bags and headed to the bus station in Santa Marta for a bus to Cartagena.  By the time we arrived it was late afternoon and we just had time to organise a few bits ready for our trip on the Darien Gapster.  I’ve been feeling abit under the weather so had a very early night while Rhys and Monique went out for late night ice cream.

Today has been another sorting day and a recovery day for me.  We’ve been in to town a few times but just to pick up odds and ends and change money into USD ready for Panama.  Tomorrow we have an early start to meet the rest of our travel group to head by land and boat to La Miel.

Pilon de Azucar, Cabo de la Vela. 

Me on Playa Taroa sand dunes.

The lighthouse at the most northern point of South America.

The lagoon, Punta Gallinas.

View from our hostel and one of my favourite views in the whole of South America, Punta Gallinas.

The drive to Punta Gallinas from Cabo de la Vela.

Our chinchorros, Punta Gallinas. 

Gas station on the road to Punta Gallinas from Cabo de la Vela.

Rhys tubing, Palomino.

Week 30 - Ciudad del Perdida, Taganga, Cabo de la Vela (Colombia)

We rolled out of bed and out of the hostel at about 11am and headed to the bus station for a bus to Santa Marta.  Although we were told the bus was direct and would take 3-4 hours we ended up stopping in Barranquilla and arriving after 5 hours.  From Santa Marta we grabbed a taxi to Taganga, a small fishing village overrun with hippies and gringos a couple of kilometres from Santa Marta.  The hostel we checked into, La Masia, was more like a boutique hotel with rooms set around a pool area.  It was a shame we were so tired after the last night in Cartagena because two of the guys we’d met in Uruguay were at the hostel and a catch up was on the cards – instead we packed ready for the trek to Ciudad del Perdida and got an early night.

We were picked up from our hostel by Magic Tours in a 4WD for a 2 hour drive to Machete (EL Mamey), a village at the Lost City trail head.  There were 3 others in our group, a Chilean couple, Carolina and Juan and an Austrian guy, Max.  We were incredibly lucky since they all spoke fluent English and our guide couldn’t say a word so they had to act as out translators over the next 4 days.  It’s at times like that that you realise how much we miss out on by only having very limited Spanish skills.  We arrived at a restaurant in the village run by our guides family for a quick lunch before heading out to start the trek. 

The first day of the trek the tracks are mostly in agricultural land and you weave through pastures and banana plantations stopping at various points for watermelon and oranges.  We walked for about 3 hours or so and climbed the steepest and longest hill of the trail stopping for a swim at a natural pool and spending the night in hammocks at the Alfredo campsite.  The second day you start to weave through the luxuriant foothills of the Sierra Nevada and you start to feel more and more removed from civilisation despite the city only being 23.3km away from the starting point.  We walked for about 3 hours to the lunch point where we swam and chilled before walking a further 4 hours to camp, the last hour in torrential rain.  Day 3 we had a short walk along the river before arriving at the bottom of the stairs leading to the city where we spent a couple of hours walking around with the guide before heading back along the trail to the day 2 lunch point to camp.  The last day, day 4 was a mammoth walk but we were all in good spirits and made it back in double quick time for a swim at the natural pool before lunch in the village.  The walk isn’t so difficult and the distance is quite short but the hills are incredibly steep and slippery, there are river crossings to contend with and the heat and humidity means that even when it’s not raining (and we were incredibly lucky with very little rain) you’re still soaked through from the humidity and sweat, very attractive.

Ciudad del Perdida is the ‘lost city’ of the Tayronas.  Although the ruins themselves aren’t generally considered to be as spectacular as those found at Machu Picchu, thanks to its geographic isolation the city has maintained its natural allure and has a certain magic to it.  One of the greatest appeals was the small number of people making the hike, only 15 people set off on the day we started compared to 500 people on the Inca Trail and not only that but hiking the trail is the only way to reach the ruins so when you arrive it’s not overrun by busloads of tourists who have rocked up on a day trip.  We didn’t even see the other group when we were at the ruins are the only sound was of the howler monkeys and tropical birds.  The city was built sometime after 500AD and was discovered in 1975 when tomb raiders started looting and scavenging the site.  The first tour group travelled to the ruins in 1982.  The site consists of more than a thousand circular terraces that once served as the foundations for Tayrona homes and running through the city and down to the Buritaca river valley is a complex network of paved footpaths and steep stone steps (over 1,350 in total) purportedly added later to obstruct the advance of Spanish horsemen.

Other that walking through the forest and marvelling at the colourful birds, poisonous frogs (Rhys spotted two!) and butterflies one of the highlights is bumping into Kogi Indians on the path.  They’re not there to sell you bracelets and to have their photos taken for a fee but live there and are just going about their daily business drifting on and off the main path, in their white tunics and brightly coloured bead necklaces and welly boots.  The women are relatively shy and a friendly ‘hola’ usually only received a grunt in reply and the men would run past before you even realised they were coming carrying with them their ‘poporos’, a saliva coated gourd they are given at 18 when they wed that holds the lime to activate the coca they constantly chew.

We were all pretty tired and ready for a shower and clean cloths by the time the jeep arrived back in Taganga.  We checked back into La Masia and arranged to meet Juan, Carolina and Max for dinner in one of the restaurants on the beach road before buying a few beers to drink in the bay. 

The next day Tim was up early to scuba dive – he’s done hundreds of dives and although Taganga doesn’t offer the most spectacular diving it’s another box ticked and he saw turtles and barracuda and was almost sick from the hangover and boat rocking combinationn.  Me and Rhys spent the day in the hostel by the pool.  That night Juan, Carolina and Max stopped by at our hostel for a drink and we spent the night playing pool and drinking happy hour mojitos.

The next day we started our adventure to reach the most northern point on the South American continent.  After a cab from Taganga to Santa Marta we caught a bus to Riohacha.  Although Lonely Planet said it was 4 hours away we were there within 2.5 hours which was a bonus since we’d left the hostel an hour later than intended and had just realised that the trip ahead was a lot longer than we first thought.  Once in Riohacha one of the guys from the bus company called a collective to come and pick us up for the hour long drive to Uribia.  We waited for 20 minutes for a fourth person to join us in the car before deciding we had to get a move on and paid the extra fee for the driver to take just the three of us.  In Uribia our driver dropped us off at the point for the 4WD’s to Cabo de la Vela and we were piled in, Tim in the back with about 12 other people and me and Rhys in the front with a lady with a baby and the driver.  Thankfully most of the people had climbed out before Cabo and we had enough room to breathe.  The landscape was stunning, it became more and more arid and deserty with the most beautiful colours as the sun started to drop low in the sky.  We pulled up in Cabo and checked in to a basic hostel with air con but no running water right on the beach.  It felt pretty remote, like we’d actually made it off the gringo trail.  The journey was nowhere near as arduous as we’d been lead to believe and was worth the effort.

Tim hiking to Ciudad del Perdida.

Rhys and Tim at Tim Ciudad del Perdida.

Me and Rhys on the hike to Ciudad del Perdida.

Tim and Rhys on the way back from Ciudad del Perdida.

Carolina, Juan, Tim and Rhys cooling down in the natural pool.

The drive to Cabo de la Vela.

Week 29 - Hacienda Venecia, Medellin, Tolu, Cartagena (Colombia)

We woke and packed glad to be leaving the Hacienda and tried to get the Jeep to take us over to the hostel.  We ended up leaving our bags at the house (the jeep was picking people up from Manizales) and wading across the river again ready for that mornings coffee tour (that they’d forgotten we’d reserved to do).  The tour was actually really good.  The guide spoke perfect English and really knew his stuff.  He started by explaining with a world map where different types of coffee are grown and exported to – as Colombia doesn’t have much of a coffee culture they only drink the defect beans here and export all the premium beans to Europe.  After peeling and sorting some premium beans we roasted them and spent some time playing with an aroma kit, it’s amazing just how distinct different coffees can be depending on the origin of the bean, the blend and the roast.   A short walk through the plantation and we were back at the Hacienda to load our bags in to the jeep before a quick swim and a lift to the bus station in Manizales.

From Manizales we caught a bus to Medellin, a big, modern, extremely clean city (we’ve been shocked at how dirty Colombia is; the rubbish in the streets is on a whole new level and a hundred times worse than any of the other countries we’ve been to in South America).  Although it’s not the prettiest city, think lots of tower blocks and malls, in February 2013, it was announced as the most innovative city in the world due to its recent advances on politics, education and social development, in the poorest districts there are cable cars and even outdoor escalators to help the population move about and they built the new library in one of the poor districts to boost civic pride.  

On arriving we checked into a hostel in a residential district and headed out for food with a Welsh guy called Kerry.  We couldn’t find anywhere overly exciting and ate in a shopping mall near the financial district where we’d been told there were bars – imagine Canary Wharf on a Sunday night, dead and very modern. 

We ended up staying up in the hostel till gone 3am so were not raring to go the next day.  Tim however was keen to go parascending and having done the research and told us just how cheap it was we thought it would be silly to miss it.  We caught the metro to the northern bus terminal (so unlike the tube, you’re not even allowed to drink a bottle of water) and then a bus to San Felix.  The bus trip was cool, winding up the hills surrounding the city with views over the valley.  The parascending was great fun; we had 20 minute flights and soared around on the thermals before spiraling back down to the launch site, the landing doing nothing for our hangovers.  We stopped for lunch at a little restaurant on the hillside overlooking the city before heading back to our hostel to chill.  That night the boys went out for ‘boys night’ which as far as I can tell means doing shots and talking about boobs and rugby.

Tim spent the next day in the hostel recovering while Rhys dragged himself on the Escobar Tour with me – since he’d been looking forward to it for weeks he didn’t want to miss it.  The tour was ok, we learnt a couple of interesting facts but mainly we were driven around the city looking at various buildings Escobar used to own, stopping at the house where he was shot in 1993 and at his grave while our intense guide told us about how the drug trade is fueling the war and the bloodshed.  Pablo Escobar was the head of the Medellin cartel and was an extremely rich man with millions of people working for him and was briefly in politics.  At one point he offered to pay off the USD$13bn national debt in exchange for 3 districts forming a republic of which he would be head and where drugs would be legal – surprisingly the government didn’t accept the offer.  Back at the hostel we grabbed pizza before heading to the bus terminal for a night bus to Tolu.

Having not slept much on the night bus Rhys stayed at the hostel the next day to sleep and play on the computer.  After a nap though, me and Tim decided we would venture out to one of the nearby beaches for the afternoon, Lonely Planet informing us it was only a short bus ride and a moto-taxi away (liers!).  it was a mini adventure, first we caught a mini bus to Covenas where we changed for another smaller bus to San Antero.  From there we caught moto-taxis to Playa Blanca.  The moto taxi ride was worth the trip alone, after passing through the backstreets of a village we came out on the beach and rode along the sand track.  The beach was quiet with a number of small restaurants and bars.  We sat and enjoyed a beer, swam in the warm Caribbean Sea and walked along the beach before finding a really nice bar with swings for a few more drinks.  It was dark by the time we got back to Tolu. 

As the diving was expensive Tim joined me and Rhys for a day trip to Isla San Bernando, an archipelago that consists of 7 small islands that are promoted as a paradise of white beaches, mangroves and crystal clear waters, supposedly far superior to the more touristy Isla Rosario near Cartagena.  After a squashed but super fast boat ride we arrived at our first stop at Isla Las Palmas where for an additional charge you could go to an Aquarium – we sat on the pier watching the fish waiting for the boat ride to continue.  Next our boat did a fly by of Isla Santa Cruz de Islote, one of the world’s most populated islands where everyone lives squashed together with not ever a foot between buildings.  Our last stop was on Isla Múcura.  We had expected white sand beaches, we got a sandy area surrounded by little restaurants but no beach.  The sea was bright bright blue and warm as a bath.  We spent hours playing around in the shallows and hired snorkels to be taken out to a buoy with a guide and a boat to spend 45 mins snorkelling watching loads of small colourful fish and starfish.  Although not a massively successful day trip the snorkelling and the boat trip somewhat saved it– the spray on the boat on the way back to Tolu left us totally drenched.   We spent our last night in Tolu enjoying a bottle of rum on the hostel roof terrace.

From Tolu we caught a bus to Cartagena.  To get to the bus station we flagged a bike thing and Rhys had to join the driver to help peddle, in the baking heat with 4 people and 3 backpacks it was no mean task.   From the bus terminal in Cartagena to our hostel we had the most memorable taxi journey.  Not only did our driver not know where we were going (even though we showed him a map) and we had to stop numerous times to ask people, he got out to shout at another cab driver and the police came and moved him along and then a couple of metres further down the road we crashed into another cab and he paid off the cab with his meagre days takings.  By the time we got to the area our hostel was in we were just glad to be out of the cab.  Then as he dropped us just on a main road it took a couple of blocks walking in the wrong direction for us to get our bearings.  Thankfully the hostel was really nice, a great communal area that you could lounge around in and air con in the dorms – a must when the temperature gets up to the mid 30’s every day.  Although it was our biggest dorm yet with 10 people it was fine.  After check in we headed in to town to find food and to explore the old centre.  Cartagena is quite possibly one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen.  It’s really colonial and the buildings are either white with bright coloured decorations or are bright bright oranges and blues, it has a real Caribbean feel.  The buildings all have huge wooden doors often painted bright colours and there are wooded balconies and flowers everywhere. 

We ate out in a square near our hostel in San Diego that night for a bargain price then headed over to gringo-ville, Getsemaní which is a much dirtier and grittier area of the city than the Old Town or San Diego where our hostel was but it’s also the area for cheaper bars and food.  We popped into a couple of bars before heading back to our hostel.

The next morning we enjoyed a lay in and chilled at the hostel.  I popped out for a bit to get deliciously lost in the Old Town and to take some photos before heading back for lunch at the hostel.  The morning was livened up by an explosion outside the hostel window when a bird landed on the electric pylon scaring us all half to death.  At 1:30pm we headed back to Getsemani where we’d booked a tour to the El Totumo Mud Volcano about an hours drive out of the city.  It was bizarre, you pull up in the middle of nowhere to this 15m high mole hill.  You change into your bikini and ascend the staircase and climb in to the crater where you float about in the viscous mud and get massaged by local men.  Then, when you’ve had your fill you walk down to the lake where local women come out with bowls to wash you clean making you strip off so they can clean your swim shorts/bikini bottoms.  I’m not sure if it was a hundred per cent relaxing but made us laugh a lot.  That night we headed over to Getsemani again to meet up with some people from our tour for drinks and ended up in Media Luna, a popular hostel bar until 3am.

Coffee tour, Hacienda Venecia.

Coffee plantation, Hacienda Venecia.

Cartagena.

Islas San Bernando, Isla Mucura.

Isla Santa Cruz del Islote.

Tim snorkelling.

El Totumo Mud Volcano.