The rest of Colombia

The bus down to Bogota turned into a total mission, 20 hrs with the aircon on full blast (Why do they do this? everyone was freezing) and a horribly uncomfortable seat. At one point after 7hrs without a stop I was dying of thirst and did something kinda stupid; I had a few sips of water from the sink in the toilet, big mistake.

Arriving in Bogota everything was fine and I settled in for an afternoon nap (I love naps) only to wake up two hours later with a raging fever. I thought maybe I was just dehydrated so I downed a few glasses of water but then things became even more interesting, particularly in the digestive system.....

Three days and only two meals later I was starting to think that maybe I had dengue fever or something so I went down to the clinic and was put on a drip straight away. No dengue fortunately and after two big bags of saline I felt ten times better, probably could have saved 150 dollars just by drinking a bit more water..... The doctor prescribed 5 different drugs to take to get rid of the bugs but I thought I`d give it a day and see how I felt first.

That night was a party bus tour of Bogota stopping at three clubs along the way and after feeling great all afternoon I grabbed a seat, along with two other guys from Melbourne (there are Aussies everywhere in Colombia, possibly even the biggest nationality of backpackers there). Was an epic night, finishing up watching the sunrise from a club on the 30th floor of a building in town with a couple of hundred other backpackers and locals all getting down seriously hard. Bogota sure knows how to party!!!

The Plaza de Simon Bolivar near my hostel, I stayed in La candelaria, the old quarter.

Las candelaria has a great vibe, kinda alternative artsy with lots of bars and cafes

The next day after a good sleep in I walked down to the gold museum to check out the huge collection of pre-Colombian artefacts in what is amongst the greatest gold museums in the world.

So much gold.....

This guy was my favourite:

Not surprisingly they have some serious doors there

Bogota is a great city and definitely my favourite one so far in Latin America. Very well organised with modern transport, very clean (so nice to be somewhere clean again) and heaps to see and do. The people are really friendly too.

After Bogota I caught the bus down to Salento via Armenia to see some wax palms. I had seen some photos of the area and it looked spectactular, with 70/80 foot high palm trees poking out above the rainforest canopy and more dotted about the rolling hills of farmland surrounding the town. I arrived in Armenia too late to get to Salento that day so spent the night in a hotel and went over the next morning.

My plan was to get to town and walk around and over to the valley nearby where the wax palms supposedly were. I probably should have done some more research before I left because when I got to the town ( a very pretty little town nonetheless) I walked up the hill to see absolutely no wax palms for miles in every direction. I then found out that the valley was 11 km away and then you have to keep walking on from there to the palms, DOH!

The view was quite nice however and back in town I had some amazing and cheap local Coffee (this area is the main coffee producing region in Colombia, one of the biggest coffee exporters in the world) and a nice lunch and sat in the square in the sun with a good book waiting for the bus back to Armenia.

Salento

Next stop was Medellin for the weekend and some more partying. I stayed Casa Kiwi, a great hostel with a rooftop pool and a bar downstairs so the partying was not hard to come by and I had another great Saturday night of drinking, talking crap and dancing my dubious version of Salsa.

The road from Armenia to Medellin had some great views:


Medellin from the roof of the hostel


From Medellin to Cali next (absolutely nothing going on there....) and then from Cali down to the Ecuadorian border. In Cali I noticed a small pimple/bite thing on my foot and after dealing with it I thought that would be the end of the story. My foot was kind of aching a little bit but I got on the bus from Cali to the border anyway, little aches and pains usually sort themselves out pretty quick after all.

Just inside the Colombian side of the border I took a quick detour to check out the famous church on the river near Ipiales, very pretty:



Ha Ha, nice hats guys


And into Ecuador....

Cartegena and Taganga

Cartagena itself, whilst definitely a beautiful, interesting and history-filled place just didn´t really captivate me in the way I had assumed it would. I guess this was mostly to do with the fact that I had by now seen half a dozen of these restored colonial cities and was finding it a bit hard to get excited about old(ish) buildings.

The big fort overlooking town


Still my visit did include a day out at the mud volcano, bobbing around with 20 other backpackers in lukewarm, slightly stinky mud with the consistency of thick cream:

glad I had a shower before I left the hostel

not so clean now



time to rinse off in the lagoon


Next stop was the small fishing village of Taganga four hours away for more some scuba diving to keep my skills up and some lazing around on the beach. I shared a cab from Santa Marta, the city in the next bay, with Kassia, a Brazilian girl Id met on the bus, and rocked up at a small hostel some friends had recommended to her, hostel Chez Moi. Turned out to be the best hostel I´ve stayed in all trip, mostly due to the two Colombian owners, Angie and Cata, being two of the most fun, welcoming and friendly people in the world.

kinda Mexican landscapes around town, lots of lizards and cactuses

These lizards where absolutely everywhere


The diving turned out to be a no go as the visibility was terrible due to the recent rain however the beach was still lovely and just chilling in the hostel with a few beers and heaps of good people was more than reason enough to stay for a week.



The second afternoon we had a painting/drinking session (always a great mix!) and we all added our own little touch to the hostel´s eclectic decorations.

Angie and I with our mountains, sealife and other random things (I apologise for the surfing Kangaroo, I was drunk after all....)

During the week I popped over to Tayrona National Park to explore its many small boulder strewn bays and coves, although I was a little disappointed at how expensive it was (20 bucks to get in, 9 for a hammock and at least 8 for each meal). Also it was pretty much exactly the same as Wilsons Promontory NP near Melbourne, same rocks, same sand, same mozzies, even down to the red lichen on the boulders....


Well it was kinda pretty I suppose

Another day was also made out at Los Angeles beach a little further out along the coast, as it was Angies day off and she wanted to show us a bit more of the area. Had a great day playing around in the sand and surf and maybe we got a little too much sun because somehow Angie and I missed the last bus back to town. With no torch, no money and no real idea how to get a ride back we shuffled back up the path to the main road and spent the next two hours frantically waving Angies mobile phone at passing cars and trucks. Of course I was playing it super cool and doing my best ¨tough Aussie bushman¨ impersonation but secretly I was getting a little worried; the middle of nowhere in Colombia at night is definitely not a great place for a spot of hitchhiking.

We did manage to get a bus back (eventually) and even a cab back to the hostel. It really goes to show that no matter how tricky a situation you get in travelling something always happens to sort it out, you just need to be patient (sometimes very patient) and just keep asking people.

Was a great time in Taganga and I could have easily spent a few weeks or even months there but in the end the show must go on, and there is still so much to see and do before Santiago. Next stop: Bogota....

Panama to Colombia via San Blas

Portobelo itself was a pretty little colonial fortress town, once the main caribbean gold store of the Spanish Empire. The gold would be shipped from South America up to Panama City and transported overland and up river to Portobelo to await final transportation back to Europe. The recently restored counting house once had over a third of all the gold in the world passing through it´s vaults:

The Counting House seen from one of the fortresses

Of course all this gold made Portobelo a prime target for pirates and the town was sacked many times, necessitating ever grander fortifications, some of which remain to this day

After spending the afternoon relaxing in the town hostel we boarded the boat for some dinner and a briefing. Our Captain Bob was a semi retired American who spends his days cruising around the Caribbean, however a recent replacement of both motors on the boat meant he would be doing the Portobelo/Cartagena route for a while to raise enough cash for a Canal transit back to the Pacific side. Our group also contained Arnold, our Colombian chef, two Israeli guys, two Irish girls and an American couple, just finished a two year stint in the Peace Corps in Honduras.

We set off in the morning, first to stop at Porvenir to sort out our passport stamps then out to a spot amongst four perfect little caribbean islands

That day was spent snorkelling, drinking beer, eating Arnold´s delicious food and just generally enjoying being on holiday in paradise.

The next day we cruised off to another little group of islands to settle in for two more days of the same, this time enhanced by a visit by some dolphins, a trip around the islands in the dhingy and some brief but welcome sunshine.

In the dhingy with Arnold

Sunset on the Caribbean


Chilling on the deck at night


Unfortunately that night a big pack of rich Panamanian powerboats swaggered in and proceded to try and outdo each other with the loudness and vulgarity of their music, although the bright lights did attract a lot of fish (we still didn´t catch any).


In the fading light of the second day we upped anchor for the two day ocean passage across to Cartagena, and South America. I was a bit worried how my stomach would handle the crossing but we all seemed to find the perfect preventative for sea sickness; we slept at least 18 hrs a day each. Something about the soothing, gentle rocking of the boat and the lack of anything else to do meant I got probably the best sleep in of my life. We were visited by more dolphins along the way, this time a big pack of at least fifty, who entertained us for an hour with jumps, barrel rolls and the usual cool dolphin things.

Battening down for a little wild weather




We arrived in Cartagena in perfect time to see the sun rise over the city and I must say I was shocked at how big, modern and developed it is. I started liking Colombia already, this place is modern but still cheap as chips, excellent.....



We made it!

After a farewell breakfast and goodbye to Viva, Bob and Arnold we were now on our own in a new country and a new continent; hairier, smellier and a just little tired (still!) but all with big smiles on our faces.

Panama City and Canal

I arrived in Panama city at 5am and after waiting around in the bus terminal for a couple of hours until it got light (and safe) enough to travel into town, I caught one of the Diablos Rojas the ¨red devil¨ buses that serve as public transport in the city.

How come Aussie buses are so boring?
I arrived at the hostel to find out that I needed to wait until 11 for a bed to be available but that turned out to be not so bad as there was a bunch of aussie guys out on the balcony with a big bottle of rum, the grand final having been played the night before....

The view from the front of the hostel...

.......and the back.


After a couple of days of hobbling around with my dodgy foot feeling sorry for myself I went out to check out the Panama Canal, one of the greatest engineering feats of all time. I saw it from the observation deck at the Miraflores Locks, the last set of locks lowering ships down ten metres to sea level on the Pacific side.

One of the gates ready to lower a ship down to sea level, the original gates from 1913 in fact

Ship comes in

Gets tied to the small locomotive ¨mules¨ that guide it through (it moves along under its own power)

Drops down ten metres

Gates open

Ship passes through


Ready to go


Those engines ROARED


Next ship moves into the parallel lock

All up it took about 20 minutes for each ship to pass through, the first one paying $184,000 US and the larger car-carrier paying over $200,000 for the 11 hr transit. This is actually a significant saving for the shipping companies as it costs more than a million dollars in fuel per ship to sail all the way around Cape Horn.

To fill and empty the locks which contain countless millions of litres of water actually takes less time than it does to fill a standard bathtub......

The next day I caught the bus out to Portobello to rendezvous with Captain Bob and his yacht ¨Viva¨ for the trip out through the San Blas Islands to Cartegena in Colombia.

Costa Rica

I met up with Inga in Liberia, Costa Rica, a large town near the Nicaraguan border after a particularly painful border crossing (is there any other kind??) which involved my passport not being correctly stamped on the Nicaraguan side meaning I had to go back over, and the bus promptly dumping my bag on the footpath and taking off without me. Damn you Tica Bus!!!

Our first stop was Rincon de la Vieja, a national park with a volcano, bubbling mud and steam vents and some beautiful waterfalls.

Lovely spot for a swim but bloody cold

A Coati

Next was Volcan Arenal and la Fortuna to watch the volcano spit out some lava and swim in the hot thermal river nearby. Upon checking into our hotel Inga noticed her credit card was missing and when I looked into my bag the pocket where I always put my passport and credit cards was also empty. hmmmm that´s not good......

We frantically raced down to an internet cafe to call our banks to cancel our cards (which ended up taking over three hours with a dodgy connection) and then unfortunately had to check into a much cheaper hotel for the night and as we had almost no cash on us and prepared to leave in the morning for San Jose and Ingas place.

That morning I reached into my bag for some clean socks and lo and behold, wrapped up in a pair of underpants(??!) was my passport and cards. No idea how they got there but at that stage I really didn´t care as I´d just dodged up to a grand in wasted money and at least a few weeks of lost travel time waiting around for replacements. And the nearest Australian embassy was in Mexico City.......

That evening we went on a tour to see the volcano (and a fleeting glimpse of some lava) and hot river and jump off a waterfall (out of the 20 people who jumped I was the one who landed on a rock. My ankle is only just better now, more than three weeks later) .

The volcano seen from Lake Arenal

the waterfall

We caught the bus to Monte Verde the next day to check out the famous cloud forest and also for me to have a go at some ziplining, which included a 1km ¨superman¨ over the valley and 16 other lines of various length through the canopy.

Apperently these forests are among the most biodiverse places on earth:

This line is about 560m long (for a brake you grab the cable with a gardening glove!)

On the way to Monte Verde we stopped at a little local restaurant for some really good comida tipica, a set menu lunch of typical local food:

Beans, rice, meat and salad, with drink for 4 dollars

As it was now Sunday we headed back to San Jose for Inga to go to class the next morning and myself to get out to Tortuguero national park on the Carribean coast to see some turtles laying eggs on the beach. That night we headed out for a few drinks and dancing with some friends of Ingas from university and got an earlyish night in preparation for a big day.

The trip out to Tortuguero was half the fun, with an hour long boat trip through the myriad small streams and rivers that criss cross the area

The actual turtle tour was at night with no photography permitted (it blinds the turtles) which was a little disappointing as seeing a 200kg turtle haul itself out of the sea, lay a nest of several hundred ping pong ball sized eggs and shuffle back to the ocean is a pretty cool thing.....

Every year over 40,000 turtles come to this one beach to lay their eggs, it looks a bit like a warzone with craters everywhere

After another night in San Jose it was goodbye to Inga and Costa Rica and hello to Panama, courtesy of yet another 24hr bus ride........