We <3 Colombia

We had spent enough time on the coast melting in the heat and fighting off skin cancer, so we opt to race to get into the cool Colombian mountains. It still takes two long days of driving in the endless sweltering lowlands before we reach some mountain relief. Seeing how little progress we make on the map really drives home the size of which South America is. We are no longer in the tiny countries of Central America where a ten hour drive could put us in three different countries.

Ah yes, mountains!

Clocking an amazing 20 something MPH up some mountain roads.

Along the road south, it is always clear when we are close to a road that crosses into Venezuela because there are heaps upon heaps of people selling contraband gas for 2/3 the price of Colombian gas. These smart people were making a killing because we hear gas in Venezuela is 1 cent a gallon! Too bad the politics to get into that backwards country is more difficult then is worth filling up a tank for under twenty cents. Not even a free tank of gas is changing our course at this point!

Don't mind my grimy cans.

Sick of subpar photos, we dropped in the big city of Bucaramanga and bought a new and better camera...Chris excited about a new toy and Mallary already believing she is the next pro photographer. Freshly equipped with our said toy, we head up to the hills overlooking the city for the most magical of campsites. Not only does this site have a fantastic view, but it also has parasailing! Driving up to it, we see plenty of brightly colored sails floating and manuevering around in the thermals, some even so close to the road that they look like they could land on Lola. Having never witnessed this sport up close, it was really amazing to see what could be done with a sail, some cords, and a padded seat. Without hesitation we signed up for a ride above the city with one of the local professionals. Within minutes, we were being called out individually to the takeoff cliff, given a helmet, and strapped in....and with three steps forward, the thermals quickly swooped the sail up into the air, taking us into their control. Our pilots then took us sailing by cliffs, over the sprawling city, and by request swung the carriage in sweeping side to side pendulum-like motions. 10 minutes in that seat was awesome, and definitely worth the going price of $16! The day at the paragliding place was coming to a close and it cleared out, leaving us, the view of the city, and the sunset in the distance all alone. We cooked dinner, opened a bottle of wine, stuck our chairs right in the middle of the take off field, turned up some tunes, and soaked up the night. Simply perfect.

Mallary in flight, her voice can be heard from even further now!

 

Almost tempted to have a second sail in the thermals, we hit the road for a scenic drive through Chicamocha Canyon. The views are breathtaking, and we are enjoying it so much that we find a cute little ranch to camp for the night called Cabanas Campestres. Here we parked in the front of their lot, overlooking their garden and the immense canyon before us. The small family run place was more like a homestay than a campground. The grandmother loved to take us on mini tours of the property, showing us how they grow, roast, and make their own coffee and grind corn for the chickens. She would give us tiny cups of coffee and tastes of homemade empanadas thoughout the day. The two kids had the day off from school, and after we shared some candy with them, they became our shadows until bedtime. The little girl even took us on a hike and showed off her new friends to the neighborhood. We loved this place, but our main perogotive for chilling out here was to catch up on some blogs, and that definitely did not happen with the presence of our new favorite ankle biters!

We've seen a million chickens so far, but yes we will go on your chicken tour.

Coffee time, supporting local farmers.

Try cooking with these four vultures sneezing all over your food.

The face says it all.

By now we had made our way into the Colombian Highland region, a very beautiful landscape of mountains loaded with well maintained farms, pastures, and well preserved Spanish style colonial towns. The town of Barichara is arguably the most picturesque of the country, so it wasn't long before we found ourselves bouncing our way into this town on streets built way before the idea of cars and the destruction of their shocks ever came to mind. Of course, we had highlighted this town in our book long ago with an additional note saying "camp on side of cliff". We walked all through the cobblestone streets, seeking out some stellar local specialties, and even strolled into a building full of old folks making craftwork in antiquated fashion. The town presented so many perfect opportunities to practice our skills on the new camera... every picture resulting in a "man we are sooo happy we got a new camera for this!" We had to be aware though, getting caught up in gazing at the rolling town and green hillsides can lead to an almost pee your pants scare when a huge barking dog head comes at your face as you walk innocently down the sidewalk!

The big one scared Mallary, then she scared the whole town with her out of this world scream

Torture device or weaving machine?

$4 per plate, tasted like 15!

That night we pulled up to the cliffside overlooking the mountains and canyon in the back of town, and had yet another amazing and free place to make camp. Throughout the evening many friendly locals approached us for a quick chat as we cooked up some wonderful fresh Colombian veggies, and then later in the night (3am actually) the friendly police approached us for a quick questioning! :/ At the time we were fast asleep, until their high beams illuminated every inch of the car, quickly followed by bright red and blue lights... the international sign that you're in trouble! After circling the car suspiciously, they glanced in through one of our screens asking, "What are you doing here?" "Umm, we are sleeping" "Okay, well have a nice night!" We suspect they were investigating a random abandoned vehicle, not expecting us to be sleeping inside... But who knows?

Even though modern roads traverse the region, the villages are still connected by footpaths (camino reales) that go back hundreds of years. We woke up the next morning and set out one of the more popular caminos that would bring us to Guane, a town known for it's own version of eggnog, goats milk, and goat cheese. The trail was pleasant on the eyes, mostly lined by old rock walls and meandered along a multitude of farms. It was fitting that halfway into the hike, we caught up with a goat rancher herding his flock of thirty or so goats towards Guane. He was thrilled to have us around, and even snatched up the smallest of the babies and shoved it into Mallary's arms. Meanwhile, mama goat was going buck wild with hatred. We spent close to an hour walking with him, learning more info then necessary about goat ranching....about 60% of which we understood through his thick country accent. When we got to Guane, the goats ran home, and our new friend directed us to the best goat cheese in town, which we gobbled down on the hike back!

Chris had been eyeing a place called El Cocuy National Park for a couple years, so next we are off to even bigger mountains, where we would soon feel like we turned back the hands of time at a rustic hacienda...

 

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Colombia, Love at First Sight

Sea legs have suddenly become a reality, as we are finally off the sailboat and onto Colombian soil. The feeling like we are rocking is persistent and closing your eyes in the shower can nearly make you fall over, (the copious amounts of booze isn't helping the matter) but what the heck... We are finally in Colombia!!! :)

Room above a bar with an ocean view and hammock... Yes please!

Capurgana is a tiny town completely isolated from anywhere. It is a really cool place to hang out for a day and a night, 1 cause no roads lead in or out, meaning no cars, and 2 it is a secluded town literally IN the Darien Gap, making it just a really unique place to be. We get to town to find out that immigration is closed until late that afternoon, so we check out the town, and finally show up to immigration later with a pretty good buzz going on. The most relaxed immigration procedures ever! So far Colombia is everything we had imagined. We have a steller night in Capurgana, complete with a delicious meal at a tiny restaurant on the beach, called Donde Josephine, of fresh sea snails (we think) and fish... one of the best meals of the trip!

The only method for us to continue onward now is by boat. The Bloods of the Seas remain intact and after a night in town, we battle through a confusing fiasco of arranging the "should-be-easy" boat tickets and baggage (typical mass of backpackers trying to do things rationally in a system of unorganized madness) we all jump in yet again another overcrowded boat heading to more developed parts of Colombia. The boat dies in the water crossing twice due to engine malfunctions, and we cringe at the thought of being stuck on a boat AGAIN! Thankfully it was just a scare and we manage to speed off before any of the passengers vomit from the incessant rocking of the small boat in the pounding waves. Two hours later we arrive in some poor fishing village. From here, we pack on board a long bus ride all the way to Cartagena, stopping whenever the driver decides he needs a snack, music pumping so loud there is no chance of sleep, AC pumping so cold we are shivering, and finally arriving at midnight. Damn it sucks not having our own vehicle.

Backpacker status

We wake up the next morning way earlier then desired, and not fully recharged from the hectic day prior. Today we have a mission, it is Friday and we must begin the painstaking process of getting Lola out of port before they close for the weekend. It goes something like this for the entire day: scurry from office to office picking up random documents, splitting up to simultaneously get stuff done, Mallary to purchase car insurance while Chris met up with government inspectors to look over the car, and finally after a few more steps unworthy of being written here, we were driving out the port and onto South American streets by Saturday morning. A side note, Colombian processes and the port itself was so much nicer and seamless then it's Panama neighbor, and although it was a bit of a pain, everything was made easier due to Colombia being much more professional and organized than any other country we have been on this trip. We also have to make a shout out to our friends Michael and Veronika, who took the time to send us detailed helpful hints for the process. Had it not been for them, we would have started off at the wrong port because unbeknowst to our shipping agent, her instructions were mostly all wrong!!! :)

Chris ready to go inspect the car in port

She made it!!!

Now that we have Lola back, it is time to enjoy the city. We move out of our cheap room, and into a place with parking just a few minutes outside of the city center, which although not too expensive, is super deluxe for us! An added bonus was not being in the hostal packed Getsemani area which was completely inundated by drunk and drugged young tourists getting their party on. We head into the city and make our way all around Old Town Cartagena, an area ringed by almost seven miles of fortified walls. Getsemani is the oldest part of Cartagena, much of it still sporting buildings and styles from the 1500's that are beautiful inside and out, despite the fact that it is packed with hostals. Roaming the old streets was loaded with opportunities for us to taste local foods, pop in and out of the unending cute shops, peek into ornate churches, admire the street art, come face to face with the friendly Colombians, and enjoy everything this beautiful city has to offer. The cute colonial buildings and remarkably intact Spanish colonial walls of the city intrigued us enough to head to the massive 500 year old fortress, Castillo de San Felipe. We wandered the tunnels and most of all enjoyed the spectactular views of the contrasting historic old town and the skyscrapers of modern day.

The view from our balcony

The hottest thing on the streets of cartegena are these fake panama hats. Had to have one!

Amazing street art with some kind of chalk or coal.

Coctelarias everywhere serving up shrimp cocktail on the streets

 

On our side of town we are getting used to the clacking of horse drawn carriages going by our balcony... at first we thought it was just a tourist thing, and loved the charm it added to the colonial surroundings. But, on our side of town there were no tourists in the back of the carriages, just locals simply getting from one place to another. Everything about this city was just luring us in, even the city-hating Chris was falling for its charm. Cartegena was so picturesque, that we finally put our foot down and said "we are buying a better camera!" Ours just was not cutting it, and we were frustrated that we couldn't capture even a glimpse of the beauty we were seeing in real life. Of course electronics stores seemed impossible to find so we will have to wait for another city.

Our last night in the city we are walking along the old wall and getting lost in town, when we happen upon a corner with live music and fancy outdoor eateries. Despite being underdressed in our usual casual attire, we are so drawn into the scene that we decide to join the alway classy and stylish Colombians for a night of good food and music on the wall. The scene is so refreshing for a variety of reasons, but mostly because we have not seen a lot of this middle class type of culture in Central America. The culture is usually clouded a bit by the poverty in other places, giving it a different feel as a visitor/onlooker. The vibrant Colombian culture is here, and they could give a damn that a few gringos are hanging around.

A view from the wall, soccer, ocean, colonial town, and city scape... They have it all!

Good food and live music that makes you wanna shake your booty on top of the walls

Eventually we leave our fancy room and head along the coast to the peculiar little fishing village of Taganga. Although the crowded beach is not the prettiest, it is by far the best place for people watching and generally observing the happy Colombians that occupy it. We tried all the local Colombian street specialities, Chris falling in love with the arepas filled with cheese. We were both thrilled by the mobile coffee vendors found on the street, with tiny cups of strong and sweet coffee, who always seem to show up during that afternoon slump when you need coffee the most! We enjoyed daily sunsets over the water while sitting on the wall, beer in hand, right in front of the police/tourist station (oddly they are the same entity in Taganga). If you walk 20 feet in either direction from the police station you will undoubtedly hear a mumbling local with their head hung low saying "da weed, da weed, da coke, da coke" under their breath... Yep we are in Colombia on all accounts! Though we were more interested in the crazy cheap prices of scuba diving that had us drawn right in, and after waiting for the wind to die down for a day we had one nice day of diving. If you are a diver, we wouldn't neccessarily recommend Taganga, because although it is on the Caribbean, it is not your normal Caribbean diving... we had to wear 5mm wetsuits and were still chilly in the water, and the corals were not out of this world. We did see eels, turtles, and plently of fish, and for $28 bucks a dive, a day of so-so diving was still better than none! It probably didn't help that our last dive was in the beautiful Blue Hole so our standards were just too high!!

Taganga from above

Although we could have hung out in the budget friendly bummy beach town for longer, we were dying for a taste of cool crisp mountain air after nearly a month in straight heat and humidity. We didn't go far, but we went up... to Minca. There wasn't much going on in Minca, but the air was cool enough to put our car back together after shipping, and the view from the hammocks over the city lights of Santa Marta were well worth the drive, even if our stay was less than 18 hours! The rest of Colombia was calling our names though, so off we went to explore the best country of our trip so far!

 

 

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