Blog 7 - Quito (Ecu) to San Gil (Col)

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Days 85 - 109: Quito (Ecu), Bogota (Col), Medellin (Col), Cartagena (Col), Santa Marta (Col), Parque Nacional Tayrona (Col), Taganga (Col), San Gil (Col)

Executive Summary
• Status: Everyone’s left me 😞
• Current location: Bucaramanga, Colombia
• Notable incidents: The arrival of the boys, small world Bogota, coldest bus ride ever, homeless at 4am in Medellin, Fred takes on a plate glass door … and loses, “My Lord it’s hot here!” Cartagena, Darwinian evolution of sleeping furniture, beautiful Tayrona, Sim leaves 😞, damn Indigenous people and their ceremonies upset the itinerary, the boys go sub-aqua and adrenaline sports in San Gil.
• Facial hair status: All gone - after a brief Merv Hughes episode.

Full Report
Jules:
So after having way too much fun, spending way too much money and enjoying way too much luxury in the Galapagos, it was back to proper backpacking … with a bump!

Our flight from Quito to Bogota landed at about 8pm and we jumped into a taxi to head to one of the hostels recommended in the Lonely Planet, located in the historic Candelaria region. When we arrived, it was about 9pm, and the only room they had available in the hostel was two beds in a dorm. We had managed to avoid dorms thus far on the trip so I glanced at Sim nervously, but she looked fairly unphased, so we took it. To spice things up, as soon as we got to the dorm, our dorm mate (Carsten from Germany) told us that during each of the previous two evenings, people had been mugged at knife point on the street right outside the hostel - nice!

Well our first night was pretty uneventful, except for some guy from the neighbouring dorm coming into our dorm at about 2am to use our bathroom. However, in the morning, and with the impending arrival of my cousin Fred and his friend Matt, we decided that we should really upgrade, so I sweet talked the reception lady and secured a 4-bed room for the four of us for that night.

Sim: So given my new low maintence outlook on life (at least when it comes to the backpacking lifestyle) I tried to go with the flow with regards to the dorm. However, after the flight and overhearing about the muggings from a couple of Americans in the main room, I was none too excited about the hostel. And when Jules said all they had was a dorm I said with great inner hesitation "That's fine". Note this was the first dorm we had stayed in and after speaking to a lot of other travellers we were lucky to always have a private room. But I had slept in a dorm for a year in university - about thrity girls all piled into bunk beds and that was enough for me. With this in mind I got ready for bed and tried to reassure myself it would be fine. After reading for a while we turned off our head torches and fell asleep. Usually a heavy sleeper, I was awoken around 2 am with a light knocking on the door (our door only had a chair in front of it to keep people out as the lock was broken). Eyes wide open I lay there terrified of who was trying to get in our room. Was he mistaken, looking for someone or was it just a nut trying to get in? All sorts of horrible things ran through my head. I turned slightly to see if Jules had woken up, but he was sleeping soundly, undisturbed by our visitor. After several attempts at knocking the young man flung the door open and walked staight to the bathroom door, which I would like to add was about two feet from me! "Oh my god!! Who are you?" I yell pulling the covers tighter around my body (as if they would have procted me if he had been dangerous). And in a nonchallant American accent, he says "Sorry I needed the bathroom." No worries Jules pipes in and then he fell soundly back asleep. On the other hand, I lay in my bed, eyes wide open and wondered who was going to try and get in next. Needless to say it was a sleepless night and the cold shower the next morning didn't help. But when Jules returned from the front desk and said we had a new room with a door that locked I was more than ecstatic! I would have been just fine if I never had to sleep in another dorm room ever again!

Jules: We passed the morning roaming round Bogota before I headed to the airport to meet the boys. Their plane was on time and after sending a reassuring email to respective parents saying they had arrived safely, we headed back to town.

That evening, we met up with a couple of friends from back home, Tom and Debs. They had independently decided to come on holiday to Colombia and just before they left London, Debs had seen one of my Facebook updates that had said I was heading to Bogota. Tom dropped me an email and it turned out they arrived in Bogota one day after us! We met them in the main square, where there was a live performance from the Bogota Philharmonic Orchestra - very refined! Well the refinement didn’t last long and we soon headed to a pizzeria/bar for a couple of drinks. At about 8.30pm we decided we were hungry so set off to find a suitable eatery. 45 minutes later we were back at the pizzeria/bar as it seemed to be the only place open! The pizza was actually pretty good, although we COMPLETELY over ordered, but the apparent lack of restaurants (and bars for that matter) really surprised us - I suspect we were just looking in the wrong place.

The next day we did some sight-seeing. Bogota’s main street was closed to traffic that day (as it often is on Sundays apparently) and there were loads of cyclists and pedestrians walking up and down. We walked to the end of the main street and went up a tower block for some good views of the city, Fred bought a ludicrous llama wool hat, we checked out the Presidential Palace and finished the day at the police museum, which was a bit rubbish, but did include a moderately interesting section dedicated to the capture of Pablo Escobar in 1993. It also featured a rendition by the police band who seem to spend all day in the museum playing songs that all sound the same to unwitting tourists - I thought National Service was supposed to be tough!

Sim: As our regular blog readers know, we seem to have unfortunate run-ins with the local police, and Colombia was no different. Before we went to the museum we went to take a look at the Presidential Palace. As we entered the street around the palace, the guards were checking inside people's bags. I simply smiled at the guard and he just waved us in ... gotta love the power of blue eyes and blonde hair ;-) When Matt, Fred and I all walked up to the fence to take a closer look at the palace, the guard took one look at us and motioned us back. I thought we just weren't meant to touch the fence. So we took out our cameras and started to take some pics of the place. This displeased the guard immensley! He then came towards us with his enormous semi-automatic rifle and waved us back. Slightly concerned that we were about to be run out of town, we turned and looked for the closest exit. Thankfully it didn't come to that, he justed wanted us to move off the sidewalk, but I didn't fancy being repremanded by the Colombian police.

With regard to the museum, I beg to differ ... I thought it was actually very interesting. The tour was a tad long, but the guide went through everything from the development of uniforms, hundreds of firearms (one was manufactured by "Sim"), the capture of Pablo Escobar and there was even a nice quartet that sang several traditional songs. However,

Jules: That evening we met up with Tom & Debs again and, on a recommendation from a friend of mine (cheers Darrell!), we got in a taxi and headed to a restaurant called Andres Carne De Res. We knew the restaurant was some way out of town, but we were a bit concerned when we got in the taxi and the driver said it would take us about two hours to get there!! I immediately phoned Tom, who was in a separate taxi, and his driver reassured us that it was actually only 45 minutes away.

Sim: And before we could drive any further we had to fill out a host of paperwork. Once we were on the road it was like being in an episode of COPS. Our driver was weaving in and out of traffic, dodging different cars and on a couple of occassions nearly ran into the back of a couple of semi-trucks (Jules: that's lorries for our English readers). After about 40 minutes the driver called the dispatch for directions and we finally arrived. I was thankful that we had made it in one piece.

Jules: When we got there, I was taken aback by the sheer size of the place. It is pretty much in the middle of nowhere but is massive! After a bit of haggling at the door about whether a certain young gentleman was a sufficient age to legally drink (repetition of "No hablo Espanol" seemed to do the trick), we got in and got a table and made a very wise move when we agreed to our waitress’s suggestion that we let her order for us. There followed a plethora of courses varying from nice to delicious, which finished with definitely the best steak we’ve had on this trip so far! We obviously needed something to help wash down the food, and it was agreed that a bottle of vodka would be an appropriately refined accompaniment.

Once the food had gone, the music started and the whole place turned into a somewhat bizarre salsa club. We were befriended (some more than others!) by a group of very friendly Colombians who showed us some moves, and although Sim, Debs and the boys showed potential, Tom and I were somewhat less ‘natural’.

Sim: This was by far one of our most fun nights! The restaraunt was packed, the decorations were over the top and the music was blaring! After dinner, when we hit the dance floor it was all over. I started moving my hips and felt my inner Shakira come out. One of the Colombian women we made friends with complimented my moves. After feeling akward on every dance floor in NYC, I was finally home! We danced for several hours, shared a bottle of licorice liquor and spoke in broken Spanish and English. However, Matt receives the prize for the evening. His moves were outstanding and he was a hit with all the ladies!!

Jules: On our last day in Bogota, we went to the modern art museum to see the Fernando Botero collection, a Colombian artist with a fetish for everything fat!

So after a couple of days in Bogota during which we managed not to get mugged (although while we were there, there was another attempted mugging outside the hostel) we decided to move on. While there were a few things we liked, overall, I think it’s fair to say that we weren’t that impressed by Bogota. This may be partly due to the weather (it was drizzly most of the time) but it also felt like one of the less safe cities we’ve been to.

Next stop was Medellin. The trip was supposed to be nine hours but for some reason I decided that that was not long enough to merit an overnight bus (?) so we planned to head off shortly after lunch and eventually got the 3pm bus.

Now, it had been a few weeks since Sim and I had got a bus and we had forgotten that they always crank up the AC and that you should always have some warm clothes with you, especially for the longer journeys. This obviously meant that I forgot to tell the boys too so we all boarded wearing shorts and flip flops. Big mistake! The journey was f-f-f-f-freezing! Even my resourceful use of duct tape to tape over the AC vent immediately above my head only improved things slightly!

On top of this, the bus was delayed by three hours along the way because of roadworks, and it was 3am before we arrived in Medellin - not a great time to arrive in a new place. Anyway, we got in a taxi and headed to one of the hostels recommended in Lonely Planet. The taxi driver had no idea where we were going and although I had a map he a) refused to look at it (I think he said that even if he looked at it he couldn’t read it cos he had bad eyes - great!) and b) even though I had worked out where we were on the map, he wouldn’t listen to my directions. Anyway, eventually, a couple of policemen pointed us in the right direction and we finally got to the hostel at about 3.30am, only to be told that they were completely full - bummer! However, the guy was pretty helpful and phoned around to find a hostel which had some space. He ordered us a taxi but when the taxi arrived it was tiny and, with all our bags, would only fit three of us, so I decided to walk. On the map, it didn’t look very far but due to a combination of it being further than it looked, some poor map reading and conflicting directions given to me by various policemen, It was gone 4.30am by the time I arrived and got into bed. So in their first couple of days, the boys had certainly seen the best and worst of backpacking!

Sim: Jules certainly gives the taxi drivers too much credit. Even after the first ordeal, where the driver started to argue with Jules, at which point I started to lose my cool, our second taxi driver also got lost. And when we were about 300 yards from the place he called dispatch. Neither the boys nor I knew the name of the place, so we were in the dark. Luckily we found it and when we showed up they were expecting us! I was thrilled I couldn't wait to hop into bed. I had assumed we were headed to a private room that would fit four people. However, I was mistaken. The young guy at the front ended up showing us to a large dorm, where we had to climb up to the top bunks. Had I been a little more awake and had it been a little earlier in the night I would have protested, but I didn't have the energy. Once Jules showed up - I got slightly concerned when it took him an hour to find us - we headed to bed. Just as I fell asleep around 5:00am, in came all the party goers chatting and reminiscing about the fantastic night they had all just had ... needless to say it was a long night.

Jules: After this inconspicuous start, we actually really liked Medellin. We stayed at the Ram hostel in the El Poblado district, which is one of the wealthier areas of the city and hence very safe. Our hostel was fine, the supermarket round the corner sold excellent orange juice and prosciutto sandwiches and the burger cart on the opposite corner to the supermarket sold excellent burgers. A couple of blocks away was a square surrounded by restaurants and bars where one night we were treated to a hilarious drive by from some Pimp My Ride type vehicles with ridiculous sound systems playing our South America theme tune (1,2,3,4 by a group called Pitbull - not sure it’s made it to the UK or the States but definitely worth a listen).

The city also has an excellent Metro system which runs basically along the bottom of the valley and also includes a few cable cars which run up the side of the valley. I’d only ever experienced a cable car as a recreational means of transport (e.g. at ski resorts), and the idea of people using it as part of their daily commute was funny. One evening we took one of the cable cars up to Santo Domingo to check out sunset. When we arrived, there was some sort of street festival going on, which was fun to walk around, and some excellent street meat on sale (yum!).

The next day, we checked out another Fernando Botero museum (he was born in Medellin) and enjoyed roaming round the main square which had lots of Botero sculptures. Sim and I also had an unsuccessful trip to the botanical gardens (which were shut) but then walked all the way back to the city centre, which certainly showed us a different side of Medellin.

Sim: We strolled through the commercial areas that were dedicated to funerals (flowers, caskets and grave stones all on one street), wrought iron fences and gates, and lastly the motorcycle repair and accessory row. It gave us a good feel for the real Medellin.

Jules: Anyway, we were craving the sun so after a couple of days in Medellin, we got an overnight bus to Cartagena on Colombia’s Caribbean coast.

We were sitting in the hostel making final arrangements (making sure ipods were fully charged and that warm clothes were easily accessible!) when we heard a loud crash of glass. The hostel was brand new and next door they were in the middle of building a restaurant. As such, we were somewhat used to hearing loud construction-type noises but this was slightly unexpected as that evening they were having a soft opening for friends and family so we thought it a bit strange that they were also doing construction. After a couple of seconds, Matt casually mentioned that a few minutes earlier Fred had disappeared in the direction of where the loud noise had come from. We all looked wistfully at one another and then saw all the staff in the restaurant running over to where the noise had come from. Hmmmm, maybe this was worth checking out. I walked round the corner and saw a bunch of people crowded round one of the big plate glass doors, which I noticed did not have much glass left in it. Hmmmm. I walked closer and saw a reasonably large pool of blood on the floor next to said plate glass window. Hmmmm. I walked through the non-broken door and over to the bathroom where there seemed to be noise and activity. As I poked my head around the door Fred was standing with his arm in the air, a not inconsiderable amount of blood running down his arm and a couple of very concerned waiters and waitresses assessing his wounds. It’s interesting that the very first thing that went through my head was not “Sh*t, I hope he’s ok” but actually “Oh no! We’re going to miss our bus!!” - maybe that says something about me?! Anyway, I’d like to just say that the second thing that went through my mind was “Sh*t, I hope he’s ok” and to be honest, now that I think back, the thoughts were probably contemporaneous so that doesn’t make me so bad. Anyway, one of the waiter dudes seemed to know what he was doing and with Matt also stepping in to play a very convincing Florence Nightingale role we soon had Fred patched up. A final assessment of the wounds revealed they were actually not that bad. He had quite a deep cut in his left hand but apart from that he just had a couple of scratches - all in all pretty lucky. The monster sized first aid kit that Fred had bought with him (which I had previously scoffed at while muttering “Huh! Amateur traveler!” under my breath) certainly came in very handy!

Anyway, after 20 minutes or so, we got the bleeding to (mostly) stop. I had a long chat with the owner and concluded that we weren’t going to sue him for not having any signage or writing on his plate glass doors (which I think is a requirement) and equally he wasn’t going to charge us for the damage. We reassessed and redressed Fred’s injury and decided he didn’t need to go to the hospital and decided we would go ahead and get the bus to Cartagena.

All in all pretty dramatic!

The bus to Cartagena was fine and we were much better prepared. Fred’s hand swelled up a bit with bruising but pumped full of ibuprofen and antibiotics, he survived the journey.

As soon as we got out of the bus in Cartagena we were struck by the change in temperature - it was very hot (30ish Celsius), and remained very hot for the whole time we were there!

Cartagena de Indias (to give it its full name) is one of the oldest colonial cities in South America and famous for its colonial architecture. It is made up of three areas - Inside the historic walls in the old city (El Centro - a Unesco World Heritage Site), outside the walls in the old city (Getsemani) and Bocagrande, which is about 2km south of the old city along the coast and is where all the big hotels line the shore. We had decided to stay inside the walls and found a basic hostel called Hostel Las Vegas which although it didn’t have a pool, did have air conditioning which we decided was key!

Founded by the Spanish in 1533, Cartagena is truly beautiful. We spent three nights there sitting on the beach during the scorching days and roaming the streets of the old town during the cooler evenings. The streets are narrow and cobbled, the houses and beautiful and balconied and the colonial buildings are extremely impressive. We had caught up with Tom and Debs again, who had skipped Medellin, and spent a couple of very pleasant evenings with them at some of the bars which are situated on top of the historic walls which surround the old city - a really great spot to have a drink with excellent views and a very refreshing sea breeze. We also had some good food, in particular the sushi we had on our last night.

The only downside of the Cartagena trip was that when we arrived I discovered that my laptop screen had been damaged in transit and it was now covered in big black spots. This made using it rather frustrating and goes to explain, somewhat, the tardiness of this blog.

To the boys’ delight, Cartagena was also the first place since they arrived in Colombia that we were offered drugs. To all the parents out there whose eyebrows have just raised in alarm, I must stress that no transactions were undertaken but the perception is that Colombia is the drug capital of the world (which it certainly used to be) and the boys had been disappointed by the apparent lack of drugs since their arrival.

The other highlight for me was on our first day in Cartagena, me and the boys got approached on the beach by some really manky/gross looking women offering us sun screen and massages. My “No gracias” was obviously more convincing than the boys’ because before I knew it, both boys were sprawled over my CLEAN beach sarong being rubbed down. Anyway, when they were done, the women tried to charge 80,000 pesos ($40) each but with a bit of gentle guidance from grumpy grumpertons (me) the boys managed to barter them down to a more reasonable price - although my sarong was no longer clean!!!

Anyway, the itinerary called and it was time to move on so we got the four hour bus along the coast to Santa Marta.

Although Santa Marta is the oldest surviving city in South America (founded by the Spanish in 1525) it really doesn’t look like it. On our first day there, Sim and I went for a quick stroll round the centre and stumbled upon the cathedral. As we walked in, an old man standing by the door said something in Spanish which I thought was along the lines of “This is the oldest church in South America”. I cursed my Spanish which I thought had let me down again because there was no way this place was old. It was very plain, and although it was nice, it was nothing compared to the cathedrals we’d seen in Cusco, Cartagena and even Santiago. However, when we got back to our hostel, the sacred Lonely Planet seconded the old man’s claim (and in turn vindicated my understanding of his Spanish) - it indeed is the oldest cathedral in South America.

We had a quick chat about it and decided that when you invade a country, it’s like buying houses. The first place you arrive for your invasion (or the first house you buy) is often only a temporary place so it may need a lot of work but you probably don’t make much effort with it (i.e. you furnish it from Ikea rather than KushKush NYC). As you indiscriminately kill more locals and get to know the place better you obviously accumulate ‘stuff’ (e.g. plundered gold, Inca princesses etc.) so you get grander ideas and need somewhere bigger, and maybe more picturesque. You also maybe don’t want somewhere that you have to start from scratch you’d rather pick a nice place where the previous owners have done a reasonable job but that just isn’t quite to your taste. Hence you do a bit of modernization e.g. get rid of that garish gold-covered Inca Temple and build a much nicer Catholic Cathedral. So that is why we think Santa Marta is not very impressive - it’s akin to a one bedroom flat in Ealing/Tuckahoe whereas somewhere like Cartagena is more of a country house in Buckinghamshire/Fairfield.

Anyway, the plan was to stay one night in Santa Marta so that we could book the Ciudad Perdida (‘Lost City’) Trek and then head to Tayrona National Park for a few days.

When I went to book the trek, the guy spoke mostly Spanish and I was sure that the very first thing he said to me was that the trek was closed for two weeks from tomorrow and that we needed to leave that day (the 15th). However, when I questioned him further by asking if we could start the trek on the 20th, he said yes but said we wouldn’t be able to get too close to the actual archaeological site at the end of the trek because there was an indigenous ceremony going on. I’d heard that the Lost City Trek was more about the journey than the destination so to be honest this didn’t bother me so we went ahead and booked for the 20th.

With that done, we went back to our hostel, packed our daypacks and, after finding the local bus station (a process somewhat hindered by the crappy directions we were given), we boarded a local bus to Tayrona.

Tayrona National Park is a strip of jungle wedged between the Sierra Nevada mountain range and the Caribbean Sea. Its main attraction is its beaches and that’s where we were heading. The hour long bus journey from Santa Marta dropped us at the entrance to the National Park where a very smartly dressed Tayrona National Park employee took our 31,000 peso ($15) entrance fee and gave us directions to our camp ground. The first bit of the journey was a 15 minute jeep ride followed by a 45 minute walk through the jungle down to the beach. It all felt very authentic and rather like we were about to discover an untouched and deserted beach paradise - at least it would have if there hadn’t been a hundred other people, donkeys and horses making the same trip!

Anyway, we arrived at Arrecifes, the second village along the trail where the Yuluka camp ground was. We checked in with another very smartly dressed Tayrona employee who showed us our hammocks for the next three nights. We’d decided on the hammock option to really get that deserted beach paradise experience and weren’t at all influenced by the fact that all the cabanas were fully booked!

Anyway, we were hot and sweaty from our mammoth trek through the jungle and headed down to the beach for a refreshing swim, Well, that was the plan. As we got to the beach there was a sign (in Spanish) which said something along the lines of “DANGER: No swimming at this beach. In the last ten years approximately 200 people have drowned at this beach”. Hmmmm, bummer! We walked past the sign and got to the beach and, to be fair, the water did look pretty vicious. A quick perusal of the Lonely Planet however, revealed that the next beach along the coast was a swimming beach so we headed there and whiled away the rest of the afternoon swimming and sun bathing.

We spent three nights in Tayrona. After further investigation we discovered that there were two main areas to stay - Arrecifes, where we were, and Cabo de San Guia which was a further 45 minutes walk along the coast. Arrecifes definitely had the nicer services (great bathrooms and a good restaurant - although make sure you order your food early to avoid the two hour wait we experienced one night!) but the whole death beach thing was a bit of a downer, while Cabo had much nicer beaches but not as good accommodation. However, we quickly got into the habit of making the 40 minute walk along the coast to Cabo every morning, spending the day there (a truly beautiful spot) and then heading back in the evening. The evenings were spent eating, drinking and playing cards and the nights were spent trying to get some sleep.

Sim: This was a great time for all of us to relax, chill out and work on our tans. I had also heard along the way that there was a topless beach somewhere in the park. This peaked my interest as we don't have topless beaches in the US and nor had I ever been to one. Keep in mind I wasn't going there to have a perve, but in the spirit of experiencing new things I was ready to try out the topless thing. So one morning Jules and I headed out, and I felt confident that today my breasts would see the sunlight! We came accross what we thought was the topless beach, but everyone was covered up. No problem I think, I'll be brave! We found the last bit of shade available and set up or blankets and headed straight into the water to cool down. When we got out and laid down I looked around us only to see and hear two french women. Both bronzed, petite and topless! At this point I was gutted. My sheer female insecurity came over me ... I was obviously inadequate compared to them if you know what I mean. So the girls stayed covered up (I think Jules was pleased with this decision) but will hopefully face the sun when we are somewhere in Europe.

Jules: Before I went to Tayrona, I’d never really slept in a hammock. I’d lazed around in one many a time and found them to be extremely comfortable. However, when it comes to actually sleeping in them, it is a different story. I’d been told that the ‘proper’ way to sleep in a hammock is kind of diagonally so that you get a relatively flat sleeping position. However, Colombian hammocks are clearly not designed for someone of my dimensions as any attempt to sleep in the approved diagonal position resulted in my head and/or legs hanging over the edge. After a very frustrating first few hours, I eventually found the foetal position to be the only vaguely comfortable position. - All I’ll say is that in the Darwinian world of sleeping furniture there is a reason that the mattress has won out over time!

Tayrona also had some really cool lizards running about but unlike their counterparts in the Galapagos they were not as camera friendly, despite my protestations, and I spent a good hour one morning chasing them around before I eventually got a photo of one!

Anyway, back to the hammocks. I wasn’t the only one that had problems. Sim and the boys all had their own sleeping issues which were augmented by the mosquitoes and at this point I’d like to say thank you to mum and dad for whatever it is you did to me when I was young to make the mozzies not like me!

Sim: I simply found sleeping in the fetal position worked best, but every night as I went to bed I did think how nice it would be to sleep on a mattress. And I prayed each night that tomorrow Ecohabs, the resort with luxury Cabanas (and real beds) would have an opening ... alas they did not and it was hammocks for us!

Jules: So all in all, there wasn’t much quality sleep over the three nights we spent in Tayrona and when we headed back to Santa Marta we had a well earned air conditioned night on a mattress 😊.

The next day was a very sad day as it was the end of the road for Sim. Since her arrival in Iquique in Chile on May 22nd we’d travelled some 6,000 miles across five countries, slept in 45 different villages/towns/cities/mountains, been at altitudes varying from sea level to 6,088m, been cold (-20C on the Bolivian Salt Flats), been hot (+45C in the Potosi silver mines), escaped from the Bolivian police, played with monkeys, spent a lot of hours on buses (I wish I’d kept a log!), cycled down the world’s most dangerous road, climbed a mountain, swum with alligators and piranhas, hiked the Inca Trail and learnt a lot about the Incas (all the way from the first Incas - Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo - to the last - Huascar and Atahualpa), jumped off sand dunes, rappelled down waterfalls, swung under a bridge, got up close and personal with hump backed whales, snorkeled with sea lions, impersonated giant tortoises, bought a lot of rings ….. and played approximately 2,876 games of scrabble. And all of this without killing each other which is maybe the biggest achievement! I was very sad to see her go.

Sim: This was a very sad day and I certainly did not want to leave. I have to say this was the most amazing experience of my life!!! Moving to NYC is a close second. Since November when Jules asked me to join him on the trip, I had been so excited. I daydreamed about what we would see, who we would meet and questioned would I really survive without getting my hair cut or sleeping in hostels? However, the trip did not disappoint. It exceeded every expectation I ever had. I never imagined that I would love travelling with Jules & my 55L backpack so much. You really get to know someone on a trip like this. I will admit there were some of the most embarrassing moments of my life that we haven't shared and even a few occasions (half way up Huayana Potossi & as I dangled by a rope underneath a bridge in Banos) when I thought of killing Jules, but I wouldn't have changed a thing! We woke up most mornings (there were a few when I just wanted to stay in bed) and I was thrilled to discover all these new places. I tried so many new things, met new people and have caught the travelling bug (even if I am just turning 30)! To all of you who are thinking of taking a big trip like this, do!!! Work will always be there, you can rent your apartment or house, and hostels aren't that bad! I may be back in Seattle, but I am sure I will be poppy up in future travel blogs ... I feel that my commentary is crucial to the humor of these things 😊 Ciao!

Jules: Well, with Sim gone, the Lost City Trek was up next. The night before we were due to leave, I thought I’d go and double check that everything was still ok (I’d heard a few more “Lost City Trek is closed” rumours while we’d been in Tayrona). As I feared, the park was indeed closed until the 30th. I told the boys who tried to hide their joy (three nights in the Tayrona hammocks at the mercy of the mozzies I think was enough for them), and we made alternative plans.

Sim: After my departure the boys went out for a nice steak dinner (they kindly sent me text messages while I was on my 20 hour bus ride to Bogota) and then drowned their sorrows at some local pub.

Jules: Taganga, a small fishing town just 5km north of Santa Marta has some of the cheapest scuba diving courses in the world so we decided to do that instead. I am already certified so the boys enrolled in a 3-day PADI open water scuba diving course with the Poseidon dive school in Taganga. The course actually turned into a 4-day course when Matt woke up on the morning of Day 3 vomiting (which he claimed to have nothing to do with the significant number of vodka passion fruits he’d had the night before) but despite this delay, they both seemed to get the hang of it pretty quickly, as evidenced by them both getting 49 out of 50 in the final exam. Although the visibility wasn’t the best during their dives, they seemed to enjoy the experience and now that they can both dive, hopefully they’ll go and check out the Great Barrier Reef some day to see what diving is all about. My time in Taganga was spent tirelessly working on my tan and ardently following the text commentary of the final Ashes test - both very fruitful exercises 😊.

While we were in Taganga, we heard great things about San Gil, a small town about 11 hours south of Taganga half way to Bogota, and conveniently just a couple of hours from Bucaramanaga, where the boys were flying out of, so we decided to check it out. The bus journey was fine - for those who had thoughtfully taken their sleeping bags to keep warm - and we arrived in San Gil at about 10am. San Gil is an adventure sports mecca and we thought we’d start off with a spot of white water rafting. I first tried rafting in New Zealand many years ago and it was an excellent experience with enormous rapids. I’d been a few more times since then but had been disappointed every time by the small rapids. Based on these experiences I knew that rafting wasn’t worth it unless the rapids were at least grade IV but we’d heard reports that the Rio Suarez was currently running grade IV and grade V rapids so we signed up.

I must put my hand up at this point and say that I maybe slightly mis-sold white water rafting to the boys and in particular to Matt by not really elaborating on how crazy/dangerous it can be and when we got to the river and saw how fast it was flowing, their faces were a picture - Fred’s mainly excited and Matt’s somewhat more skeptical!

Sim: Even though I wasn't here, I notice a pattern with our young Julian ... he seems to misrepresent these adventure sports ... bridge swinging anyone?

Jules: So after a brief (and I mean brief) safety talk, we kitted up and with our guide Henry and two Aussie couples (there was no mention of the cricket … well ok maybe a little!) we boarded our trusty raft and set off down the river.

Rapid number one was big but we negotiated it in good form and were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves as we approached rapid number two. I remember that rapid number two started fairly innocuously but from my position at the front of the boat I had an excellent view as we crested one of the rapids to see an enormous hole, which was perfectly raft-sized. The next few moments are a bit vague. I remember Henry shouting “INSIDE!” as we entered the hole, which basically means crouch in the middle of the boat and hold the f**k on. Then I remember feeling the left side of the boat take on water as the standing waves on each side of the raft-sized hole filled up the boat. Then I remember feeling the boat tip over and next thing I was in the water.

I was under water for maybe five seconds, although it felt like an eternity, before I popped up and gasped for breath … just in time for another wave to hit me and I had another five seconds under water. This time when I surfaced, the upside down raft was right in front of me and I grabbed the rope. I looked round and as I did, Fred popped up to my left. He saw the boat, tried to grab the rope, missed, and disappeared again. A few seconds later, he popped up again to my right and this time successfully grabbed the boat. A couple of seconds later, Matt popped up behind us, his face an absolute picture. In hindsight, the sh*t scared/drowned rat look he had on his face was quite funny, but at the time, it wasn’t. He disappeared again but then resurfaced next to the boat and grabbed the rope. As soon as he grabbed the rope, the raft rose into the air and flipped back over (the guide had righted the boat) hitting me on the head. I lost the boys again but had managed to keep a hold of the boat. Fred had somehow managed to get in the boat and pulled me on board. Matt was also there, as was the guide and one of the Aussie girls. The other girl was quickly located and pulled aboard, and Aidan (one of the Aussie guys) was spotted clinging to the safety kayak. That meant just one person, James, was missing and his girlfriend began to get quite agitated as we couldn’t see him anywhere. After about 20 seconds or so, which again felt like about 20 minuets), we saw he had been picked up by the other boat (who had managed not to flip their raft).

We paddled past the end of the rapid (well those of us that had paddles, paddled) and pulled in at the side to recompose ourselves, reunite with our fellow team members and retrieve our paddles which had been caught downstream by the safety kayaker. It was a pretty terrifying experience and quite enough adrenaline for all of us!

The rest of the rapids went much more smoothly. We got better at steering (a pretty core skill) and managed to avoid the other raft-sized holes that we saw in the other rapids. The company we went with is the only company that rafts the Suarez - others have tried but with much less experienced guides - and to be honest the way the guides righted the boat and made sure everyone was accounted for was pretty impressive. All in all a great day!

Back in San Gil, we’d bumped into Freddie and Kirsty again, who we'd first met while climbing Huayna Potosi, and the next day, the five of us set off to rapel (abseil) down a waterfall. The waterfall itself is 180m high, but we only rapelled the last 70m. Matt’s fear of heights precluded his participation so he became designated cameraman while the rest of us climbed up to the starting point. After navigating past the psycho turkey, who chased Fred very amusingly round the field, and after another (very) brief safety talk, Fred stepped up first, put on the harness and went over the edge. I went on the other rope and tried to catch him but he was too fast. Freddie and Kirsty came down last and considering Kirsty also has a fear of heights, she did incredibly well! Matt did an excellent job with the camera so we got some pretty good photos. It was a great experience which I enjoyed much more than the rappelling we did in Baños because although we rappelled multiple waterfalls in Baños, none of them were nearly as high as this one. At the bottom there was even time for me to get a new waterfall headshot, to replace the one I got in Thailand in 2003!

Sim: The new pic is great!! Upon their return from rapelling both Freddie and Kirsty sent me emails with the pic attached. As Kirtsy put it he could be on the Cosmo Centrefold!

Jules: In the afternoon, we went and checked out the botanical gardens in San Gil which were excellent (well, I thought so anyway). The enormous trees are covered with a very ethereal grey lichen which gives the whole place a very spooky air.

The next day the boys were supposed to go paragliding but after Fred was up most of the night vomiting (a combination of alcohol and dirty river water I suspect) they decided to postpone for a day. So while Fred slept (more on that later), Matt, me, Freddie and Kirsty went to the nearby village of Barichara and spent the day roaming round the cobbled streets which were very pretty.

So back to Fred’s sleeping. Both of the boys demonstrated a rare talent for sleeping on this trip and it’s fair to say that they haven’t seen many sunrises, or even many mornings. But in terms of feats of marathon sleeping, Fred’s effort in San Gil is hard to beat. It started on Friday night, we went out, had a few beers, had a few more beers and the boys ended up playing drinking games with a couple of random Americans till about 2am while I watched the Hawthorn Hawks play the Essendon Bombers on a laptop with some random Aussies (which Essendon won by the way after a stunning second half fightback!). At this point the boys went to bed and although Fred did get up a couple of times during the night to vomite, he proceeded to stay in bed from 2am Saturday morning, all through Saturday, through Saturday night and finally surfaced at about 9.30am on Sunday morning - that’s thirty one and a half hours of sleep - impressive by anyone’s standards!

Anyway, it seemed to do the trick and on Sunday lunch time, the boys headed off for paragliding while I stayed at the hostel writing the blog.

The boys enjoyed the paragliding, which was probably the least adrenaline filled activity we undertook in San Gil.

That evening, we headed to Bucaramanga where the boys begin their epic journey home - Fly Bucaramnanga -> Bogota; One hour in Bogota; Fly Bogota -> Caracas; Seven hours in Caracas; Fly Caracas -> Toronto; An hour in Toronto; Fly Toronto -> Heathrow, and finally drive Heathrow -> North Wales … just in time for school!

It’s been fascinating travelling with them and was sad to see them go. Hopefully I’ve given them the travel bug, if they didn’t have it already, and in return they’ve given me Canasta (a card game, not a disease!) - a fair trade I think!

Next up for me is the bus back up to Santa Marta to do the Lost City trek, then I think I’m going to head down to southern Colombia and check out the Amazon basin.

Anyway, keep the emails coming, it’s great to hear from you all.

Love Jules & Sim (& Matt & Fred)

This week’s likes
• Bitacora restaurant in Taganga - delicious!
• Cable cars as part of your daily commute
• Canasta!
• Inexpensive shoe shopping Cartagena (Sim)
• Colored buildings
• Freshly squeezed OJ in Tayrona
• My new tan (Sim)

This week’s dislikes
• Bogota
• Hammocks as sleeping furniture
• Mozzies
• Ants crawling out of our bag
• Hot, sticky buses
• Medellin taxi drivers

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Photos

Welcome to Colombia
Tom, Debs & us just before we ate ourselves silly.

Matt and Fred arrived in one piece
and parents back in the UK rejoiced!

We hit all the major sites
no protests that day in front of the parliament house

and as always Sim made friends with the local animals
Llama Whisperer has a nice ring to it!

When the sun went down, the party began!
Was that Shakira that we saw in the navy blue dress?

We took a little visual art - the Fernado Botero exhibit
If we had stayed on the Galapagos cruise any longer, we might have become subjects for his next piece.

and a lovely view of the fountains and church
just before the police came over and asked us to "move along"

after the drama and a long bus ride we made it to Cartagena!
Sim quite fancied laying under an umbrella and having someone serve her fresh cut fruit.

on the way back from dinner Sim made more new friends
"Jules can we take them with us?"

fresh squeezed orange juice anyone?
conveniently located at the half way point between camp and the beach

WOW- Sim! Look at those muscles!!!
Sim's turn to carry the bag.

Jules decides to change things up.
and dons a 1970s beard

That is quite a fashion statement
let's all hope Jules doesn't wear them in public.

Once we arrived in San Gil the flip-flops finally died :-(
Not even duct tape could repair them!

Comments

[Ewan]

Splendid
Now I've not managed to see much of Fred yet since he got back, I've learnt much more about his trip from your blog than from him!! Thanks again Jools, keep it up. (Love the youtube clip especially)