Eens even kijken. Terwijl Joost zich ligt op te fokken omdat hij geen Youtube kan kijken (een echte junk) ga ik maar eens een update erop gooien. Het is iets van 30 graden buiten, maar ik ben natuurlijk weer verbrand. Dus even schuilen voor de zon. Het vervelende is dat het alweer twee weken geleden is eer ik de laatste update erop gooide, en er daardoor teveel verteld zou moeten worden om alles te omvatten. Het makkelijkste is om dan maar gewoon niets te tikken, maar daar ga ik niet mee wegkomen, dus dan maar een paar dingen eruit vissen. De [View Full Entry]

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Wow I´m supposed to be partaking in a game of cards at the moment but I feel I should tell you a tad bit about my time in Columbia. It´s been great from start to finish. The thing that I noticed most is how nice and helpful the people are. My first day after crossing over from Ecuador I had some troubles finding a bank where I could withdraw money. So the cleaning lady from one of the banks just left work and took me around to all the banks in the area until we found one that worked. I appreciated [View Full Entry]

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Hello everyone, Today we just arrived in San Gil, which is about a 7 hour bus ride north of Bogota. I think the road was more twisty than any road I have been on in Vancouver. Tomorrow we are going to go white water rafting in the morning, and paragliding in the afternoon. Then we will be heading to the North Coast to spend time there. While in Bogota, we wandered around the city center the first day. The second day we went to a Salt Cathedral. It was a huge cathedral dug out of the side of a mountain, and [View Full Entry]

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Popayán y Ipiales/Santuario de las Lajas [View Full Entry]

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My next stop was in the lovely little town of Salento, an hour east of Armenia. The town is a typical pueblo paisa and full of colourful fronted houses around the main plaza and lots of people milling around with their ponchos on. I stayed in the Mountain House hostel which is in one of the nicest settings I have stayed in here, with lovely gardens and an annex down across a field with the best views from my dorm room. From here I took a jeep with some others from the hostel to the Cocora valley famous for its wax [View Full Entry]

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After a 10 hour daytime busride from Cali we arrived around 8 PM in Bogota. Our Footprint travelguide recommended a good hostel in the Candelaria area, called Platypus. What a shithole this was!!! We got put up in a house next door which is best described as a hangout for squatters. No door to the patio, a cat following us around everywhere and a room full of dust and that smelled awful because of the dampness and the cat. To finish it off, outside there plenty of glue sniffing junkies hanging around.... To make us feel even more welcome the hostel [View Full Entry]

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Early morning on the 17th of April we arrived at Pereira bus station. We were picked up by Rafael, Martha´s husband. First impression was that he was not a morning person. Probabaly did´t have enough coffee by the time he picked us up (8AM)..... Upon arrival we immediately likes the place. Tranquil, a very nice room, swimming pool and an impressive colinal house surrounded by hammocks. Martha was a lovely warm person, who served fantastic free coffee. Even Yvonne enjoyed it without milk and sugar. The colombians don´t use sugar anyway. They use panela. A very pure and natural form of [View Full Entry]

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MEDELLIN Our 5 hour busride was not very comfortable, due to the blasting airconditioning. This must have pushed Yvonne over the edge towards her illnes (massive flue). She felt terrible upon arrival in Kiwi run hostel ¨The black sheep. We arrived on Friday the 18th of April. What we can tell you about Medellin is that it is a very modern city with a very efficient metro system. It tries to shake off it´s image of drugs trafficking capital of the world (thanks to the late Pablo ¨El Patron¨Escobar, who died in 1993). We paid the centre e very quick visit. [View Full Entry]

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CARTAGENA Yvonne was still not feeling well, and the busride didn´t help. The airconditioning made us feel freezing cold again. We had sleep with our coats covering our heads. We stayed in Casa Viena, a basic hostel in somewhat rough street near the colonial old center of Cartagena (10 mi walk). It is a beautiful city, but very touristy. Loads of (American) cruise boats stop here, so no it´s a lot more expensive than the rest of Colombia. The high humidity didn´t do Yvonne´s cough and breathing much good. We made the best of it though and explored the streets as [View Full Entry]

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The crossing from Otavalo (Ecuador) to Ipiales (Colombia) went very well; 20 min taxi journey to Ibarra (Ecuador), 3 hour bus ride from Ibarra to Tulcan (Ecuador) then a 5 min taxi ride to the Ecuadorian border. No queues whatsoever so we were stamped out of the country within 5 mins. A short walk then over the bridge where the Colombian flag and sign welcomed us. Again, no queues so we were stamped in and ready to get into a taxi within minutes. This is where it started to go a bit pear shaped. The "legitimate" looking taxi driver was willing [View Full Entry]

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