Colombia Crazyness

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Ah Colombia! Arriving by sailboat is the only way to arrive! After 5 fabulous days at sea we pulled up anchor in Cartagena. Cartagena is beautiful city, just like in Romancing the stone. Serena and I started out at a hostel called Casa Viena, it was chill and full of fun people. After a few days we moved to a hotel with a swimming pool to help Serena deal with the heat. The place was much bigger and the vibe not has chill, but man was that pool nice! It was way more of a party hostel and we ended up having alot of fun there and many of our friends from the other hotel came to visit us there.We spent our days walking around the old walled city and eating street food. I spent my nights out dancing. We went to an amazing mud volcano where we soaked in primordial ooze and then got stripped and scrubbed down in the river afterwards. Only down side was the "quick" bus ride there. We blew a tire and had no spare so we had to wait for another bus to come by and get us. Luckily we broke down not too far from a gas station and were able to spend the hour or so wait drinking cervesas! Totally worth it! After about a week Serena decided to move on to cooler climates and headed to Medellin. I was sad to see her leave. I was hoping to spend more time with her. It is nice having friends from home around. But I was heading north to some beach towns and she was sick of the heat and didn't want to deal with the mosquitoes, cant say as I blame her. But you all know what a sun goddess I am! So after almost 2 weeks in Cartagena I headed north to Taganga with with Katie and Merit ( two girls form my hostel) to meet up with some other friends who had left a few days prior.
Taganga, wow, what can I say? Crazy little town and hot as hell. Most of time there I don't think I can describe in this blog but serfise it to say it was a hell of a good time! After a few days in town we headed to Parque Tayrona, a beautiful park not far from Taganga. You hike from one beach to the next and each beach is more beautiful then the previous one! We camped out in hammocks for two nights and spend ours days there chilling on the various beaches. Instead of hiking all the way back out, we took horses for part of the way! Fun times!
After Tayrona, it was time to leave my friends and head to Medellin. Sadly I was missing Serena by a couple of days. OMG, Medellin! I sat next to this guy Allen on the 17 hour bus ride from Santa Marta to Medellin. He was a Brit who had been living is the north coast of Colombia for nearly a year and was on his way to meet up with his girlfriend in Bolivia. Super chill guy with great energy. We spent the whole bus ride talking and drinking. When we pulled into Medellin we saw people in green and white wigs and shirts waving green and white flags. We weren't too sure what was going on but we figured, that it being South America it probably had something to do with football (soccer). Right we were! After checking into our hostel we went out exploring and found out that there was a huge championship game between Nacional de Medellín and La Equidad Bogotá. Crazy street party starting early in the afternoon. The whole town was decorated in green and white for the game. My memories are a pit patchy that night ( thanks in part to the resourcefulness of the chickles kids and the whiskey, and the beer and the aguardiente ) but I do know we had a dam good time. Dancing and prancing up and down the streets of our bario with tourists and locals alike. They have this tradition in Colombia of throwing flour at people during fiestas. I hear it started in in Pasto ( a city in southern Colombia) at their Black and White festival. This is an old festival in which the slaves and the slave owners traded places for one day. The slaves ( who were black) painted their faces white and the slave owners ( who were white or brown skinned) painted their faces black. The day was a crazy party that some how involved the throwing of white flour. Today this is still celebrated in the beginning of January every year. The tradition of flour throwing has spread through out the country and is used in every type of fiesta.
In Medellin I took a tram to the top of the city where there was spectacular views. When you got of the tram there was a park at the top that I walked around for a while in as well. I visited the botanical gardens as well, which were lovely.
Only in Colombia can you take a tour about the country's most famous and violent drug lord. I took a tour about the life and times of Pablo Escabar who single handedly increased the coacaine production and distribution for the Meedellin Cartell through out the 80's. He indroduced violence and "gang war far" to Colombia with his battle to overthrow the Cali Cartel. It was actually a very interesting tour.
Next it was off to the capital of Colombia; Bogota! Bogota is a really big city with really big buildings, lots of people and lots of traffic. Basically not quite my scene, but I had some contacts there so I thought I'd check it out. And I glad I did. My first night I hung out with Brad who is a friend of my friend Adrian whom I was in the Peace Corps with. Brad was so much fun! We went to dinner then walked around a bit. We ended up at this club called "El Perro y la Calandria". It is this gay club where they play a style of music called "musica de plancha", which is basically cheezey love ballads from the 70's. Musica de plancha roughly translates to music to iron to. Anywhoo, its this tiny little club packed to the gills with everyone singing out loud to the songs at the top of their lungs! Que chevre! It was also the night before Bogota's Gay Pride Parade! Yeah Colombia for being so progressive!
The next day my friend Rose's family who lives in Bogota came and picked me up at my hostel. We took a lovely drive up to the top of one of the hills over looking Bogota and then drove out to the Catedral de Sal de Zipaquirá. It was a beautiful drive an hours or so outside of the city. After they were through mining salt from this cave ( even thought there is still an ample amount of visible salt crystals there) they decided to carve a church inside the walls of the mine/cave. They have the full station of the cross in addition to the cathedral itself. It was uniquely amazing. Rose's family was so sweet, I spent the whole day with her aunt, uncle and 2 of her cousins! And then the next day I spent with 2 of the cousins exploring the museams around Bogota. I had such a good time with Rose´s family, just wish that Rose could have been there as well.
I had many adventures in Bogota and spend way longer there than I planned. I took a cable car up to the top of the city (much like I did in Medellin), went to a lot of dance clubs and parks. There was a free 4 day music festival called Rock el Parque that took place in Bogota's largest park. There were 4 stages spread out through the park. The first 3 days were mostly punk and metal with the 4th day being more eloectronica and funk. It was a lot of fun.
After nearly 2 weeks in Bogota it was time to move on. I went to a small town called San Agustin. Its is an amazing place neslted in the valley between some rather large mountains. Super chill. In San Agustin there are many archiological sites/parks filled with giant sculptures of heads and mythical creatures. These sculptures were there to guard the tombs. Soon I will add photos of these gaurdians but my last 6 attemps at uploading photos on to this blog have been unsucessfull. I think its just the net here in Ecuador. I will try again in Peru. One day I hope to go back to San Agustin and spend some time on my friends's fica where they are trying to live by the old ways yet adhearing not just to the shamanic beliefs of their ancestors but incorporating Budist/ Rama devotions as well. San Agustin was filled with tourists but Colombian tourists, I didnt run into any other Americans or Europeans until my 4th and final day. It was a bit refreshing I have to admit to not speak any english for 4 days and be a tourist with others who where seing their own country.
Next I headed ro Pasto on the southern border of Colombia. I went there because I heard there was a beautiful lake side town in the hills above Pasto. I was not disappointed, LA LAGUNA DE LA COCHA was beautiful. Super chill surrounded by cute little wooden houses, I spent a few hours just walking around despite the rain. I took a boat ride to the center of the lake where you walk arounfd this little island to a beautiful look out spot. Again as I am having tech issues here photos will be added later.
After Pasto, I took a bus to Ipiales to check out this realy cool cathedral that crosses over a river gorge. Totally stunning. Again pics to follow. I only spent an hour or so here then it was off to the border (just a 10 minute taxi ride away from the bus station in Ipiales) to enter Ecuador! I shared a taxi to the border with these 3 Colombian guys who were on a trip around central america to promote their SKA band; Skañol. Super cool guys, I ended up traveling with them in Ecuador for nearly a week but that is for the next blog. In the meantime you should check out their facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/skanolcolombia
Caio!

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