Blogs from Colombia, South America - page 286

I’d bought a new rod and reel, I didn’t want to be catching whales, or anything bigger than I could eat, so I went for a medium size reel with 200m of 50lb line. I chose this reel because it has a little arm that swings back and forth, laying out the line as it’s reeled in. The old reel was slightly larger but I had to be guiding the line onto the reel with finger or thumb. This was exceedingly difficult when reeling in something substantial. Hey, even the little tunas fight like fury! Anyway, the first time out with the new rig. 30 minutes or so later, I’m dozing off, and the line starts screaming out. There was just no way to wind in the tensioner. I tried to grab the line by ... read more

As James (one of the guys in the trek) put it, ´this must be one of the greatest adventures of all time, lads!´ No one is really sure how far we walked during our six days in the jungle, but a conservative guess would be 45 miles, most of it being on a steep incline. The trail afforded great views of mountainous jungle vistas with steam radiating up from the greenery, turquoise rivers, tunnels of pure vegitation... it was like hiking through Jurrasic Park, sans the reptiles. There were probably about 25 river crossings, and mud bogs 100 meters long. We all came out with hundreds of mosquito bites each. It was certainly more difficult than any of us expected, but very rewarding. On the first day, we got a ride in a converted Land Cruiser/carnival ... read more

Okay, I'm back in a dark internet cafe, rather than a few steps away on the white sand with a large fruity drink frothily escaping from it's coconut shell home, but such is the price of this darn blog... By the way, it's Ty writing, I know some of you are feeling uncomfortable without a clear mental picture of the writer, so I hope that helps. It's been a while since a proper update, but I know most of you just want to look at the pretty photos anyway, so I'm going to make it quick and get back to my frothy drink. Laurel left you in Cali, after the 8 hours (which although equally accurate, is much more descriptive than the 130 kilometers) we travelled from the land of Indiana Jones. We settled into a ... read more

Het is gelukt, vanaf Ushuaia, het uiterste zuiden van Zuid Amerika tot het uiterste noorden in Parque Tayrona in Colombia!!!!! Okay, hier dus het laatste deel van mijn Zuid-Amerika trip. Weer eens afscheid genomen van Michal, voorlopig en dan 3 dagen in de bus van zuid Ecuador naar Noord Colombia. Ja, het leven van een backpacker is hard en onrechtvaardig ;) Gelukkig ontmoette ik in de bus Froilan, een colombiaan die all the way naar Medellin halverwege Colombia moest. Dat kwam goed uit, Froilan had deze route al vaak afgelegd. Hij is artesania, maakt sieraden en had net waardevolle stenen in Peru gekocht. Zodoende nam hij me overal op sleeptouw en had ik er redelijk het vertrouwen in dat alles wel goed zo komen. Midden in de nacht in Quito op het duistere busstation direct in ... read more

We had gone back to Cartagena to find ourselves a yacht to sail to Panama and found that we had a few spare days. I decided that some sight-seeing was in order as the previous time I had been in Cartagena was spent partying at the fiesta. I booked myself on a tour to the nearby mud volcano, something that was pretty rare and I had been told was definately worth going to see. After being picked up first in the van I then spent the next two hours picking up the others and getting stuck in traffic.......not what I was expecting at all! Finally we made it to the other side of Cartagena and passed the huge amounts of water that had slowed the traffic down and we were on our way to the volcano. ... read more