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Published: December 13th 2013
Mitad del Mundo Ecuador
There´s a theme park built around the equator line - pity it´s in the wrong place - doh!Hello! It’s been a while since I last blogged, and I’m rather behind the times, but here’s what happened in Colombia…
Short version Success! I did not get robbed, kidnapped or turned into a drugs mule. So, I started in the beautiful coffee growing region and got coffee obsessed for few days - making it and drinking it. Then up to historical Cartagena on the Caribbean coast to do my final stint of English teaching for this trip; teaching adults in an Afro Caribbean community through an NGO. Then off to the beautiful Tayrona National Park where I met the Kogi tribes people, hopped down to the capital, Bogota, and then to The Amazon 😊
Looooong version So I sadly left my students and team in Puerto Lopez, Ecuador, and travelled up to the capital,
Quito, for a couple of days before crossing the border into Colombia. Quito is 3,100 metres up in The Andes and what I’ll remember from there are the fantastic rainbow filled views, particularly from the cloud skimming, stomach churning cable car which went up to 4,100 metres, visiting the
equator line theme park and the extremely friendly people.
Leaving Quito I was a tad worried about
Quito´s cable car
Goes up to 4,100 metres, I had to be very big and brave as we ascended the journey into Colombia as I’d heard it was complicated and could be dodgy. But some handy dandy nice travelling person had written
a guide to the process, so apart from waiting in queues for six hours to leave Ecuador and then enter Colombia, it was all peachy.
My first proper stop was in Popoyan – Colombia’s white city. Seems every country in South America has to have a white city. It sure was white; they painted every building a few blocks from the main square white, if you stood still too long they’d probably paint you too. The city is famous for its cuisine; in fact
it’s a UNESCO City of Gastronomy (I didn’t know there were such things did you?). I can’t say I did much fine dining on my budget but I did discover the arepa, a fat squat pancake that usually comes filled with cheese or meat - I ate a lot of these 😊 I’m finding that there are a lot of hot springs in South America and went with some guys from the hostel (
park life hostel, very nice btw ) to visit
the ones at Coconuco. Took ages to get there but they were great – set in a green valley and without leeches this time!
We also did some exotic fruit tourism - us travelling Europeans get very excited by new exotic fruits – really, it’s not just me!
Then I made my way to
Salento, in the main coffee region, where I stayed a few days at
Plantation House coffee plantation. The area is really beautiful; like Wales but with good weather. On the bus to Salento I chatted to the guy sitting next to me, I asked what his work was and he whispered that he was in the military. I wondered why he wasn’t keen for our fellow passengers to know and I found out when I got to Cartagena, but I’ll say more about that later. Anyway, Salento was the place where I officially became impressed with Colombia; it’s very touristy at weekends; the town square is full of food and drink tents and live music. People walk through the main street, which has shops painted like gipsy caravans, on their way up to the view point of the beautiful
Valle de Cocora. A lot of people take a day hike through the Valle (valley), as did I. You jump in a jeep from the town square – they’re amusingly called Willys for some reason
Salento´s Valle de Cocora
you can see the national tree of Colombia in the background - the wax palm - and it takes you to the start of the walk. You walk through the valley with the wax palm trees (Colombia’s national tree) then through the forest to watch the hummingbirds (they’re high on my favourite birds list), then up a mountain (you only need to walk up the mountain once, but we did it twice through ineptitude) where you can see more hummingbirds. Then back to the start to climb aboard another Willy – stop it - homeward bound!
I stayed in Salento longer than I’d planned as it was a little paradise. I decided that I needed to investigate the world of coffee, first by working on our plantation for a day – which earned me a free lunch. Then by having a free tour of the plantation (free coz I’d stayed there three nights) and then going to the small processing plant where the beans are further sorted and bagged and sometimes roasted, and finally by going to the best coffee shop in town - Jesus Martin’s - to watch the barrister doing her stuff and making me various coffees. Now, you might not know, I didn’t, that In Colombia
it’s really hard these days to make a decent profit from coffee farming, so that’s why the
Hummingbirds :)
In the Valle de Cocora; they look like something invented in a Disney fantasy producers are so keen to diversify into plantation hostels, tours and selling direct to the tourists. The plantation workers work hard with hardly any holiday and generally get paid terribly, some just work for bed and board - the guys at our platantation were treated well though. Fair trade organic coffee - it’s the way to go. Also, across South America it seems, the locals are drinking the cheap poor grade coffee while all the good stuff is exported – hardly fair is it!
I also went with some of the guys from the hostel to try
Tejo. A bar game where you throw metal weights at a plastacine target with wedges of gunpowder embedded in it. Hit the gunpowder and you get an explosion – and that means points and me screaming like a fool. So that was Salento, I’d like to see more of the coffee area one day; I’m told Finlandia is beautiful and far less touristy.
I had to leave Salento to start my volunteer teaching in
Cartagena on the northern coast of Colombia (the Caribbean – whoo hoo!). The 16 hour bus journey was uneventful except that I forgot to pack
Coffee art
Look - a bear! my jumper and shivered through the night as the air conditioning was set to arctic. They do this on all Colombian coaches it seems. I arrived at night in Cartagena in an impressive storm, and tried to find Ronnie, the guy who would be my boss. The roads were chaotic rivers and I got off the bus with all my stuff not knowing where I was – but hurrah! Ronnie found me and went to La Boquilla (five miles outside of Cartagena) where I’d be teaching and living. First impressions of ‘Boqui’ were muddy and chaotic – a half slum, but my accommodation was suprisingly smart.
Mi Chalet is a guest house run by Armando and Libia, living with their daughter Laura, two dogs, tortoises, Grandma Mayo and kind of adopted son/housekeeper Jonathan. They are a lovely crazy gang and Armando designed the house himself. Libia is a great cook and fish came from the sea only two minutes away, and coconuts and cherimoya fruit (custard apples) from the garden. The house came with its challenges though – next door was Bombey, Boqui’s infamous discoteca. On Saturday and Sunday from 1pm – 4am the sound system made our furniture jump around
This is how pineapples grow
At our coffee plantation. Someone pointed out that the British like to call a lot of fruits xyzapples - it´s nothing like an apple! the room. Someone’s donkey lived under our bedroom window so he woke us up at 6am – Christ donkeys are loud. Then the “el peto” (porridge type thing) seller would come by shouting his wares from the top of his lungs. It would have been nice to go to the very nearby beach to escape the noise but all the beach bars are in competition for who has the loudest sound system. There was another lady sharing my room, Monica, who was scoping a masters project on life in Boqui. On weekends we’d run away to central Cartagena to get some peace. During weekdays it was all okay though, no Bombey.
Boqui is an Afro Caribbean community; the residents are descendants from Spanish slaves and are beautiful and loud. A lot of them are involved in artisan fishing, although unemployment is high as is alcoholism. I was pretty much the only whitey around, and I felt uneasy at times (especially when I got lost at night in the alleyways), although the people I met were really were lovely. Ah yes, it was by talking to people in Boqui that I found out one the reasons why the Colombian military
Tejo
Proud of my explosion :) isn’t popular, and that guy in the bus was so shady. There are guerrilla groups in the countryside that the military wants to be seen to be dealing with them. They kill innocent people, for example homeless people or itinerant workers, dress them as guerrillas and then go on TV saying that they’re winning the battle against the enemy. That’ll be why then.
Nothing happens quickly in Boqui mainly because it’s so hot and the same goes for its municipal services - Boqui is low priority. There were frequent power cuts, floods after storms, rubbish collection was patchy and when a water pipe collapsed it took three days before we had water. There are stray dogs and cats everywhere, though as per usual the strays are really sweet but often in a bad way. There are ‘issues’ en Boqui with people selling their land for development. The big hotel chains dominate the beaches up to Boqui and people are worried that Boqui is heading in the same direction. At the moment it feels like a slice of shanty town Jamaica (ok I’ve never been but from what I’ve seen on telly!), but who knows what it will be
Mi Chalet, La Boquilla
With Luna who has just had 8 puppies :) like ten years down the road.
So Ronnie was my boss, he runs the
Casa de la Cultura, a community centre in La Boquilla. He has lived in Boqui all his life and when we walk through the streets everyone says hi. He’s like a cool young Mayor. He and some colleagues also have a
cooperative ecotourism business, they run tours of the local mangroves and trips to sample Boqui culture – the food, music and dancing. He’s a busy man. I was the first volunteer to teach English at the centre. I taught a group five nights a week, which grew to two groups. My first group was continually evolving, I had about 20 students on my register, but different people would show up each night which made continuity tricky. By the last few weeks I had five people in that class who were coming regularly and others who hopped in and out. We made some good progress over the two months, from ‘Giselle is a girl’ to the simple past ‘She went to her mother’s shop last week’. The students were really fun, they liked to joke around a lot and teach me things about Boqui culture, the music and slang.
La Boquilla fashion
Just everyday clothes for our cook :) My other class was very basic. They started well but then disappeared. I have to say that dedication wasn’t a strong point among a lot of the students. One or two students asked for individual classes on certain points, so I’d plan a special class but then they didn’t show. Anyway, all in all it was good fun and a useful experience. I was able to help design the course programme and deliver it how I wanted to. Other volunteers are delivering the classes now.
After a month living in Boqui I decided to move to central Cartagena. The noisy Boqui neighbourhood was driving me slightly crazy and Monica wasn’t there anymore to help keep me sane. Also Armando and Libia had split up and Armando had returned to his alcoholic ways – eek. I stayed at
hostel Casa Nativa on one of the prettiest streets in the old town. What I liked about the place is that it was quiet! Hardly any traffic came down our road, mainly just the tourist horse and carts clip clopping past in the evenings. Also for volunteers they give a special price - thanks😊 The hostel is on a road called tumbamuertos, so
Mangrove tour
Ronnie, my boss, is steering our boat gondoleer style. The mangroves are full of herons, crabs and fish. called because during the
cholera epidemic in 1849 when the cart carrying the corpses went down the road the bodies would fall out as the road was so rutted - tumba – fall, muertos - dead people – so that was nice!
So living in the centre meant that all of the touristy delights were on my doorstep. I made some good friends (hello Shans, Lauri, Earle and Anny!) at the hostel who also stayed a while and together we explored the city. The centre really is pretty, the buildings are painted different colours and there are balconies covered in trailing flowering plants. Cartagena is mega touristy and expensive, but you can have cheap fun too though: drink rum on the city wall and watch the sunset, watch the street baseball in
Getsemani on a Sunday followed by free Zumba in the square, play chess in a plaza, take photos of the doorknockers, watch free films at the cultural centre (where la gordita is) and on the last Sunday of the month many of the museums are free. Ah and there’s the
Cartagena Connections free walking tour. Kristy from Australia revealed the meanings behind the ornate door knockers: royalty = iguanas, military = lions, sea merchants
= all things aquatic, but we still don’t know what the parrot or the hands mean though – anyone???
Colombians love to party and we had fun at the
Media Luna hostel party drinking rum on the terrace for Lauri’s birthday. Havana is great for live salsa bands and more rum and dancing. Both these clubs are in
the boho area of Getsemani, walking there from the centre you pass the prostitutes – big business with all the tourists and business conferences. In the Plaza de los Coches (where slaves used to be auctioned) there’s more clubs: Tu Candela was particularly fun after Colombia won a world cup qualifying game with the locals dancing on the bar, and Monica and I had a beer at Donde Fidel’s and saw the man himself. All the greats have played at his place. I still can’t dance salsa though! Ladies, when out salsaing be warned Colombian men are smooth talking sharks, even the old ones – I had an 80 year old guy chatting me up!
There’s loads of street food in Cartagena which is either super healthy or super unhealthy. There are people selling fruit everywhere – watermelon and mango with the option of salt – no
La Boquilla crabs
Fresh from the mangroves thanks, or fritos, lots of delicious deep fried snacky things with sour cream sauce. There’s fresh orange juice and limeade, and whole coconuts with a straw for drinking. Everyone loves the orange juice and limeade because it has loads of ice, I felt like sticking my head in the vat most days - it was so hot!!!
If you are ever lucky enough to find yourself in Cartagena, some restaurants I recommend are
La Mulata (fish) very popular,
El Balcon (good food and drinks and you can sit on the balcony and watch people the square below),
La Vitriola, very posh seafood, I only got to go to because a friend could get us in for free – thanks! Esquina de Pan de Bono does the best juices, Girasoles does great cheap vegetarian food as does the
Hari Krishna Yoga Santuario and lastly Crepes and Waffles – need I say more.
It’s fun just to walk around the city too (just not in the middle of the day as you’ll melt). You can watch the
pelanqueras sashaying in their fabulous dresses and selling fruit salads from the dishes balanced on their heads. You can walk all around the 13km old city wall and
La Boquilla beach
A world away from Bocagrande watch tourists taking rides in the horse and carriages - often you’ll see a bride and groom in one as it’s a hot spot for weddings. If you need shade you can sit under one of the massive rubber trees, though be careful, I saw a rather large boa constrictor slithering around one. The centre really is a world away from La Boquilla, it’s one of, if not the most expensive part of Colombia. The wealthy are enjoying the fine dining dressed in elegant white cotton, but the people who live outside of the centre can’t afford to go there. If you just holidayed in central Cartagena you’d get a warped view of Colombian life.
I personally loved the old town and Getsemani, but for some people
Bocagrande is where it’s at. It’s the modern beach area - lots of high rise swanky hotels, boutiques, bars and casinos. It used to be an island but was connected to Cartagena city and then developed with Middle Eastern investment in the 80’s. The beach is okay, the sand is nice and the sea is warm, but it’s not crystal clear Caribbean by any means. There are little tents laid out for
My students
Some of my ace core - Stephen, Giselle and Harold :) miles. You rent the tent with chairs for the day and the guy that rents to you is also your drinks waiter. But, don’t expect a restful beach day because the beach sellers don’t allow that. They’ll try to sell you everything from jewelry to pipes, and there are rappers and bongo groups to entertain you and of course the massage ladies who will grab your limbs and start massage them without your permission. I know these people have to make a living, but ****!
In my humble opinion the
best beaches are outside of the centre: Playa Blanca (though only outside of weekends as it’s too beach-seller-packed otherwise) and Las Islas del Rosario - I went three times as I love snorkeling. The sea there is proper crystal Caribbean – paradise. You take a packed tourist speedboat from the marina and about an hour or so later you’re there with white beaches and palm trees. I particularly liked visiting Isla Grande and staying at
La Cocatera, which is an eco-resort with solar power, local food and camping. We walked around the island meeting the locals and visiting the bird sanctuary, and at night we saw fireflies and luminescent plankton. If
Tortugas
Some of my La Boquilla housemates you have a healthy budget you could visit
Isla Kalhua (I went on a special cheapo deal), it has just one big house with a pool and you can swim a snorkelling circuit around the island and do some daredevil deck jumping. All the little islands like this used to be owned by drug barons, but now the government rents them to entrepreneurs who rent them to tourists.
Back in Cartagena central one of the cool things that you can do is visit the
San Felipe Fortress, it’s a real history lesson. For those who don’t speak Spanish you need the electronic guide as there is no signage, not even in Spanish, Spanish people can rent a human guide. Also, there’s no shade so you need your hat and water. So this is what my electroguide told me – The Spanish conquered Cartagena in 1533 because it was a good strategic point for plundering native gold. After various attacks from France and England, including with our own Francis Drake, the Spanish used African slaves to build the fortress, in addition to its other existing fortifications. The fortress was in a sweet location because of good visibility from attacks and because it was
surrounded by disease ridden marshes and a leper hospital. In 1811, the locals fought the Spanish and were free for a little while until the Spanish came back and retook the city by starving their enemies into submission. Not too many years after the locals fought back again and this time took back Cartagena permanently - it was the first part if Columbia to declare itself free of Spain, and earned itself the title of Cartagena the Brave! Asides from all the history there are great views of the city and you can visit the underground tunnels. I went in a spooky few but there were lots more half filled with rainwater and bats – mwah ha ha!
I could carry on for a long time talking about Cartagena but I’ll stop here because you have lives to lead. So the next episode:
Taganga and Tayrona National Parque - further west along the coast. I stayed here a couple of days with my Cartagena friends. I felt uneasy about going to Taganga as there have been a lot of tourist muggings in the last year, however we stuck to the lit roads and had a strategy of scaring off muggers by acting
like zombies if anyone tried anything! Other than the muggings it’s a sweet back packer place with some lovely beaches. Then on to the nearby
Tayrone National Parque; I explored it in just one day – it wasn’t enough. It’s another little paradise that you need at least a couple of days for, but I was in a rush to get my flight from Bogota. I did a hike from Calabazo, the first drop off point from Taganga, not many people get off here, I was the only one that day. I almost had the trail to myslef, only saw a few other tourists and some
Kogi tribes people looking very cool in their cream robes. I met some macaws a tree frog and saw lots of blue morpho butterflies. It’s a tough walk/clamber over slippery boulders then you come to the Kogi sacred site, further along to a coconut grove and then out into a ‘The Beach’ style beach – amazing! I enjoyed the beach a while and then carried on with the rest of the circuit as I had to get my bus. It was a shame to be dashing past the lovely beaches and camp sites; I had to hire a
Torre del Reloj
You can see the palanqueras here horse to get back in time. When I reached the bus I was knackered and had run out of water and no one was selling it, so I ate four ice lollies.
Then on to the capital
Bogota for a day, the place that people either seem to love or hate, unfortunately I was more in the second category – it had a lot to live up to after the Caribbean. However, my hostel was possibly the nicest, best run hostel I have ever stayed in.
Anandamayi has pretty courtyards, ten types of tea and coffee, hot and ready all day, loads of books and games, beautiful beds – ah and hot water bottles, a nice touch in chilly old Bogota. It was hard to leave the hostel! but I joined a free walking tour run by the council, it was good but straight-laced; lots of dates and no funny anecdotes. In the main square you can see signs of the recent riots – the cathedral and government buildings are daubed in paint splodges and graffiti. It seems there have been a lot of riots and coups in Bogota and the place looks shabby and feels edgy. However,
Rum on the wall :)
Shanan is a great cocktail waitress, as long as you ask for cubre libre! I wasn’t there long so I’m sure it has good points that I didn’t uncover, and as I often find myself saying – the people that I met were nice!
So I am one for low carbon travel, yes indeed gotta think about the environment, but there is no way to get from Bogota to The Amazon by road or river, so, I flew to Leticia; Colombia’s principle Amazon town. It’s a pretty, quiet and safe place as it used to be a military town. I stayed in
basic accommodation, but again the people were nice (I think that’s turning into my catchphrase). I took a motorbike taxi and tried to go to snake reserve but no one was there (maybe the snakes ate everyone?); I had seen a sign for
Parque Ecologico Mundo Amazonico further up the road so I asked the driver to try there – what a great move, it was a jungle sustainability centre and I spent a happy day there with an English speaking guide learning about the flora and fauna and the natives. The owner of the place has been regenerating the land back to jungle after it was cleared for cattle grazing. She’s working with indigenous
Las Islas Rosario
This is what all sea should look like! people to find ways of making money from their land other than clearing it for cattle. This includes growing medicinal and edible plants for making a jungle tea to sell and using rubbish as construction materials.
So then I had to go through an immigration challenge to get down into Iquitos, Peru, where I had a three day jungle tour booked. This involved going to the airport on motorbike taxi to get stamped out of Colombia, crossing the border into Brazil – just a 30 min walk away – taking a boat over to the other side of the river, which is Peru, to get my passport stamped, then coming back to Leticia to wait there until I needed to go back into Brazil to take the ferry at 2.30am to Peru. That took most of the day. But it was fun to be in three countries within a few hours. Then on to my Amazon River adventure – the next installment!
I know that was a longun’. Did you make it all the way to the end or just look at the photos??? Well, I’ll be back with my Amazon blog next and then Bolivia (where
I am right now). I’ll catch up with myself eventually. I hope you are all good in the U.K or wherever else you are in the world. Have a great Christmas and New Year if I don’t see you, but I hope I can wish a lot of you this in person when I’m back! 😊
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Sonja
non-member comment
Have a good trip.
That is a wonderful blog,Jenny - so good to hear from you. I hope you have a good trip back.Hope to see you