South America in 90 Days

Farewell Colombia...

jenc_13 — Tue, 3 Apr 2012 19:43:00 GMT

Arriving in Santa Marta to hot, tropical sunshine was a welcome relief after a freezing 15 hours on a bus. There´s not a lot to find charming about Santa Marta, but the main reason I´d ventured back up to the Colombian coast was for the Betfair sponsored Ciudad Perdida (Lost City) trek. Well, not really sponsored as I had to fork out the $300 myself, but it was a nice little reunion of Betfairians past and present.

The trek itself is a 45km (ish) round trip to an archaelogical site of the ancient city of the Tairona. We walked through dense jungle, with steep ascents, several river crossings and some fairly treacherous terrain. Add the fact that it was about 90% humidity and the mosquitoes treated me like an all-you-can-eat buffet and you get the idea that it wasn´t a complete walk in the park. The trek is normally done in 5 or 6 days, but as our little team was 3 guys and me (not known for my competitive streak at all obviously) we opted to do it in 4 days which meant a good 7 hours of walking each day. Tough going at times, especially when ascending the 1200 narrow, slippery steps to the city itself, but definitely worth the effort.

After 4 days of cold showers in the evening and being coated in deet, sunblock and sweat during the daytime, it was a relief to return to civilisation and a few days by the beach seemed in order. We headed just out of Santa Marta to a town called Taganga, which is touted as a party town but given that everything shut at 1am and the only place we could find that was actually lively was a hostel bar that largely seemed to be frequented by coked up Israelis it was a bit of a disappointment.

In fact the most memorable thing I found about Taganga is that the French run hostel we were staying at (Casa Felipe) had some of the best food I´ve eaten on the trip so far. Filet mignon, chicken with blue cheese salad, roast salmon - and all around the 5 quid mark. Heaven.

Oh wait, there was one other memorable moment in Taganga. The morning I fell out of a hammock, stone cold sober, in front of 3 random guys....that was pretty memorable. Anyone who knows me will know that this sort of thing is actually almost expected of me as I am a bit of a natural disaster. However in my defence, the hammock was not a nice loopy crescent shape, but was stretched quite tightly between two trees meaning there wasn´t a lot of give in it. I didn´t quite manage to get in properly and instead of getting out and trying again, I tried to pull the edges of the hammock up and around me and ended up just flipping myself out of said hammock, landing with a loud crack as ankle bone met concrete and also giving myself an excellent rope burn on my upper arm - I looked like a battered wife for about a week. To their credit the guys who saw me tried very hard to suppress their laughter while asking if I was OK. All I could do was get up, nonchalantly (and v carefully) get back into the hammock while pretending like I wasn´t in quite a lot of pain and try to hide my burning red face. The only silver lining was that Freemo, Green and Brains were not there to witness my humiliation - I would never have heard the end of it.

Anyway, moving on. My last couple of days in Colombia were spent in Tayrona national park with F and G, as Brains said farewell and headed off to Chile. The park is on the northern coast of Colombia, near to Santa Marta and is home to some beautiful beaches. In short, a very relaxing place to spend a couple of days reading, sunning, swimming and drinking.

The only slight blip was that when we were there it coincided with Semana Santa- holy week - where basically every Colombian flocks to the coast on holiday. So when we arrived at the campsite we had to wait for about 30 minutes to ´check in´ and get a hammock or a tent for the night. Sadly Colombians do not have that innate British ability to queue in an orderly fashion so by the time we forced our way to the front, all the hammocks had been allocated and our only option was for the three of us to share a tent. And quite clearly a 2-man tent at that, as there was not even enough space for 2 mattresses to lie flat next to each other. Being the only girl I was obviously nominated to sleep in the middle, which meant sleeping ON the ridge where the two mattresses met. Cosy. And stiflingly hot.

The next afternoon I said goodbye to the boys who were staying another night, but I had a flight to catch the following day and needed to get back to Santa Marta (and a proper bed). 21 day tour through Peru starting in a couple of days which I am looking forward to but I just don´t want to leave Colombia, it´s been an amazing month...

San Gil and the big pig....

jenc_13 — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 12:38:00 GMT

After leaving Villa de Leyva behind, the next stop on the list was San Gil, adventure sports capital of Colombia, and supposedly about a 4 hour bus ride after connecting in Tunja.

Now I know I´ve made my fair share of complaints/comments about some of the íncidents I´ve had when travelling in Colombia, but this one particular bus ride left them all FAR behind. I think we knew it was not going to be a pleasant, relaxing bus ride within 5 minutes of setting off when the bus driver decided that NOW was definitely the best and safest time to put on his tie (I assume his uniform). No need to pull over....no no I´ll go with the ´both hands on the tie, zero hands on the wheel´ tried and tested method of driving....and overtaking.

I lost count of how many trucks we overtook on blind corners, sometimes two at a time. Bear in mind this is through mountainous country, which always adds a little frisson of excitement to the potential death by fiery bus crash.

We seemed to stop an awful lot, picking up random people from the side of the road, including one guy who happened to be carrying a HANDSAW which he oh-so-casually stored in the compartment above his seat. On two occasions we just stopped in the middle of the road so that a car/motorbike travelling in the opposite direction could take a wrapped package from the driver in exchange for some money...hmmmmmm.

Even being stopped by the police and getting a ticking off for trying to overtake the 257th truck on a blind corner wasn´t enough to deter him into perhaps obeying a couple of road rules. It was a hairy 5 hours to say the least.

Thankfully we did indeed arrive at San Gil and booked in for white water rafting the following day - level 4 and 5 rapids are not to be taken lightly, and I was quietly confident that I would definitely be falling out of the raft on multiple occasions. However, somehow managed to stay in, despite not hearing the guide shout ´Inside´ at one point, and only clicking when I looked around and I was the only one still sitting on the edge. Idiot. Really good fun though, although being at the front you definitely become something of a human shield for the rest of the boat, I was drenched.

We got back around 4 and as the ´lunch provided´ was basically fruit and crisps, we went in search of something more substantial. Ran into a guy from the hostel who was carrying a takeaway carton filled with hog roast, crackling and some kind of risotto/herb stuffing which looked pretty amazing. He gave us a vague description of where the pig on the spit was located (´down there in the square´) and we set off to find it. Well despite canvassing pretty much every part of the square we couldn´t find it, however by this point NOTHING but hog roast would do. Freemo´s attempts to ask some elderly local women sitting in the square ´Donde esta el gran cerdo?´ (Where is the big pig),´do you know where I can find a big pig?´ etc were only met with bemusement. To be honest if a stranger with a wild beard approached me asking where he could find a big pig, I´d definitely do the London thing and completely ignore the clearly crazy fool.

The next day we took a day trip to Barichara - voted Colombia´s prettiest town, and another colonial gem. Very pretty and VERY quiet. At first we thought it was because we had arrived during siesta time (1pm) but no.....when we left at 4ish it was still just as sleepy. Had an amazing meal at a restaurant called Color de Hormigas which specialises in the local delicacy of fried ants, however when we were there they were waiting for a delivery so I couldn´t try them (which I was actually genuinely disappointed about, believe it or not). The fish was delicious though...if a little pedestrian compared to deep fried insect.

After returning to San Gil we checked out the Parque Gallinereal which are the botanic gardens in San Gil and worth a visit - lots of old mans beard (lord of the rings) trees, parrots, wildlife etc.

We went back to the main square, had a beer and on exiting the bar realised we were pretty much right next to ´the big pig´ we´d been searching for yesterday. Must have been the only metre of the square we didn´t walk past....but worth the wait.

Bogota, Zipaquira and Villa de Leyva - 3 towns in 3 days

jenc_13 — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 12:34:00 GMT

So after my early arrival in Bogota I headed to Platypus hostel in the La Candelaria to meet the second familiar face of the trip: Freemo, of Betfair ´fame´.

I only really had a day to see the sights in Bogota, as we were planning to head north the next day, so logically decided to head to neighbouring town Zipaquira and just ditch Bogota completely.

I´m sure Bogota is lovely, but the Salt Cathedral in Zipaquira had been talked up by many a traveller and for good reason.

The ´cathedral´ (technically not one as there´s no bishop, but it does function as a church as rather incredibly there is regular mass on sundays) is housed inside a huge rock salt mine, which is still actively mined. I can´t remember the exact stat but the actual cathedral (which is impressively big and hosts concerts, weddings and such like) represents a tiny, tiny percent of the actual mine. There are 14 different ´stations of the cross´(one shown below) representing different passages in the Bible. Don´t ask me which one is below, lets say it´s his resurrection because that´s the good bit.

Anyway, it´s spectacularly lit, but lest you get carried away with the beauty and awe of it all, there is of course the ubiquitous snack stands (fresh popcorn? In church??) and general touristy crap available for purchase (all lit by the same majestically beautiful light, natch).

That night, despite it being a Monday, a public holiday and literally almost nothing being open we decided to go out for a few drinks. So Freemo, Dave (an American guy from the hostel) and another guy (how terrible, can´t remember his name) and I attempted to find a place, any place we could sit and get pleasantly drunk.

This came in the shape of the ´Doors Rock´ bar, which was subtley painted with a huge union jack on the door with a big neon sign above it, just in case you missed it.

Apart from the long haired Colombian owner (who had a bit of a Stones vibe about him and was casually pouring himself shots of rum at the bar) and the girl at the bar (his wife?), we were the only people in there, but they played some great tunes from the 80´s and 90´s and after he´d worked his way through half the bottle of rum, the owner grew increasingly generous and started forcefeeding us shots of his rum. ´Forcing´ might not be strictly accurate, but by the 4th or 5th one I was starting to wish he was a little LESS free with it. I think his wife thought the same as she watched him pour the meagre profits from the night down our throats.

Next day we said farewell to Dave (and the other guy) and headed for Villa de Leyva, a pretty colonial town a few hours away. After a confusing 30 minutes wandering around the bus terminal and asking multiple people for assistance, we found out we needed to hail down the bus OUTSIDE the terminal on the main road as it drove by(of course, how stupid of us). This wasn´t as easy as it sounded as it was absolutely pissing down with rain, I was in flip flops and we could barely see a metre in front of us.

Managed to get on the bus though, only problem was at the other end, Freemo realised that one of his hiking boots had managed to detach itself from his backpack in the melee...not ideal when one will be doing a 4 day trek in 2 weeks time.

Moving swiftly on from that blip, Villa de Leyva was beautiful, is home to the biggest - and emptiest - main square in Colombia (see photo gallery) and all the streets are still cobbled, which basically makes driving (or cycling) anywhere a rather slow and sometimes painful process.

We hired bikes the next day and set off with the sun shining to check out the local scenery - pozos de azul (blue pools), mountains, weird 1900´s theme parks and the like. Only problem was, between me leading the way and Freemo carrying the map we managed to miss the turn off and ended up going 3km past where we needed to. Uphill. I don´t really think this is my fault as anyone that knows me knows that my sense of direction can not be trusted and therefore can´t be held responsible...

Thankfully the return downhill was much more rapid, but by the time we found the turn off (which was of course glaringly obvious the second time around) the skies had opened and it was raining heavily.

Having chosen the hostel from the guidebook in part because it mentioned a rather tempting sounding ´wood fired pizza oven´ I was a LITTLE disappointed to find out when we returned sodden and cold that actually this did not mean that they cooked pizza on the premises, but that they provided the oven and the wood, and you could cook yourself a pizza should you so desire! Little bit misleading there Footprint, even if the description was correct in a literal sense!

La Zona Cafetera - Salento

jenc_13 — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 12:30:00 GMT

It seems to be becoming a trend that I start each entry with some kind of transport misadventure, so I might as well continue with that theme....

I left for Salento in the Zona Cafetera (a whole region devoted to making coffee, yes please) on Friday morning, having made a valiant effort to get up at 9am despite a bit of a raging hangover. I'd been informed that the bus would take around 6 hours and that although the bus was bound for Armenia, I could get dropped off beforehand at a turn-off to Salento and a local bus would take me the last 30 minutes (rather than connecting in Armenia which would take an extra hour or so).

Well, 7 hours of bus later and we pulled over on a darkened highway and the driver called out 'Salento' and looked over his shoulder at me.

When I say 'darkened highway' this is actually more of an understatement, as there was not a single light in sight, except for the bus headlights. I gave the bus driver my my best 'are you f*cking kidding me I'm not going to get off this bus with ALL of my belongings and stand in the pitch black on the side of a Colombian motorway like some giant sitting duck' look.

Apparently the look needed no translation into Spanish as we moved swiftly on to Armenia where I managed to get the last bus to Salento. I arrived just before 10 (a mere 10 hours after I left Medellin) which apparently is too late for dinner in Salento so I grabbed what can only be described as a deep fried ball of something from a street vendor. Still tasty though.

I ran into some swiss girls I met in Cartagena who were staying at the same hostel as me (Hostel Tra La La), run by a rather blunt Dutch man. My favourite example of his surly approach to hostel management was when the girls asked if they could get some laundry done, he responded "fine, but put it straight in the washing machine, I don`t want to touch your dirty underwear". Brilliant.

The next morning we all (as in almost everyone that was staying in the hostel) got up stupidly early to get a jeep ride out to the start of the Valle de Corcora trek. This was a pretty amazing 6 hour hike through a cloud forest, stopping at a local farm high in the mountains for a snack of chocolate con queso - yes this is just as odd as it sounds. Apparently a traditional local 'treat', this basically consists of hot chocolate served with a block of cheese not dissimilar to ungrilled halloumi. Weird combination even to serve together, but the traditional way of eating it is to break chunks of the cheese INTO the hot chocolate and eat/drink it together. I gave it a try but I can confirm that it is just as wrong as it sounds. And I would not be surprised if it turns out to not actually be a local tradition, but more a product of some unsuspecting tourist asking if the cheese is meant to be dunked in the hot chocolate and the Colombian vendor thinking 'sure......let's say that and see if he's dumb enough to eat it'.

Anyway after our brief snack stop we climbed above the valley of wax palms and then gradually descended into it amongst an awful lot of eerie mist with these huge (some 60m tall) palm trees shooting into the sky above. It was pretty spectacular and I must have taken about 50 photos of just the trees as it was impossible to capture just how impressive they were.

That night we all went out for the local specialty of trout (delicious) and ended up at a tejo bar afterwards. Tejo is a Colombian game which is a bit like lawn bowls but with gunpowder. You throw stone discs down a dirt lane, at the end of which are 4 paper triangles stuffed with gunpowder. The more you blow up, the more points you get. The ideal sport to participate in when drinking surely?

The next day was my last in Salento and had to be spent visiting one of the local coffee fincas. Unfortunately on the walk back a thunderstorm hit and we all got completely soaked. The thunder, lightning and perpetual rain didn't really bode well for my first night bus experience either (on windy roads through the mountains to Bogota). But thankfully the 7 hours overnight passed without incident (despite aggressive air conditioning reducing the temperature of the bus to that of a fridge) and I arrived in Bogota at the unsociable hour of 5:30am to be welcomed by a temperature of 10 degrees and unrelenting grey drizzle - just like London....

Medellin....

jenc_13 — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 12:25:00 GMT

After a few teething problems with my flights in South America so far, you can imagine my surprise when I found myself not only making my connection in Bogota when en route from Quito to Medellin, but actually being EARLY.

(I also have to add one more whinge that it´s particularly galling that while every connection that I´ve missed has been magically, perfectly on time in departing, the resulting flight that I've been put on 4 hours later has always been a good 30 minutes late. Someone´s getting a laugh out of that.)

Anyway, back to my feeling of smugness at making my connecting flight for once.

Basically I congratulated myself too soon, I should have known that Bogota airport and it's ground staff would have the last laugh. I arrived in Medellin, my bag did not. Having consulted with the lost luggage office, they assured me that my bag had been put on the next flight and that I just needed to wait in the baggage hall for 40 minutes for the next flight from Bogota to arrive. So I waited. The next flight arrived, happy smiling travellers collected their luggage. I didn't.

Another 45 minutes of sitting on the floor (quite literally cold and alone) and the next flight arrived WITH my backpack, thank god. I really wasn't about to leave the airport and just "trust" that my backpack would be delivered to the hostel (at least not before I left Medellin the following week anyway).

OK rant over. Luckily Medellin is a beautiful city, great climate, beautiful parks and efficient infrastructure - quite probably thanks to Pablo Escobar and the millions in 'charitable donations' he made, either through building sports stadiums, improving the public transport or sponsoring childrens sports teams. He's still seen as a bit of a Robin Hood figure, despite the multiple kidnappings, murders and general reign of terror that was Medellin in the 1980's to early 90's.

Part of the efficient infrastructure of Medellin is the huge cable car track that goes from the city way up into the mountains, giving amazing views over the city. The fact that it's just an extension of the Metro and not actually a tourist attraction makes it all the more brilliant. It was built to give the poorer residents of Medellin who live up in the mountains a quick and easy way to get into the city. I perhaps didn't do quite enough research on this beforehand though, as myself and an Australian girl that I met in the hostel decided to get out at the top, and after a short steep descent we thought we might as well just walk down to the next cable car stop (too lazy to walk back up, basically).

Well it turns out we were walking through the favelas, the poorest area in Medellin and we got a LOT of stares as we wound our way down keeping the cable car firmly in sight at all times, hoping to not get lost. The lively conversation we had been having slowly tapered off until we were both so nervous that we just stopped talking to each other.....it was all a bit tense and probably NOT the wisest thing I've done so far (sorry Mum, but as you said, you like reading about these things AFTER they happen, as then you know I've survived them!)

The walk down to the next stop probably only took 15 minutes in total but it felt like a loooong time, especially when you are wondering if the reason everyone is staring at you is purely due to curiosity because you are clearly out of place OR because they are sizing you up as a potential target and just deciding which of the stupid white girls to rob/kidnap/(insert undesirable fate here) first......The relief that we both felt when we turned around the corner to see the cable car station was fairly overwhelming! Oops, lesson learned...

8 days in Ecuador

jenc_13 — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 14:01:00 GMT

After a less than ideal welcome to Ecuador (ie no welcome at all) I was introduced to my host family for my week in Quito the following morning. I was staying in the home of a grandmotherly lady who lives in the Mariscal area of Quito (affectionately known as Gringoland, as coincidentally this is also where a lot of the hostels and bars are....I felt like my placement here was less of a coincidence and more of a `my reputation precedes me` kind of thing). Anyway Señora Blanca lives alone but her daughter and grandchildren live in the apartment below, (maintaining proximity to family seems to be pretty common here) so the children are around from time to time too. Mind you...I am fairly clueless about what to say to kids in English, let alone Spanish so you can safely assume I was fairly out of my depth here.

I arrived at the homestay on Saturday and wasn`t starting school until the Monday, so I had an entertaining and challenging few days trying to utilise the very small amount of spanish I had learned via a bootleg copy of Rosetta Stone (one basic module). As my host spoke no english whatsoever the burden was on me to communicate....didn`t fill me with confidence.

In fact as I found out on Monday at my first spanish class (my teacher actually burst out laughing on hearing this), I had been making the schoolgirl error of saying `Mucho gusto` after every meal (6 in total at this point) thinking I was saying `I like it/tastes good` etc. Instead I discovered what I had been saying was more like `pleased to meet you`....over and over and over again. She must have thought I was just SO happy to be there. For future reference the term I SHOULD have been using is `me gusta mucho` which I feel is unnecessarily similar to what I was saying...but lesson learned regardless!

My week in Quito was pretty intense I have to admit. I had originally planned to have c15 hours of Spanish over Monday to Friday, before flying to Medellin the following Saturday, however realising I wasn`t going to see anything outside of Quito that way, I condensed it to 4 hours a day, with school finishing at noon Thursday and giving me time for a small sojourn to Baños a small spa town south of Quito.

I can verify that 4 hours of spanish one-on-one is a LOT. There is no respite and certainly no opportunities to be lazy and let someone else answer when you can`t be bothered trying to form an answer. Add to the fact that I was staying in a homestay and it shouldn`t come as much of a surprise that I spoke no english for almost 3 days. I didn`t speak much at ALL, I should point out, but the words I did manage to string together were in español. The days of the week passed without much incident; 4 hours of spanish, have a wander around the town, sampling some form of street food (humitas and ceviche are a new addiction plus of course the ubiquitous empanada), bit of spanish homework and then go to bed ludicrously early due to brain exhaustion. I met up with an aussie girl I`d met in Cartagena a couple of nights which basically resulted in me blurting out what I can only describe as verbal diarrhoea as actually being able to speak english was a bit of a treat to say the least.

Quito was, on first impression, a fairly charmless city; big, polluted and quite poor. However there are parts of it that are stunning, the city lies in a valley dominated by mountains and the views are pretty spectactular (when you`re fortunate enough to get clear skies for more than a few hours). It didn`t feel like the safest place in the world, but I ended the week unscathed regardless.

After school finished for the week I jumped on a bus to Baños and relaxed there for a couple of days....thermal pools, cheap massages and a few (relatively) easy walks outside the town. I say `relatively` because when you are 3000m above sea level, climbing a 2km staircase doesn`t actually seem remotely easy. I had to stop every 5 minutes - just to enjoy the view obviously, and not because I was red faced and gasping for breath...

I did get an opportunity to practise my spanish a bit too. I paid a visit to the Baños el Virgen which are a couple of thermal pools at the bottom of a waterfall and did note as I descended into the pools that it seemed to be (at a guess) 80% local men, 15% local women and children and 5% tourists. It wasn`t long before 3 men had cornered me and were asking me the usual questions "where are you from/how long are you travelling in Ecuador/do you have a boyfriend" etc. (The answer to that last one is always an emphatic "SI, tengo novio").This was all fine, I was quite proud of being able to understand and BE understood and I did have to laugh at the reactions I got when I admitted that I was travelling alone (eyebrows go up), was 31 and unmarried (jaw drops), and also do not have any children as yet (jaw now sitting somewhere on the bottom of the pool). I think they thought there was something wrong with me....and in fairness I have heard of Ecuadorian and Colombian girls who are GRANDMOTHERS by 31, horrifying thought.

When it got to the point that they were suggesting I sack off my bus back to Quito and join them for a drink at their hotel followed by dancing, I took that as my cue to leave. An entertaining hour though, and educational too.

I would have liked to do more of Ecuador as apart from Baños and Quito I only managed a couple of day trips to Otavalo (tiny little town dominated by its artesanial market) and of course the obligatory trip to the equatorial line (worth a visit if only to do the Museo del Solar where you get to do all sorts of childishly fun experiments based on supposedly being in the middle of the world). Guess I`ll just have to come back...

Cartagena to Quito....it shouldn´t be that hard

jenc_13 — Fri, 2 Mar 2012 22:52:00 GMT

OK I kind of want to scream right now......having just spent an hour trying to catch up on a week of activities, the entire entry got wiped so now I have to start over......sigh. And obviously Version 1 was much more witty and interesting.

Anyway....after the 'adventure' of the mud volcano, a day of relaxing and doing very little seemed to be in order. What better place to do it than Playa Blanca, just over an hour by boat from Cartagena and home to white sands, turquoise water and groves of palm trees. Oh and about 100,000 hawkers selling everything from trinkets to massages to coco loco.

The latter is a drink made by chopping off the top of a coconut with a few nonchalant hacks of a machete, I genuinely thought that the vendor was lucky to still be in possession of both his thumbs. The coconut water is then tipped out into a jug and replaced with healthy measures of rum (both dark and light), vodka, pineapple juice and sugar (at least from what I could see....there could have been other stuff added to the party too). A top up of coconut water is then added at the end resulting in a rather heady but delicious tropical cocktail.

Would have been a near perfect day if the combination of undiluted sun + white reflective sand + extreme sun sensitivity due to my anti malarials (a side effect I'd managed to forget about) resulted in probably the worst sunburn I've had in 10 years. By the time the boat arrived back in Cartagena my body was already starting to come out in randomly arranged magenta stripes despite multiple applications of sunblock.....well done me.

My last day in Cartagena followed and as I was pretty much only good for indoor activities I went to explore the Castillo San Felipe which is not far outside the city walls. It's a pretty impressive 480 year old fortress built, funnily enough, to protect the city from attack. I was less than keen to spend my time climbing the parapets outside in the heat of the day though, so opted instead to explore the maze of tunnels that wind their way down about 20m below the castle.

It did cross my mind as I inched my way down a narrow tunnel, in near pitch darkness, solo, where anyone could be lying in wait in the tons of little enclaves that alternated off either side of the tunnel, that this was probably the exact thing that my parents hoped that I was NOT doing in Colombia.

A few seconds later as I heard footsteps coming from a tunnel somewhere just below me, I had the thought that perhaps they were right and I really shouldn't be exploring dark tunnels on my own and maybe the sunlight didn't seem like such a bad option.

Obviously I'm here to tell the tale though, it turned out to be an american guy who insisted we tackled the depths of the tunnels together and we descended down as far as possible....even attempting to wade through knee deep water at one stage, not sure what we were hoping to find.

A few minutes and possible a couple of water-borne diseases later though and I decided I'd probably had enough adventure for one week and it was time to return home to pack for the next stop: Quito, Ecuador.

I'm starting to realise that nothing ever runs smoothly when it comes to flying in South America, as the next morning my flight from Cartegena was delayed by 30 minutes and Air Avianca saw no reason to wait for their connecting passengers in Bogota.....so another 4 hour wait ensued.

Amongst other things I used the time to inform my host family of my new arrival time, rant on Facebook and reward myself for maintaining my composure (mostly) by indulging in my first experience of the Colombian institution that is Crepes y Waffles (yum). Ham, cheese, mushroom and spinach - thanks for asking.

Unfortunately when I arrived in Quito around 9pm - close to 12 hours after leaving the hostel that morning - it quickly became apparent that my dream of seeing my name written on a board and held aloft in the arrivals hall was going to remain unrealised.

No host family. No idea where I was meant to be staying. And really no motivation to try and find out at that point in time.

I called it a night, took a cab to a nearby hostel recommended by the airport, indulged in a completely deserved private room and shortly after I emailed to assure my host family that I had not been kidnapped or met an untimely demise, they got in touch and arranged to pick me up the next morning.

Next week.... intensive Spanish school and a non-English speaking homestay. Not nervous at all.

Not sure if I´ve just been violated....

jenc_13 — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 19:19:00 GMT

A few days in now and after the initial surreal experience on Saturday, it´s been (for the most part) much more relaxing since. Sunday I met three American guys and a Chilean girl at the hostel, and after a couple of hours of playing cards with a few beers we got restless and decided to see what Sunday night in Cartagena had to offer. Very little, as it turns out, and not altogether surprising I suppose. All the bars were closed by midnight except for one club - which I was assured was ´bangin´ on a Thursday through Saturday, however not so much on a Sunday. The 5 of us were the only people in there except for one middle aged couple who looked like they were on a very awkward and not remotely enjoyable date. At midnight. On a Sunday.

We didn´t take a huge, empty club as a sign to go home though and I´m sure the bar staff hated us for forcing them to stay open until 2am just so we could keep drinking. Such dedication.

The following morning the Americans were heading home, so myself, Isabel (the Chilean girl) and a few others booked on a tour to the ´mud volcano´. This sounded similar to thermal pools, but it was atop a volcano and instead of sulphurous pools it was one pool filled with liquid volcanic mud. You get a massage, they take pictures of you and you all have a jolly good time. Supposedly.

We stopped off at a resort outside of town to pick up another big tour group so we numbered about 40 in total at a guess. When the bus pulled up at the volcano, we were instructed to leave everything in the bus and just disembark in our swimming costumes.

Things got very awkward very quickly! I don´t think anyone had really counted on pretty much stripping down to what is essentially underwear, on the bus. In front of 40 strangers. So we all trudged out, trustingly handed over our cameras to a local kid and started walking up the side of the volcano. Isabel and I were about the third and fourth ones up and my first impression was ´how on earth are we all going to fit in this mud pool´as the diameter was probably less than 4 metres! And there were already 4 local men waiting in the pool - the ´masseuses´as it turns out....

I lowered myself into the mud which was pretty warm and almost a syrupy consistency, with one of the men ´helping me´. He got me into a horizontal position, so I was effectively lying in the mud and then sent me into the waiting arms of one of the masseuses who then proceeded to give me what I can only describe as a rub down. Seriously these guys probably have the best jobs in Cartagena!

Once he deemed me adequately coated in mud I was then left to my own devices and he moved onto the next victim. It was actually incredibly hard to stay vertical - it´s as if you´re suspended in treacle as you can´t touch the bottom. But as soon as your legs start tilting at an angle, it´s all over and you end up scrabbling frantically trying to get vertical again. I don´t even know how many people I inadvertently touched inappropriately while trying to regain my balance - but I was aware of at least 3 (my apologies).

Once the pool was uncomfortably full, Isabel and I exited and wandered down the side of the volcano to the lagoon to get clean. Here the local women took over where the men left off and proceeded to give me a fairly intimate washing! I crouched in the water, while this woman tipped bowls over my head and body, while rubbing the mud off my body - no orifice left unseen to! My bikini was given a fairly vigorous shaking out as she flapped the material away from my body to try and rinse the mud out. If anyone wanted to, they could have pretty much seen everything!

Oh and I later found out that I actually got away lightly, as one of the girls went the following day and actually had her bikini top removed in order to wash it more thoroughly! No room for modesty here.....it was definitely an experience!

(I will attempt to add photos as I think it´s necessary in order to really get the full picture! But most internet cafes don´t have java and I can´t upload without it, so it will have to wait)

Mariarchi & maracas with a side of mortification

jenc_13 — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 00:43:00 GMT

Well.

I´m not even sure I have the words to express what happened on my first night out in Cartagena....but I´ll do my best.

For better or worse, I decided to do the aforementioned ´Chivas Party Bus´ on Saturday night, thinking it would be a good way to 1) learn about Cartagena´s history, 2) meet people and 3) drink.

I still feel like the Colombian guy at the hostel reception was playing some kind of trick on me when he actually allowed me to pay for this, KNOWING what I was getting myself in for. But anyway, I digress....

I turned up at the tour operator offices at 8pm (solo) where sure enough the ´party bus´ complete with mariarchi band (oh yes) was waiting for me. However no-one else got on the bus, so for now it was just a party of ONE. I obviously felt very cool at this point.

We then set off (mariarchi band in full swing, me sitting awkwardly pretending I loved this kind of thing) and did a bit of a recce around all of the local hotels where we did actually pick up more people. At every stop this one guy would shake his maracas (not a euphemism) at all the new people boarding the bus and try to force them to buy a pair. At 20,000 pesos for 2 maracas (about USD $10) there was obviously no way in hell I was going to buy some. Most other people did though, and I´m pretty sure this guy thought I was the biggest killjoy for stubbornly saying NO gracias every time he shook these things in my face.

Now, back to the people on the bus. This was not, as I´d mistakenly assumed, a gringo party bus. I seemed to have been put on the ´middle aged Latino´s and their extended families party bus´. I was the only white person on the bus, but more importantly, I was the only non-spanish speaker.....and you guessed it, the tour was in espanol. I don´t think I have ever felt so out of place - it was definitely a case of "one of these things just doesn´t belong here". Oh and at this point there was still no sign of the promised free booze, which was sorely needed! I sat wondering how I had got myself into this situation, while people shook maracas incessantly and sung along to the mariarchi band (clearly they were playing a few "anthems"). I was determined to stick it out though and just see where on earth this experience would take me. These 4 old chilean women took pity on me and pretty much adopted me as their pet gringo for the night, translating some of the tour for me, and making sure that once the alcohol DID finally come out, my glass was constantly topped up with incredibly strong cuba libre.

Thankfully after a few hours we got dropped off at a club in the old town along with a few other ´party buses´ and I met an aussie/irish couple who had been through a similar experience and were so grateful to find another english speaker that they practically hugged me! The club was good fun, although it was slightly humiliating when an argentinian guy approached me and started trying to dance with me....latin style. He ignored my insistence that I was a terrible dancer, claiming that he was a good teacher. He then proceeded to attempt to move me with grace around the dance floor - it was an embarrassing (and long) 10 minutes for both of us I think. I liken it to the movie Dirty Dancing - not the bit at the end where Baby is really good, and you kind of want to be her - but the bit at the start, where she´s so awkward and can´t even move her hips without looking special "I carried a watermelon"....that kind of vibe.

I finally called it a night at 2am, blaming jetlag and the fact that I could still hear those bloody maracas ringing in my ears.....an eventful first night to say the least!

Photos: South America

jenc_13 — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 16:22:00 GMT

Day 1 - Just glad I actually GOT there

jenc_13 — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 09:27:00 GMT

So yesterday was not the straightforward start to the trip that I´d hoped for.

After a lovely 4am wakeup call, I managed to get delayed at every single airport I had the misfortune to visit - starting with an hour on the tarmac at Heathrow swiftly followed by a 3 hour delay in Paris (for no apparent reason). Unfortunately that second delay was rather key, as it meant that I landed in Bogota just about in time to see my connecting flight departing......without me.

Feeling rather weary and grimy I approached the less than enthused Avianca ground staff and through a combination of miming and broken spanish managed to find out that I had been put on a flight departing just after 10pm - a paltry 4 hours from now. Fantastic.

Obviously those of you that know me are aware that waiting patiently is NOT my strong suit and Bogota domestic airport is hardly the stuff that travellers´ dreams are made of. I likened it to a cold, draughty, oversized tin shack. With a lot of donut eateries and not much else. I counted 3 different ones, out of about 6 ´restaurants´ in total, which seemed a particulary high ratio.

I eventually made it to Cartagena just after midnight - a good 5 hours after I´d planned, and 24 hours after leaving the comfort of my bed earlier that day. I also was not feeling overly confident at arriving in Colombia after midnight, with my senses not particularly alert.....in fact I was just praying that the hostel reception was indeed 24 hours as I was PRETTY sure I´d seen on the website......

Thankfully my Primark memory had in fact done me justice for once and the hostel was open when I got in. The taxi driver blatantly ripped me off (charging me double, I believe) but at this point I was just relieved to be within falling distance of a bed and too tired to care!

Anyway today started much better, waking to blue skies and a tropical 30 degrees.

The hostel is right in the heart of the old colonial town, which is a maze of cobbled streets full of colourful buildings, cafe´s and street vendors, all surrounded by 12km of fortified city walls.

You can´t really go more than a couple of blocks without seeing stalls selling fresh fruit, empanadas, or my personal favourite "arepas de queso". These basically seem to be some kind of really creamy mashed potato mixed with a LOT of cheese, shaped into a large pattie shape and then cooked (ok, fried) on either side so that the cheese goes all crispy. It´s one of the best (and cheapest, at 50p) things that I´ve had in my mouth.

On a slightly healthier note, the fruit vendors are also pretty special. They have a selection of mangos, pineapples, papayas, melons etc on display, you pick what you want and they´ll cut it up on the spot for you and about 15 seconds later you´ve got a huge tropical fruit salad - again for about 50p.

Definitely could get used to this....about the biggest decision I have to make today is whether to have cocktails on the hostel terrace, or go on something called a Chivas ´party bus´ - you get a tour of the town and free booze, doesn´t sound too bad...