Ipiales - 13th and 14th September

Having had our fill of giant stone statues, we set out on a tortuous, three changes bus ride to the Colombian/Ecuadorian border. The highlight was a five hour minibus ride over the highest mountain range in Colombia (we passed over 4,000m), on a small bumpy stoney road cut into the side of the mountain, marked every mile or so by white crosses showing where previous drivers had lost concentration. Needless to say, I did not lose concentration while focusing on Colombian pop music played at full blast rather than the large drops. 

We were rewarded for this intrepid journey, however, by the delightful border town of Ipiales, remarkable for its cathedral built in a vast gorge, with a nearby beautiful waterfall surrounded by prayers, and which was packed, even on a random Wednesday morning...

On the way to Ipiales' cathedral, we found some llamas in ceremonial dress. Chris couldn't resist hopping on - the llama, used to small children, was less than impressed and wanted to run away with him.

When we'd seen the cathedral, we took a taxi to the border, queued for a remarkably long time at both Colombian emigration and Ecuadorian immigration, and then crossed into Ecuador!!! We took a bus to Quito, arriving in the evening, by that point thoroughly fed up of buses!

Colombia: San Agustin (11-12 Sept 11)

San Agustin - kind of like Easter Island but less famous and in Colombia. As we left Cartagena by plane for Bogota, having decided to save time and money bypassing Medellin, that was the description we had in mind. It was that same description we had in mind as we waited in Bogota bus terminal for 8 hours, having lunch and dinner in the same restaurant (and learning to play canasta).

Arriving in San Agustin early on the 11th we rushed out to try to get our fill of giant two to three thousand year old statues and see if there were any souvenir replicas to buy (don't worry - there were!)

As you can see, we found the statues. However we decided this wasn't enough, and so chartered a jeep tour the next day to make sure we'd seen them all. While we waited anxiously for the next morning we occupied by boat loads of canasta and the awkward moment when the hostal cat caught and ate a huge (note: HUGE) butterfly in front of us.

To our surprise the jeep tour also showed us things other than the statues - including a sugar cane processing factory. Crush, liquidise, boil, bubble, toil and trouble, scoopy, add butter and then you have panela!

Spike also made a new friend - his favourite ever horse, who followed him from exhibit to exhibit and helped to decipher the Spanish signs. Our guide (the manm bnot the guide horse) was ridiculous but he did know the word anthropomorphic (he didn't know the word thing, using element instead)

Our Guide Umberto

Our guide also taught us the theory of spirit energy. Katrina's spirit energy was high, BUT not the highest in the group. She was very upset. 

The tour also took in the largest  waterfall in Colombia, as well as some staggering views. You can see how staggered Katrina was by how quickly she is runnnnnning off the rickety platform.

Cartagena - a tale of a colonial city

With Spike somewhat crippled, we carefully took a taxi to Taganga and then a  direct bus from Taganga to Cartagena, one of the most beautiful cities in Colombia (and as LP somewhat boastfully argues, maybe the worrrrrld). The bus driver effectively shoved us out in front of a large arch, but with Chris' amazing mapreading we stumbled slowly, laden with backpacks, straight to our hostel.

We settled into our dorm, euphoric at the site of real beds after three days of sleeping in hammocks (we're still not very good at it...) and then went out for a menu del dia at a neighbouring restaurant. It was passable, and the beer at a nearby bar was excellent - so excellent in fact that it made us incredibly sleepy and we gratefully snuggled into our beds.

The next morning we woke up and had coffee brought to us in bed by one of the ladies running the hostel. We went for a wander around town, going to the old colonial fort built by the Spaniards, which had a vast underground network of tunnels linking the hospital to the armoury and different parts of the fort.

Having had our fill of the fort, we wandered into the old town and had some empanadas and jugo naturales for breakfast. Immediately after we ordered our jugos for 1,000 pesos (approx 30p), the shop owner ran outside and changed the sign to be 2,000 pesos! The old town was beautiful, with pastel coloured buildings with balustrades and balconies and flowerpots.

Mostly to seek refuge from the sweaty Caribbean heat we went into the airconditioned Museo del Oro, which was essentially a smaller version of the gold museum in Bogota - more solid gold penis covers (yes, seriously) breastplates for very small breasted people (Chris and Spike think they're more ornamental than designed to actually contain breasts, which is a relief as otherwise they could seriously have learned from Wonderbra) and noserings (my limited Spanish vocabulary now contains 'nose-earring'). We had a cheap menu del dia and a mooch at the hostel (still a bit fascinated by the novelty of real beds) and then headed out to Cafe del Mar, a posh bar/restaurant/outdoor club located in the city walls, reputed to have an unbeatable sunset. We arrived early to get a table and ordered a bottle of wine (the cheapest way to get 3 drinks, but still quite a way from our usual travel drink price...) and sat down to chat. We then anxiously and humourously realised that firstly despite being essentially the first people at the bar, we had managed to sit at the one table where the DJ booth directly blocked the sunset, and secondly that there were so many clouds we could barely see the sun... We enjoyed our wine very much, but in terms of peso per sunset glimpse, it must have been one of the most expensive sunsets in the history of backpacking!!

After our sunset fail, we ate pizza, and had a relaxed night at the hostel, avoiding the club night as unfortunately Spike's toe is not yet up to salsa or being stepped on by drunken mojito drinkers... 

The girl sharing our dorm with us had other ideas though.. It was the last night of her trip, so she was going out... This meant that she and her friend popped in and out of our room every fifteen minutes between 10 and 1am. The water in our hostel was out, so the girls went to the toilet and then washed their hands in the rain from our balcony... they then drunk whispered/shouted 'let's rub our hands all over Ryan's face and pretend it's urine!!'... the next trip into our dorm involved make up, and one girl saying to the other 'do i look fuckable? i mean, i don't want to do make up, but do i look fuckable?'  Hilarious. 

The next day we went to the old dungeons, which have been converted into tourist shops, all mysteriously selling exactly the same things..

We spent the rest of the day organising ourselves, including a trip to the supermarket to ask about bus tickets,  which left us stranded in the supermarket lobby due to an incredibly torrential downpour. My personal highlight was Spike asking the supermarket's budget flight desk in a stream of incredibly fluent Spanish about flights to Bogota from Cartagena (it worked out cheaper than getting a bus to Medellin and then a bus to Bogota for some reason ?!!), and then falling at the last hurdle when talking about times and 'and could we fly apple?' (manzana = apple, manana = morning). We joined in the hostel's party, meeting a Belgian called 'Whim', who had a teddy bear who travels everywhere with him (I introduced him to Sid, the sloth I have taken with me and have been hiding, somewhat bashfully, under my pillow, for fear of being laughed at - Spike thinks it's brilliant but hilarious that I'm carting a soft toy all around South America, Sid is a significant proportion of Spike's pack weight). The party was lots of fun, and we socialised until everyone else left to go out clubbing, while we stayed in to get beauty sleep for our early flight and Spike's toe. 

PS Chris says please feel free to comment...

Colombia: Tayrona (4-7 Sept 11)

The Tale of Tayrona

 In which the author tries to add suspense and intrigue to an idyllic three days of jungle walks and beach hopping

It was a bright and Caribbean day when after scuba-ing around in Teganga for three days we headed east to Canaveral, the entrance to Tayrona National Paradise. Vehicles could only take us so far; so the final leg of the journey, through the coastal tropical forest to our campsite, was completed on foot. Little were we to know that one of us wouldn’t be walking back...

Our campsite was simple, tents or hammocks for rent with basic facilities in a tropical heaven. We settled in, tired from our journey and unaware of the misfortune that was coming. It would strike for the first time that evening, a warning shot across our (spaghetti) bowls.

Prewarned about high food prices we had come prepared to cook. Finding a (suspiciously) civilised kitchen complete with gas hob, we made dinner; ignoring the warning signs around us that this wasn’t in fact the camp kitchen but a local panaderia/bakery and we had just accidentally stolen 30 minutes worth of gas. Accosted by the indignant baker and forced to pay for our crimes (i.e. for the gas...) we were left poorer but with the silver lining that our Spanish has improved to be able to explain that we only cooked one pot of spaghetti.

For the following two nights we had to endeavour to cook over an open fire. Fortunately the indignant baker was also a talented one; we were able to supplement our meagre rations with cheese and ham croissants and banana/chocolate/orange cakes.

We spent the three days exploring the coast, making sure not to swim on the beautiful but deadly beach at Arricifes (but swimming everywhere else as often as possible). By the last day we had accidentally, while lost during our ill-fated attempt to find ruins of Pueblito, stumbled out to Brava Grande. A huge beach, gorgeous and almost deserted. While on the way we encountered the local fauna - monkeys, lizards and crabs. 

Determined to make it to Pueblito we set out again that final afternoon, finally finding the ancient rock stairway that linked the village to the coast. It is an incredible climb but we never made it to the end. Nearly halfway up, sweating profusely from the tropical heat, Spike slipped and lost his foot down a chasm between two rocks. When he found it again the damage was done - big toenail close to severed, blood seeping from all angles and leg abraised. Binding the wound with what we had to hand (Katrina's top and palm fronds) we struggled to the closest campsite. Here help was at hand, and with a cold beer each and medical attention for Spike's foot it seemed the worst was over. The only question left was how to get out of the park before anything more could happen.

The group was forced to split, Katrina and I leaving by foot while Spike stayed to charter a horse. Hoping that he could learn to ride a horse in time, we reached the exit and waited anxiously. Spike made it, but not before a final attempt by Tayrona to finish the job it had started and finish him off completely - near death by falling coconut, avoided by a foot and a half while Spike waited to catch his 11 am horse, made it clear we had escaped just in time.

Colombia: Santa Marta & Taganga (31 Aug - 3 Sept 11)

Having spent some time at altitude, we decided to head to the Caribbean coast - time for sun, sand - and for Spike and Katrina time to get under the sea and learn how to dive.
We hopped on a local bus from Villa de Leyva to Tunja and then onwards on a cushy overnight bus to the coast. It was a comfortable journey; made better after meeting some helpful Venezuelans - they helped to search the bus when Katrina's glasses briefly disappeared, gave us food when we slept through breakfast and gave sage advice following Katrina's toilet troubles (she pulled when she should have pushed IT SAID PULL!!!, broke the door and got trapped - we got her out in the end)
We arrived fourteen hours later to be impressed by our hostel but underwhelmed by Santa Marta. Having explored the streets (full of street vendors, chaotic), walked the beach (grubby, covered in litter) and used the hostel pool (relaxing) we hastened onwards to Taganga - a tiny fishing village that's also one of the cheapest places to learn to dive in the world.

View of Santa Marta from our hostel roof

Inside view of our hostel, La Brisa Loca

For Taganga I'm going to hand over to Katrina, as she can instruct you on how to dive, PADI style.

Spike and I somewhat nervously turned up to the Aquantis dive centre at 745am ready to learn to dive. We were shown 20 mins of a video which was shockingly full of the risks of various parts of diving (if you dive with a cold, the risks are nausea, decompression sickness, PARALYSIS AND DEATH; if you dive too deep, the risks are nitrogen narcosis leading to possible reckless behaviour, PARALYSIS AND DEATH; if you ascend too fast the risks are sinus pain, lung overexpansion injuries, PARALYSIS AND DEATH). Thus full of the joys of diving (read quivering in my neoprene boots), we met our diving instructor Desi. He asked us if we knew the first rule of diving. Ever eager to show off my knowledge, i said 'Never hold your breath, always breathe regularly and continuously'. 'NO. Always pay the diving instructor before you dive'. 'Hahaha'. He didn't pick up on the sarcasm.

All dressed in our wetsuits, we were ready for our first confined water dive, and started looking for the swimming pool. Desi quickly disillusioned us. He doesn't believe in swimming pools. Real diving is more fun. So we went straight onto a speedboat and to a cove, where he told us some basics and showed us how to test our kit and then kit up (with the fantastic mnemonic 'British Women Really Are Fit') and then we were underwater... We learned skills such as how I could give Spike air if he had lost his, how to equalise,  how to find my regulator if he'd kicked mine out of my mouth, how to clean my mask etc.. And then, approximately two hours after watching the scary video, he took us down to six metres, and we didn't die or get paralysed. So there, PADI. It was incredible to be diving for real so quickly, as most people spend at least the first two days in a pool, and we were out with the fish straight away. After a quick lunch, we had our second dive, this time down to 12 metres. It was spectacular, so many fish and coral and sealife, and best of all, about twenty fat juicy lobsters that made our mouths water. 

After we returned to the dive centre we went and found Chris and went out for lunch. We spent the first part of the afternoon chilling by the pool of the Jekyll half of our hostel (our hostel was slightly schizophrenic, having a posh, 'Jekyll' half, with a bar and restaurant and nice private rooms and a beautiful pool, and a hostelly 'Hyde' half, with dorms and shared bathrooms, but even though we were staying in Hyde we got to use Jekyll, which was gorgeous. Spike and I then went back to Aquantis to watch the remaining 3 hours of the PADI video, with more death, paralysis, a heavy sales push from PADI as to why we should buy scuba gear from them, and their keyphrase 'Go places, meet people, do things. Underwater.' One of the other instructors told me in confidence that he'd amended this motto to 'Go places, do people' and adopted it wholeheartedly. 

After the video we discovered the best value meal of the trip so far - a rotisserie chicken place on the shore, selling a quarter of a chicken with rice, potato and salad for 4,000 pesos (£1.30) - ridiculously tasty. Somewhat exhausted from diving, we had a relaxed evening and went to bed early, like good divers determined to avoid paralysis and death. 

The next day was Spike's birthday, which we were all very excited about. Desi, with astonishing bad timing, decided it was the time to see if we could swim 200m and then float for ten minutes (surprisingly exhausting) We learned some more skills, but as if to order, our next dives were like swimming through an aquarium. It was amazing - so many angelfish, trumpetfish, balloonfish, starfish, sea urchins, brain coral, clams, and so much more. We swam through shoals of fish all the time, it was b-e-a-u-tiful. We returned from diving to give Spike his present - a lovingly crafted ice cream sandwich that Chris had made from Brinkies (a local staple food source aka chocolate biscuit) and ice cream. Spike was touchingly overjoyed and ate it immediately. 

We then went to a sandwich place on the shore, where Spike also ate a huuuge ice cream sundae. With his birthday ice cream hunger sated, we walked to Playa Grande, a beach about a 20 min walk away over the headland. The views back to Taganga were gorgeous, and the beach itself was very nice, with white sand and warm water. We kicked off the birthday evening by watching some amazingly timed fireworks from a rooftop bar while playing pool, and then carried on by hitting a cocktail happy hour. It served some of the most delicious mojitos I've ever had (sorry Ben) and a typical Colombian cocktail that involved cherries... Extracting cherries from this cocktail was proving difficult, so the boys tried sucking them up with straws and transferring them. It took a lot of puff, and we decided that the true test of manliness is whether you can transfer a cherry from a glass to a girl's mouth using only a straw. I think the rum was talking. 

The next day we completed our PADI qualification (free of paralysis and death, but again seeing many many beautiful fish) and discovered Maria, the purveyor of some of the biggest and best baguettes I've had outside of France. While on the beach during our break, Spike stayed in the waves to cool down, while only presenting his front to the beach and to the assembled divers (he'd forgotten to suncream his back). One of the male dive instructors asked me 'is he your boyfriend?'. When i said we are just friends, his relief was palpable... 'Nice abs. Is he gay?' 'Um, no... He works hard on them...' 'Oh shame. He looks gay'. Struggling to control my giggling, Spike and I started our navigation exercises. We mastered them, completed our final 18m dive, and took our PADI Open water test, qualifying with flying colours. We spent the rest of the day chilling out with Chris and sampling another cocktail happy hour, though we were stood up by our diving instructor (maybe they'd shared info...). All in all, it was a brilliant couple of days. 

Colombia: Villa de Leyva (28-30 Aug 11)

Our first stop after Bogota was Villa de Leyva, a national heritage site in Colombia. Founded in 1572, almost of all Villa de Leyva is still from the 17th century, it's not stuck in the past - they just got it right the first time. We arrived on the outskirts of town after a bumpy 4 hour bus ride in a colectivo; an informal bus/minivan that shuttles between local places, scouring the streets for extra passengers and making frequent stops along the route on request.

La Plaza Mayor

Heading into the centre of town (we thought our hostel was there - it wasn't) we noticed the roads change from tarmac to stone-paved and, in a 'movie moment' as we entered the main square, the background noise changed from traffic to the strains of a Colombian Brass band in full swing playing to a seated audience. With some help we found our hostel and were treated to the warmest welcome by Marta, the owner.

Us and Marta, owner of El Solar Hostel

We also got good value from the hostel, making full use of all it's facilities. These included hammocks, great views, hammocks, free wifi, hammocks and the local fauna - three week old kittens (see kittens post for too many photos) and vampirous insects. Following an evening of heavy biting (by insects not kittens...) Spike has been left with, in his own words, "one cankle". It is his right cankle.

Following dinner in a fixed menu restaurant (easily the cheapest way to eat, you get 2 courses of traditional Colombian food and fresh juice for £2-3) we made a new friend in the main square - Carlos. He made a great show of giving us each a string bracelet as a present (he gave Spike a pink one) but seemed disappointed when we didn't reciprocate his generosity with cash monies...

After dinner

(note Carlos in the background)

The next few days were spent wandering around Villa de Leyva. We took in religious artefacts in the Museo de Carmen; but were most blown away by the revelation that the seminary inhabitants take a vow of silence for a YEAR. After walking for 25 minutes to the palaeontological museum, with assurances from the tourist office that it was open, we found it was shut for the week. We got over our disappointment after spotting a sweet fossil in the street paving - also included is the cankle.

Ignoring wise words from Spike that the way might be past the large signs (my bad) and instead following local directions (gesticulated with wielded machete) we climbed the hills above the town to get a good view. The hill was right above the football pitch, so we also got to watch a youth football session - it seemed unconventional; featuring in addition to players, up to four balls and a horse on the pitch.

In an effort to improve our spanish we've all started learning new vocabulary, some have questioned the usefulness of various words on our vocab lists. Most notably was Katrina exclaiming "Bajar de peso? Why would I need to say I've lost weight?!"

Chris