South America – Page 3 – Drifting Along Dave

So for the second time this trip I got to call Columbia home. Arrived into Bogota, the capital, by plane from Cuba. Not unlike the other large city I stayed in Columbia, Medellin, I really enjoyed the place. Public transport was efficient, quick and easy that even a 'extranjero' could understand. The city also has put an emphasis on getting you out on your bike. I read it has the longest network of bike tracks of any city in Sth.America, and, on every Sunday they have a event called Ciclovia on which they close over 120km of the main roads throughout the city to allow people to get on their treadlies (bikes) to ride around without the problems of traffic. They also have the same event on public holidays, which luckily for the locals happen nearly once every 3 weeks (17 times a year. Nice!). The only downside is when the first day you arrive in Bogota happens to be one of these public holidays and your bus gets diverted unbeknownst to any oblivious gringo enjoying watching all those families out and about on their bikes. Closed roads during Ciclovia means changed bus routes, which means long walks, with heavy backpack, after the realization hits home that something ain't quite right and your bus should be somewhere else. Not complaining though. After all, the idea of Ciclovia is to get everyone out and exercising and it definitely worked for me.

The other outstanding thing I will remember about Bogota is the amount of street art (aka graffiti) that adorns many a building. There is so much that one of the most popular tours for visitors is the aptly named 'Graffiti Tour'. This is run by a company that meets in one of the plazas at the same time every day. The guides are paid by tips they receive at the end of the tour...it must be a lucrative gig. When I arrived, there was a group of people gathered with a guide talking who then started shuttling us away only for a different guide to appear and pronounce it was he that was our guide. Verbal abuse between the camps (2 or 3 in each group) ensued and many a confused tourist looked on wondering who it was they were meant to be following. Everyone ended being sheep like and decided to follow the late arriving guy with the company emblem emblazoned on his sweater, but doubts resurfaced as the 'losing' party enlisted the police to sort out the situation. So we were walking through the streets of Bogota, looking at painted walls, with the police and the disgruntled losing guides following us around. The police occasionally would take our guides to one side for a chat and the undeterred losing guides would sporadically come to the group to let us know we had been duped. Look, I really enjoyed checking out all that graffiti and the tour would have been great with just that, but add to this the soap opera drama called "Will the REAL tourist guide please stand up" and a truly memorable tour it was. I could never figure out who our true guide was so I took the only truly noble and ethical path, I didn't give a tip. Oh yeah, it was also turned out to be the cheapest.

After a few days in Bogota I headed back to the mountains to the village of El Cocuy, near the Venezuelan border. Here It was possible to take 3 different day hikes of which the first was the hardest at 22km long and an altitude difference of 1000m ending at 4700m. It was a really good hike that was somewhat spoilt by being snowed on near the top and subsequently, rained on as we descended. Great views beforehand and our guide (and hotel owner) Martha did an excellent job. The rain, snow and exhaustion combo unfortunately left me with a pretty bad cold which meant I only could go on a half hike for the rest of my time in Cocuy but it was such a beautiful place it didn't matter. Thanks to Sergio at La Esperanza for those great meals and for being a really good host.

A few final points on Columbia. Their national game, Tejo, is worth a ear shattering mention. The game is played in a hall where you toss a discus shaped piece of lead towards a upstanding pit filled with clay. Stuck into the clay are various small triangular plastic looking pieces that are placed to form a circle. If your discus hits the clay within the circle you get 2 points, but, if it hits these pieces it's time for a wake up call. You see these pieces are filled with gunpowder and by hitting them dead on causes a mighty loud bang. The health and safety committee would not approve. Unfortunately you don't get a bang for your buck as this noise filled drama is only worth 1 point. Lots of fun. One last point about the game, it's free to play. The owners of these halls make their cash by the selling of beers, no more needs to be said.

I played Tejo during a bike tour of the city, strangely enough. During the tour I also learnt that the amount of tax Bogotans (Bogotistas?) pay from working is dependent on where they live. There are 7 tax brackets and if you are earning squillons but living in the worst slum then you are on the lowest tax bracket. Sounds like a recipe for corruption to me, of which they had a referendum while I was there. Not enough people voted so the tougher rules were not brought in. It seems the senator who tabled the bill is a lesbian and in this deeply religious country that is enough to keep people away in droves from making your country better. If true, hmmmm.

Finally, and a big finally it is. Finally, I am leaving all these coffee swigging countries. I probably drink about 2 cups a year on average so when thrown into a country renowned for its brew I gave it a go. It really was a waste of time. I wouldn't know a good cup from a dud and the offers to have a cup came thick and fast of which I accepted far too much. But it had to end. Back to my old tranquil self, brain set back to neutral, heart beating back in slow motion. Glad to have my old self back.

Well here we go. Long time between drinks. Pedal to the metal, fingers to the keyboard. Presently on the Panamanian border inside Columbia in a region called the Darien Gap. Onwards to Panama tomorrow initially via a small boat (good weather please!) Many things can go wrong tomorrow, mainly with Panamanian immigration/customs who I have heard can be fun to be around, especially if they create issues that cause me to miss my lunchtime plane. Time will tell, fingers crossed. Since my last travel blog I traveled through Ecuador before reaching Columbia. Oh yeah, it's hot and really humid here. Mega thunderstorm last night with the thunder booming(!!) shaking the ground and echoing off the surrounding mountains. Power went out for most of the night (not unusual, there seems to be more non-power than power periods around here) meaning our room became the sauna, great for losing weight but sleep became optional. Ecuador was a bit of a letdown (excluding Galapagos). Couldn't find healthy food while I could find food that gave me stomach issues. Shopping in Quito for a replacement pair of sandals was a disaster as options were severely limited and either anything remotely interesting was mega expensive or flimsy. Then I traveled to the northern part of the country for a festival that I couldn't find. You get the idea, in Ecuador things just weren't meant to be. Only thing I quite enjoyed was a cemetery (irony?) on the border with Columbia. In it they carved figures as well as other objects into the many hedges that ran throughout the property.

Getting into Columbia was a long process as the border was full of Venezuelans (hundreds and hundreds of them) trying to go the other way into Ecuador, escaping what can only be described as the shit their country is presently in. Once across the frontier into Columbia things started to improve. I am not really a "visit a church"' person but had previously been told about a Gothic church, that spanned a gorge, Santuario de Las Lajas. Really worth the effort with my taxi driver, Alfredo. From there after great food in Pasto (thank you so much Pasto) made my way to the wild west (towards the east of the country perversely) to the town of San Agustin where riding horses seemed to be as popular as motorbikes (in the video shown below I was in a pub - notice the drunk guy asleep on the bar, also, check out the guy dancing by himself in the street in the background near the band. Classic. Really different, place great). People also visit this area due to a archaeological park close by where cemetery headstones depicting people, some with vampire like teeth, were constructed 5,000 years ago by an unknown civilization.

Sticking with the wild west theme, my next destination was a semi-arid desert area aptly name Desierto de Tatacoa. No horses here, but chuck a few in around Clint Eastwood in his heyday and this could definitely be the location of a western movie. From here it took a couple days to the next destination Salento. This involved quite a few separate trips, including one over the top - even by South American standards - drive through the Andes - overtaking on blind corners anyone? This guy used a CB radio to get information from another driver further up the road and then used this information to make judgment calls on how many of what I would call "faith" corners he could go around before cutting off another car, in the correct lane, hopefully, before the next oncoming car or truck would hit us. One misjudgment and it was 'sayonara baby' for all. I was, pretty understandably, pissed off by this and so when another passenger complained it was all that was needed for all my very limited Spanish to be put into overdrive. With his pride hurt he then decided that if he can't play his game with the lives of the passengers he would go at such a slow speed that we started to get overtaken by trucks. Ahh, the joys of traveling. A 3 hour trip was starting to look like a 6 hour ordeal (I kept wondering what his boss would think when he arrived that late at the other end but then I thought, probably nothing, I'm in South America). Thankfully, after an hour of this, the other passengers staged a verbal mutiny and with a bit of luck not long after the traffic allowed him to go a bit faster and then go at a relatively 'normal' speed (by South American standards) without him losing too much face. Important in this male macho orientated country. It was nice to arrive at the other end.

Next it was to a big city, Medellin. Medellin's claim to fame was that, at last, I found a pair of sandals. Yer-hah (as they would say in San Agustin). Had to be done, my hiking books were getting an extended work out and my feet were crying out for air (if you get my drift). Medellin is a modern city set in a valley surrounded by mountains on both sides. It has a good train network that links with gondoliers allowing poorer parts of the city access to work in the valley below. Where once it was the murder capital of the world during Pablo Escobar's terror reign, it felt relatively safe, even at night. Went on a night bike ride for 3 hours through the city and never felt like there would be any issue. Also went mountain biking through a national park. Nice to be on two wheels again.

From Medellin went on a 13 hour overnight bus to Cartagena on the Caribbean coast. Welcome to the world of heat and humidity that I am still encased within now. I didn't really find Cartagena all that exciting which is a shame as it was one place that I have always heard about in my travels and was a definite no-miss destination this time around. I guess it doesn't help that I have seen so many colonial towns and their associated buildings and architecture and it turned out that Cartagena was just another one of these. Still, stayed for 2 nights before making my way along the coast to a couple of beach towns, starting with Tolu. Tolu was very interesting. Not because I seemed to be the only non-Columbian there for the 2 nights I stayed, not also because of the transgender girls who seemed very persistent in wanting to talk to me (ah, should of learned more Spanish), no Tolu was so very special because it contained a hairdresser that I trusted to cut what was becoming a mop on the top of my head that I couldn't see through. I have to say a big thanks to my unnamed hotel manager who took me on the back of his motorbike to this hairdresser after I explained in my broken Spanish how important it was that I found a good hairdresser. Faced my demons and not unhappy with the results. Nice...

After Tolu it was off to Necocli for a night before an early boat departure to my present location, Capurgana. More beach time here so I think it is time to change the scene. Panama City tomorrow and the Panama canal (depending on me navigating my way through those pesky immigration and custom checks).

Category: South America

Columbia – The Return

Columbia – Part 1