Cartagena and our big night out in Colombia

After the adventures of the desert and the jungle we felt it was time to relax and go to a town that vaguely resembled a tourist resort - so we took an extremely lonnnnnnng bus ride to Cartagena.

Once again, the bus ride was A LOT longer than billed, there was no air con, we arrived pretty frickin' hungry circa 10pm given that we had been up since 5am.

Found a hostel that had room for us and then found a place for a late night dinner of vegetable curry. The addition of vegetables into our diet was VERY welcome, given we'd not seen one for around 8 days.

It was also Dan's last night. We fully intended to go out partying but all of us were so spent that we went to bed at midnight.....

Next morning there was an emotional farewell to Doctor Dan. Who would tend to any medical emergencies now!?!?!!!?

Luckily Sarah had found a Gabriel García Márquez tour for us to do. He'd come to Cartagena with nothing and slept on a bench before using the city as inspiration for his many novels. We stopped off at the hotel where he had stayed (very fancy - not somewhere that we were staying...), a balcony and some squares. 

Here's a sneaky peek - Cartagena is VERY pretty: 

Here you see some lovely coconut treats - flavoured with different things - excessively sweet, Vic and I managed to eat half a one each.

Then we saw some street art stuff. Do I even need to write the words "look" and "strong" now....

Then we went for some ceviche - raw fish cooked for a few hours in lime juice with some chilli. It's lovely and you should try it immediately if you have not already. 






After that we went back to meet Noam and Christen for dinner and then, you guessed it, a fairly early night. We did have a few drinks in the square but we had plans, we wanted to go to the beach early doors. 

And go to the beach we did. After a VERY stressful time in the port going to one boat then another then another for an hour. 

The boat ride was pretty fun too if you like boats that are akin to a rollercoaster. 

We then indulged in something we had been yearning for all holiday - PINA COLADA SERVED IN A COCONUT: 

That dude with us is Graham the Canadian. We lost him after lunch and not sure if he made the boat back. 

Then, finally we met again with our American chums for their last night and managed to go out and party!!!! In a club called Havana. With a live Latin band. And bottles of rum. Several bottles of rum. Vic and I managed to stay out til an early hour and have some dirty street food on the short walk back to the hostel. Kristen and Noam also did an arm wrestle. We all did some dancing:

And that, in a nutshell was Cartagena. The next morning it became just the three of us again. We did a bit of shopping, a bit of mooching and waited for our first Colombian night bus experience. Next stop would be Medellin.

Punta Gallinas - pronounced punta gayeennas

It has been a while since I posted - blogging is a lot harder than you think. Unless you are a blogger, you will know that yourself.

However last night Vic and I were reunited for the first time since the trip and whilst we were doing some strong dancing to "hit me baby one more time" I thought to myself "I really should write up some more of our trip". It already feels like years ago so I should get on with documenting it so I can relive the magic again and again.

And so to last time - did we make it to Punta Gallinas?  After all the build up did we fall at the last hurdle? ? As I'm sure you have guessed the answers are yes we did and no we did not respectively. And exhale...

To get there actually seemed relatively easy to organise contrary to the guide book. Joanna had called and booked a boat, we all woke up at 430am and jumped in another not-so-comfy jeep and drove an hour to here to get a boat:

 Some strong looks for the ride:

It was around 2.5 hours on the boat - it was pretty rough and we got pretty wet but all this travelling became worth it when we arrived here:

Yes it looks like one of the photoshopped screen savers that you used to get on a PC back in the day. It's a real frickin photo!!! We were there. There was just a handful of buildings and no more than 20 people. It was a desert paradise. We unpacked and hit the "beach"/desert for a swim. Here's a classic strong photo of us all (apart from Sarah who was of course taking the snaps) and a shot of our hammock bedroom:

Swimming was hilarious because the surface under that lovely blue water was like quick mud - you sunk down into it pretty deep. It made getting out quite hard. 

After a nap we took yet another jeep because we wanted to head to the 50 metre sand dune. Apparently you slid right down it into the sea. What's not to like there?? 

Strong looks for the jeep - this time we were stood in the back, a bit like cattle: 

If you look closely you can see I am wearing goggles under my shades. This was probably the strongest look of the holiday for me. I'd got some sand in my eye so needed the goggles to protect myself from further grains getting in there. Vic said it was very Mad Max 3.....

Here are the six of us at the actual northern most point of South America - we stopped en route to the sand dune:

I particularly like Sarah's choice of outfit here - is it a top? Is it a dress? It's difficult to tell. I also like the way I look as if I have just one leg..... Taking the posing a bit too far there..... 

Then it was onwards to the dune. Kristen and Noam win best entry to the sea with their forwards slide in: 

Dan was second with his sprint down: 

It was simply amazing. Most amazing beach I have ever been on - it's hard to see the steepness of the dune from the pictures but it was getting on for vertical. Again, we were pretty much alone. We spent quite a lot of time body surfing the waves and coming up with different ways to tumble down the dune. Rolling down it sideways was interesting. Sand everywhere and a lot of dizziness when trying to stand up in the water. Noam also somersaulted down. No one else tried that. 

Then we watched the sun set: 

Then we went back and ate yet more lobster!!! Yum!!! 

We were there for a night and then we returned to Cabo de la Vela for another night before doing the whole journey in reverse. 

That's pretty much it - not the easiest place to get to but a magical time when you arrive. 

The return journey was not as successful as the one out there. As I said at the beginning, this blog is about the great times so I won't go into it much. We were all still together, all heading for Cartagena (which will be the subject of the next blog) and the bus was billed as being 5 hours. It wasn't. It was more like 11 hours. Including a stop to change a tyre and a stop to swap onto another bus as the original bus decided to terminate elsewhere. And there was no air con. It was hot. But that's South America for you - the buses are interesting. 

Colombia part 3 - travelling to middle earth

After the trek we were pretty spent but one day on the beach we were ready for another adventure. Which was lucky because we arrived back to meet everyone for another group dinner and Doctor Dan had figured out a way for us to travel to Colombia's northernmost point - which is also the northernmost point of the whole continent!!

Also, on our way back, we'd bumped into the Kristen and Noam, the americans, who we also convinced to come along on the journey. Hats off to them, I don't know if i'd have been up for the journey if I'd just finished the trek. Which, by the way, if you didn't get it from the last post, was REALLY hard. 

Anyway, after a big meal of burgers and milkshakes (there's only so much meat/fish with rice and plantain that one can take) we went to bed to rest before our early start. 

Aside: It was also goodbye to the two uber cool american developers I'd met in our hostel - they let me pitch my many start up ideas to them over coffee - which I'm sure was really enjoyable for them..... 

The place we were heading for is called Punta Gallinas (which literally translates as Cape Chicken!!!) and to get there we had to (deep breath):

Catch a bus from Santa Marta to Riohacha at 0600 from Santa Marta.

Take another bus from Riohacha to a place called cuatro vias (or four roads for those who don't speak Spanish or other latin languages).

Get off there and find a random bloke to give us a lift in his car to Puerto Bolivar (I think!!)

Get off there (it really is the end of the road, check a map) and find a random bloke to give us a lift in a 4x4 to Cabo de la Vela.

Then stay the night at Cabo de la Vela and hope you can get a boat the next day to Punta Gallinas. 

The above didn't actually take toooooo long (circa 5 hours in total) and was pretty fun as we were excited about recreating the body form advert in the 4x4 - I do love sitting in the back of a 4x4 singing "waaaaaooowww boddddy fooooorrrmmm body form for youuuuuuuuu". 

Anyway, here's some illustrations of the journey thus far:

Early morning start to get the bus - rucksacked up - not a particularly strong look:

More illustration of a Colombian petrol station - filling up inside the bus whilst it was moving. Is that health and safety conscious: 

Cuadro Vias - just four roads really:

Strong looks going on before we hopped into this bad boy - that guy spent the whole 2 hours riding on the roof - I was jealous......

The "road" to get to Cabo de la Vela - it got a lot worse than this:

And then Cabo de la Vela: 

One of the most amazing beaches I have ever, ever seen. There were hardly any people there and it was pretty untouched. JUST LOOK AT THAT SAND AND THAT BEACH!!!

Luckily for the six of us, there were four other people staying in the same shack (yep, another shack with hammocks situation) who also wanted to go to Punta Gallinas. And you needed 10 for a boat. And one of them, lovely Joanna was Colombian so was able to bargain us a great price. 

Result - we were a mere 2 hour jeep ride and 2 hour boat ride from our destination - somewhere that the Lonely Planet said only the most adventurous travellers would go. Yeah, i'm like totes adverntersome maximo. 

Before bed time - I was really getting into my grandma bedtimes of 830pm - and another early start - 5am this time, oh joy, what a relaxing holiday - we decided to walk up to the lighthouse on the hill and watch the sun set. Before our lobster supper. Yes, all you can eat is really cheap lobster that is freshly caught. YUM. 

On the way there:

Still on the way there. From what I remember, Dan and I continued our really exciting conversations from the jungle on conjugation of verbs in latin and Spanish - yeah, we're crazy - and also a continuation of people - in this case Noam - saying "So Dan, I've had this weird health issue that's been worrying me for a while..." It's very useful to have a friend who is a Doctor and can answer these things. I particularly love the idyllic setting of this picture as a backdrop for these sorts of conversations. I remember conjugating the imperfect past tense of the verb to sit in Latin. hmmmmm....:

STILL on the way there:

Strong look number 4 - dress with elegant hiking shoes - after Vic has hiked in them for half a day and they stink: 

Lobster supper!!!! 

Then dozing off after reading a bit in our personal lamplights - I should mention at this point in time that I finally had a head torch!! My mum had given me one for Christmas. However I had not checked that said head torch worked until 5 minutes before leaving for the holiday. It didn't. So picture me, if you will, drifting off in my hammock as the sun set, looking over the bay reading Phillip Pullman's "the good man Jesus" with a bike light strapped to my sunglasses which were balanced on my head. Strong. 

Aside 2 - This reminded me of holiday reading. I bought 4 books. One of which was Tampa - a story about a female paedo teacher. Good reviews in the Times and the Guardian promising a modern day lolita had prompted me to get it. Don't. It's pretty trashy. 

Next time - did we make it to Punta Gallinas?!?!!? The suspense will kill you!!?!?!! Probably. 

Colombia - a little wander in the jungle

After our quick stop in Bogota we jumped on an internal flight up to the Caribbean coast - finally all those summer clothes that we'd packed would suddenly become appropriate.

And it was hot, very hot! Our destination - Santa Marta. Our purpose - to trek for five days through the jungle to the hidden city of Ciudad Perdida - think Machu Picchu except different country, different hidden city, bit more off the beaten track, bit more chance of kidnapping. So not really that similar at all.... As soon as we landed we were off to the offices of Magic Tours to book our tickets to mosquito hell. That done, we headed to hostel Jackie for a swim, had a quick shifty round the gold museum - much smaller than the one we didn't get to see in Bogota - and packed our small bags.

In the midst of this, Vic had to shop for a man's shirt. I'd already picked one up in Bogota and Sarah had got one from her dad. I was not quite sure whether this was to trek in or to sleep in - we just knew that we needed one.

Here's some artefacts from the gold museum that will break up the text with some pictures:

And here's what our normal day's snacks/dinner/breakfast looked like - they love a bit of deep fat fried goods in Colombia:

It was early to bed and anticipation of a fun few days. Little did we know that it would be fun but also sweaty and challenging and that we'd meet some of the coolest people known to man. Here's the first look at our group, it was a pretty big group considering that this trek was supposed to be quite a rare thing to do:

And here's a look at your typical Colombian petrol station - we had a quick stop to get some gas for the drive to the start of the trek: 

We set off in the sweltering heat on a pretty big, wide, easy path. Vic and I were lamenting how easy it was and our hope that the walking would get more challenging. It did. After a stop off at a natural swimming pool - there were lots of chances to rock out the bikinis and jump in a river - it was a pretty gruelling schlep up a rocky mountain. Yes, i'm sure it was a mountain because it was up, up, up non stop for HOURS! 

But we reached our hammock camp, had another swim and some dinner. Hats off to our guides who cooked up substantial meals each day for all 17 of us. And this is where a very strong look was born - the shirts that we had bought were, Sarah informed us, to wear in the evenings and to bed to prevent mosquito bites. I'd been on holiday with Sarah before and I knew how much the mosquitos loved to eat her. However I was still bowled over with her amazing repelling regime. Full clothes, 100 percent deet and hairbands for the sleeve and trouser ends to make sure they could not get in. 

This is what this typical "jungle in the evening" strong look looks like: 

And this was the night we started to get to know our fellow trekkers through several games of cards and then random "guess the famous person from just one gesture". Maria, Melanie, Tara, Danni, Doctor Dan - who would conduct morning, lunchtime and evening surgeries when necessary. It is very useful to have a doctor on a trek with you - Olivier, our impromptu translator and guide - the Colombian guides only speak Spanish and don't really account for the whole group at each stopping point - the cool Americans Kristen and Noam and others. The whole group was full of humour and everyone was up for the games and getting to know each other. 

OK, enough gushing - everyone on our trek, you are amazing - back to the trek. There was another long day of walking through the jungle, crossing rivers and MORE uphill. Here's a look at some more of the strong looks that were produced as a consequence of 8 hours of jungle walking:

Me - the socks pulled up and looking as if I have wet myself look due to damp bikini under the outfit: 

Vic - busted shoe fixed with tape. Then busted shoes replaced with my oh so glam walking sandals:

Well done Vic - some very strong looks going on there. You will also note that we are all trying to pose a la celebrity with one foot forward. Adds a bit of sparkle to the shots....

Sarah - who actually looks good in all my pictures - was wearing this white vest top and shorts for the full three days up to the city - what you can't actually see is the very special brown tinge to the top from all of her repellants and it was all pretty wet by the end. you will note I am in a different top for the walk up to the city - everyone else apart from Sarah gave up on having one hideous walking outfit - she was the only person who managed to keep putting on the damp clothes each morning for three mornings.

And here's a little peek at the hidden city - I won't put up too many in case you go yourself. It's around 100 steps up there but it's worth it. A pretty magical place. 

After getting up there we simply turned around and started walking back. We'd changed to the four day trek as that seemed what most people were doing. The way back was punctuated with a game of Horse. You pick a category - the films of Robin Williams for example - and then each person has to come up with something in the category. If you fail, you get an "H" and so on until you are a HORSE. Some were better than others and the game became horse rider motherf**ker to ensure it kept going for long enough. 

One of my favourite moments was during one of the evening sessions of the game with the category "birds". The answer given by a Frenchman who shall remain nameless was "Batman". Which he then changed to "bat". It took a while to debate why that was not allowed. 

Eventually we made it back to the start where everyone got a lovely meal of..... meat/fish with rice and plantain. It tasted pretty good after all the walking though. 

Email addresses were exchanged and several of us met that night for a meal in Santa Marta. And our first Colombian clubbing experience. Alas, I am without pictures of the night - I believe there are quite a few somewhere, there were glow sticks involved, there was a lot of rum involved. 

Next up on our agenda was some serious beach relaxation - the area we were in is a National Park and famed for its beaches. However we had not counted on Doctor Dan becoming an integral part of our group - indeed he was now in the fourth bed in our hostel room. He had ideas of a very special beach that Vic was also harbouring a secret desire to see. It was just going to be tricky to get to. 

More on that next time. 

To finish, here's a pic of our lovely guide Edwin aiding Vic and Sarah across a river. Edwin was great. I especially enjoyed his story of the time he had done the trek and his group had been kidnapped. For 100 days. It was a comfort.