The Long Journey Home...with a new journey beginning

Our South American journey is over. After wading through the water filled streets and torrential rain in Cartagena yesterday morning, we took two taxis, one bus and three planes, traveling from Cartagena-Barranquilla-Fort Lauderdale-Houston to end in Portland.

After being worn out by our 20 hours of traveling yesterday, we're enjoying the simple pleasures of being comfortable at home. While our trip had its share of highs and lows, it was a tremendous learning experience, and more than anything else it has taught us both a little more about what it means to be both humans and Americans...

While it will be a few months before we ultimately settle back in Corvallis, hopefully the adventures will continue. Next week, I leave for CA on my single speed mountain bike....
thanks for reading.

Back to the beach in Tayrona, and our last days in Cartagena

Even after visiting the beaches of La Guajira, we wanted a little more beach, a little less time in a jeep and more relaxation. For this, we headed back to the beach in the Parque Tayrona, just outside of Santa Marta along the Colombian Carribbean coast.  

For our second time around visiting this park, we prepared ourselves with copius amounts of food, water, mosquito nets, and matching pink pool toys. Though we attempted to try out a different resort in Tayrona (one with far superior bathroom facilities), the hammocks were placed out of the wind, and a little too close to the stables, so we headed back to the backpacker spot of Cabo San Juan de Guia, to take advantage of the wind chill in the cabana above the sea. After spending two full days floating in the ocean on our toys (much to the envy of the other guests) we started to get tired of the sun and the beach. Once Morgan began sweeping the hammock areas, and re-hanging the existing hammocks in a better spatial order (much to the confusion of other guests who kept asking him questions about renting hammocks as they all assumed that he was an employee), we decided that it was time to get out of there.

The next morning, we headed back to Santa Marta and made an unexpected call to our host family from our language school days in Cartagena. While she was vacationing in Medellin, she invited us to stay at her home, so we packed our things and got on a bus that afternoon. Eager to revisit our favorite spots in Cartagena, for the last two days of our trip we headed back to where we began our trip four months ago, bringing things full circle.

As it was, there happened to be an international yacht and sailing festival taking place in Cartagena this time around, so we've mainly wandered around and looked at the huge sail boats. Earlier today, while waiting for our juice, we also happened to see a parade of sailors and bands from around the globe marching through the central plaza. While all of the countries represented pretty much looked the same in their white dress uniforms (including the U.S., Brasil, Mexico, etc.), the French sailors had to wear what looked like lady blouses. It was pretty rough. But aside from these little highlights, we've also drank a ton of juice at our favorite juice bar, ate a lot of icecream at our beloved Crepes Y Waffles, and have generally spent most of our time eating, or lying around waiting to eat. 
 

So for now we're sitting around at Olga's house, bags packed and getting caught up on the blog we've neglected. While we leave to the airport in Baranquilla at 7am tomorrow, due to crappy cheap flights we´ll be spending a fair amount of time in airports tomorrow and we'll be back in Portland by midnight if we´re lucky.  

And in a bit of strange coincidence, it's pouring rain tonight in Cartagena, just like it is in Portland. I suppose it's helping a little to get us used to the thought of returning to the Pacific Northwest... 

La Guajira, Saving a little bit of the best for last...

After leaving Bogota we arrived to the warm, but pleasantly breezy temperatures in Santa Marta. Tigre, the kitten we had grown to love a few months ago at our favorite hostel in Santa Marta, by now had grown into a full grown cat. And because of the continued presence of his testicles, he was much more aloof than he was as a kitten.

But our main goal in coming back to Santa Marta was not to visit Tigre, but rather was to organize a trip to La Guajira and Punta Gallinas, the desert peninsula that forms the northern most point of South America and has a reputation as a wild, remote location. The area is also well known as the home to the indigenous tribe the Wayuu, known for their strength and unique culture. During the time of spanish conquest, while all of Colombia was taken by the spaniards, La Guajira was the sole location where the indigenous people held their ground and repeatedly defeated Spanish efforts at conquest. In addition to a general rough, and tough presence, this in compounded by the fact that many Wayuu women observe tradition and paint their faces completely black with paint....which is very intimidating. Because of the remoteness of the area and the lack of roads, most travellers who venture into the area tend to go with guides in jeeps. Additionally, Venezuela occupies a tiny strip of land on the far southeast of the peninsula, so smuggling in all shapes and forms is a reality in the area. While we had anticipated having to contact numerous agencies, or do more limited travel independently, fortunately our hostel was able to help us arrange a tour within a couple days. After a few days of relaxing in Santa Marta, we took an early early bus to the city of Riohacha to meet up with our guide and begin the drive northward.

Our first stop was at a small local village centered around a salt factory, which produces salt via evaporation. The blue carribbean sea, the golden desert earth and the giant mound of freshly washed white salt created a rather stunning visual image, and much like snow, as we got closer to the salt the light reflected and resulted in very hot conditions. Definitely difficult work for the men responsible for shoveling fresh salt out of the pile and into bags all day long...












After visiting the salt pile, and a few hours of scenic desert driving on dirt roads we ended up on a beautiful beach for the typical fried fish lunch. The water was calm and refreshing, and food was good and the local children were very upset at our refusal to buy bracelets. After we were adequately fed and refreshed, we piled back in the car to continue to the next destination...

At what is typically the end of the line in regards to civilization lies the tiny town of Cabo de la Vela. Known for its kite surfing, there's not much in Cabo de la Vela. It's a lot of cactus wood buildings, and because of government efforts to expand eco-tourism, every other house advertises itself as a hostel, meaning they'll cook you dinner and give you a sheltered place with a hammock. Running water doesn´t exist, and as can be expected in the desert, fresh water is at a premium. All electricity is done with generators (but they have satellites for cable TV) and the government has installed a single location in town with community internet access. After a brief visit we threw our bags in storage where we were staying the night and visited a very pleasant beach where I was able to swim far enough out into the water to be within yards of pelicans floating and diving from the sky into the sea for food. After watching the sunset from the "lighthouse" (which isn't a house at all, but rather a couple lights at the end of a twenty foot tall metal tower) we ate a tiny meal of fried fish (our second for the day), bathed with buckets and retired to our hammocks.













The next morning we headed out to a nearby beach, where I hiked up to a nearby lookout point for an outstanding view of the desert and salt flat leading right up to the ocean.


Because the villages beyond Cabo de la Vela are even poorer and more remote, it was necessary for us to stock up on all necessary drinking water before heading further out onto the peninsula. After this, we made our way through several standstorms and hours of driving through mazes of desert roads to our lunch spot, a small building which serves as a community store and gathering place for people in the area. While our introduction to the place was a herd of goats outside and a freshly killed goat hanging inside, we were actually only served goat soup, and had another serving of tiny fried fish (fish meal #3).

While we had read stories about giant sand dunes, and a gorgeous beach, we anxiously drove away from lunch and after an hour or so, could spot a giant sand dune looming on the horizon. After passing through several gates and paying locals for passage we arrived at a sahara-like dune, which parts were covered in shells, despite the fact the ocean was nowhere to be seen. As we hiked into the dune, the span and size of prestine sand was amazing, but as we reached the crest we realized that the dune dropped directly and very steeply into the ocean. While our photos were unable to capture the steepness of the dune, it was definitely a very special place, with not another soul or footprints to be seen, aside for a few hardy goats and burros.

We spent a few lovely hours on the beach, swimming and hiking around the dunes before heading to the nearest village, about a dozen houses spread out across the desert on the cliffs above a giant mangrove forest. The tenacity and toughness of the locals was inspiring, as the environment was not exactly what you would call hospitable. But it is their home, and the guns on their belts and presence for centuries is a testament to their strength.

We ate another tiny fried fish meal (#4) and retired to our hammocks. A little sunburned, and feeling like we were really about the furthest away from anything we'd been the entire trip.

The next morning we woke up and after beakfast (thankfully not fried fish) we headed to Punta Gallinas, the northern most point is South America. While there was a pretty beach, and a weird little abandoned building with grafitti that was litterally surrounded by goat carcasses (it was like some weird place all the desert goats go to die), there wasn't a ton to see. Snap a couple photos for the folks and back home and get back in the jeep. Because our guide told us there was a cultural festival in the indigenous capital, we hurried back to town, only to find the festival didn't start until the following day. A little bitter at his misinformation, we had a mediocre lunch (yes, fried fish #5), and watched everyone assembling everything for the big party the following day.

All in all, we were quite glad that we headed all the way back across Colombia to go to La Guajira. The scenery was spectacular, the people few and far between, and the presence of other tourists pretty much non-existent. As Colombia opens up for tourism, the government has already made progress in plans to open La Guajira up to major ecotourism expansion. While this will hopefully be done responsibly in such a way that conserves its ecological and cultural integrity, it was a pleasure to visit an area that is definitely in the very early stages of being accessable to tourism..

We Head Straight Back to Colombia, and Discover Bogota.

After a month in Ecuador, we sat down and came to the realization that we had one month left in our trip. Rather than continue on the Ecuador agenda which we had sketched out earlier, we decided that we'd rather head back to Colombia to finish off some of the things we wanted to do but ran out of time. The top two things on the agenda: Bogota and the northern peninsula of La Guajira.

From Tena, we spent two days on buses getting back across the Colombian border to the town of Popayan (where we had been for the Easter Holiday) to catch a flight to Bogota. These two days went as expected; sitting on buses, eating crappy food and generally feeling kind of grimy, but after these and a quick flight in a little two prop plane we landed in Bogota, happy to be back in Colombia.

While Bogota is a huge city, most backpackers tend to stay in one neighborhood. This is both for safety, and because of the clustering of hip bars and resturants. For this reason, it gets mixed reviews from most travelers we met; a great city, but with a very significant tourist bubble. After one night, we found a great, quiet hostel with ponds, garden courtyards and a giant wood burning stove just on the outside of this area. While all of Bogota is a bit more expensive than the rest of the country, I justified the expense of this hotel by enjoying Playoff Basketball on our in-room TV whenever possible.

We spent our first day in Bogota wandering around, visiting museums and getting a feel for the city. Besides the fantastic Museo de Oro (a museum of gold artwork predominantly from pre-Colombus indigenous tribes) there is also a maze of free public museums containing paintings and a history of Colombian money. The general layout and feel of the old part of the city was almost European, particularly in the large Plaza de Bolivar, so we contented ourselves with wandering around snapping photos and taking it in.

For our second day we made the trip out to the Salt Cathedral outside Bogota in the town of Zipaguira. While we were warned that it was a bit of a tourist trap, it seemed like it had potential to be interesting so we took the hour or so journey out there. While the tourist trap reputation is warranted (food court, climbing wall, playgrounds) the underground cathedral carved into salt is pretty interesting to walk around in. Unfortunately, they went a little overboard with all the neon lighting though...

Finally, for our last day in Bogota we went out on an excellent, and affordable bike tour of Bogota. The tour was run by a retired American journalist who was happy to talk politics, history and all things Colombian. Our fellow tourists were a nice British man and a cook taking his vacation from working in Afghanistan contracting with the US Armed Forces. While we had been to some of the visited sights days earlier, the tour was really informative and gave us the best understanding of Bogota one could possibly get in 5 hours of biking around.

After a few days of activities in Bogota we bid farewell and caught another evening plane back to the heat of the Colombian Carribbean in Santa Marta. While we could have easily spent a few more days floating around Bogota, we kept our time there short, as we are eager to try and figure out a trip to the Northern most point in South America, the wild desertlands of La Guajira.

Down Time in Baños, and a brief stint in Tena

We decided to take the hostel recommendation of the other two couples we met in Quilatola, and tagged along with them to a lovely hostel on the river just outside of town. Though arriving much later than expected, and with only one room reserved, they managed to accomodate the 6 of us, though Morgan and I ended up sharing a room for the first 3 nights with an awkwardly chatty woman from the UK. The hostel was newly renovated by a Kiwi couple, and we delighted in the clean linens, simple and well built interiors (straight angles, and correctly installed flooring!!), and excellent food.

Our time in Baños involved a lot of down time, and more interaction with other travellers than we´d experienced previously, but we both enjoyed the company and the break from activities. We spent our first day in Baños trying out one of the hotsprings in town, and figuring out where things were. After our accidental uphill death-march with the other two couples in Isinlivi, Morgan and I decided it best to try out the hotspring advertised in the guidebook as being ¨more natural¨on our own before suggesting it to anyone else. After an odd soak in a series of shit brown pools surrounded by the extremely elderly, physically disabled people, and a number of power-tool carrying construction workers (the hotsprings were somewhat of a construction site), Morgan and I were happy that we´d decided to go it alone.

On day two, I decided to hang out with one of the women we were travelling with who is even more fabric and sewing oriented than I am (it´s her job), while Morgan and the rest of the group rented ATV´s. The goal was for Alex to buy most of the fabric in the store, and ship it back to London for reselling in her boss´s shop. After 6 hours of wrangling with the store over shipping, taxes, and everything else, we both understood how difficult it is to do business with the locals. We ended up giving up for the evening- and met back up with the boys for a soak in a different less weird hotspring.

On day three Morgan stayed home to do a phone interview, and I ventured off to a small town 45 min from Baños that specializes in making tons of jeans. After a bit of confusion getting there, I arrived to discover a whole new level of crappy when it comes to denim. The first pair I tried had a button at the waist, but they´d failed to sew in a button hole. The rest of my jeans shopping experience pretty much followed that pattern. It was challenging to express ¨dark denim, pockets, no weird jewels or ornamentation¨, and I left thoroughly exhausted and without denim.

The following morning, Morgan and I said so-long to our travel companions, the perfect climate of Baños, and the overabundance of descent food options, and headed to the muggy jungle town of Tena. Upon arriving, we tried to begrudgingly adjust to the warmer climate, and set out to find a rafting trip for the following day. We found a trip on a easier river than we´d originally hoped for, but upon spending a few hours in Tena, we determined that we probably wouldn´t want to have to wait around for a different trip. The town was in the midst of the off season, so it was pretty empty. The main strip was under heavy construction, which created piles of rubble and broken sidewalks 3 feet above the torn-up dirt roads. Crossing the street was very challenging, and occasionally involved lowering oneself over the edge of the sidewalk as if getting into a swimming pool. Definitely lacking in charm.

After a fitfull night sleeping in the heat, we headed to the rafting company for our trip. We showed up to find the office filled with girls, many of them from the midwest (which has been our experience in Ecuador), who predominately turned out to be peacecorp volunteers working in the neighboring villages. They were a friendly bunch, though Morgan was the only guy out of 11 or so people on the trip. His misery was compounded by the persistent stomach funk that we both experienced for much of our time in Ecuador. Though the trip was nice, our guide was extremely peppy, and seemed bent on trying to throw us out of the boat, or make us participate in various activities (many of them involving him trying to push us out of the boat). As our energy level was fairly low, and the less than exciting rapids didn´t do much to increase our adrenalin, the guide´s enthusiasm had the effect of feeling like the lone speed freak on a boat full of exhausted people. Morgan and I were both happy when the trip was over.

On our last night (of two) in Tena, Morgan and I tried out a restaurant recommended to us by our friends back home, and weren´t disappointed. The restaurant is known for having big filet steaks, and a resident sloth that slowly moves about the dining area. The sloth was slowly making his way to his hidden walkway above the dining room when we first arrived, but he unfortunately stayed out of site for the rest of our time. We enjoyed our meal, and were perplexed that it cost us the same amount of our crap-tastic meal in Latacunga. Go figure.

Quilotoa Loop!

After a quick day of laundry and camera shopping in Quito, we took a remarkably short and pleasant bus ride to the town of Latacunga in the central Ecuadorian headlands. Latacunga is a small town with a large outdoor market that is usually used by travellers as a starting point for climbing trips to nearby volcanoes, or to the small mountain villages located nearby. A circuituitous route through a half dozen of these mountain villages is known as the Quilotoa loop, and our goal was to spend a few days travelling this loop and visiting local markets and villages.

Despite having a very pleasant outdoor market, we had a couple more negative experiences during our one evening in Latacunga. First, we ate what was likely the worst meal of the trip (it consisted of french fries and cheap meat for $6) and when I went to pay for our lackluster meal I discovered that I had been slipped a counterfeit $5 bill at the bus station in Quito...A little bitter, we slept fine in the colder climate of the highlands and headed out early the next morning for our first stop on the loop, the market at the town of Zumbahua.

The market at Zumbahua was small and pretty typical of other markets we visited, but the sight of live sheep bound by their legs, piled high in pickups was quite remarkable. Another interesting sight was the row of men with sewing machines mending and sewing clothes..

After Zumbahua, we took a quick ride in a pickup to our next stop, Quilotoa Lake. Much like Crater Lake in Oregon, Quilotoa Lake is located at the bottom of a crater, and contains very blue, saline water. Being at a higher altitude (about 13000 ft.) it was rather cold and windy, but as long as the sun was out it was quite nice. The village was tiny, with a few houses, children riding bikes way too big for them, and a lot of dogs who were very excited by the local bitch in heat. After a quick hike down to the lake, and an arduous hike back up, we crammed the little wooden stove in our hostel room with wood and got a good night´s sleep.

Transportation along the Quilotoa Loop is rough, with little to no bus service, dirt roads and vitually no commerce, so we had to try and time our traveling with what little transportation was available. Because of this we got up very early the following day and hired a local man to drive us in his pickup to the next village, where we hoped to catch a ride on the local milk truck (el lechero) further down the road. When we arrived in the town of Chugchilan we learned the milk truck wasn´t operating today, but we could wait 4 hours until the daily bus came through. Most of this time we spent watching locals play the modified Ecuadorian version of volleyball, which involves betting and stiff competition. When the bus finally came, it was pouring rain, which didn´t seem to deter the local games much.

On the bus we met up with some other folks we had met at Quilotoa, and together we took the bus and hired a truck to take us to the village of Isinlivi. The hostel at Isinlivi, while relatively expensive, was beautiful, with a cow, a friendly dog, and a very attractive, very pregnant cat.

The next morning, I hiked up to a local spot for sunrise, and shortly after we left on a hike with a few other folks from the hostel to a nearby market. While locals were very  helpful in directly us to the right paths, the hike took a couple hours longer than expected, which was a little rough for our hiking companions. Regardless, the hike was beautiful, the locals very friendly, and the market interesting.

After much confusion trying to figure out transportation, our group (now 6 persons total) got back to Isinlivi and waited for the one daily bus to get out of the Quilotoa Loop, back to the Pan American highway and the nearby town of Banos. This bus was the most chaotic bus of the trip, and definitely the most frightening and uncomfortable of the trip. There was pretty much no room on the bus, but being the only bus of the day, we crammed in, piling backpacks on the dashboard, crammed against the walls, and sitting on piles of grains sacks. As we descended the wet, muddy road at every curve we could only hope our driver possessed the skills to safely navigate the sketchy terrain and the completely overloaded bus. Safely at the Pan American a couple hours later, we completed a couple more bus transfers before we finally arrived in Banos, tired and ready for bed.

 

Canoa, the organic farm and back to Quito

Preface:
I am catching up on all the time since the last post...
At the organic farm outside Canoa I lost our camera while horseback riding. For this reason, there are no new photos to go along with this post...

After spending a couple days in Canoa battling mosquitos, humidity, rain and waiting for decent surf to arrive we headed out to a nearby organic farm for what sounded like a variety of interesting activities. While the farm's office in Canoa was disorganized, we were hoping that the farm would still be a fun experience. However, upon arriving at the farm we quickly realized we should have heeded the warnings.

The farm presented itself as an example of organic, and environmentally sustainable practices. They run a nearby school, and have a variety of volunteer positions. Despite this, we found that their livestock was poorly cared for, the farm produced very little crops and fed both their volunteers and quests poorly (We had to basically beg the surly kitchen ladies for more food). While we expected rustic accomodations, our small cabana was a bit too rustic for our tastes and lacking in charm.

Rather than recount each day, I'll simply summarize by saying we struggled to milk a cow, made cheese, cake, and caught river shrimp that were eaten by farm staff, rather than us, and rode angry, starving horses to visit a 90 something year old native woman who lived by herself in the jungle with monkeys. We were happy when the experience was over and lamented the sorrowful, malnourished condition of the cats and livestock at the farm.

I still know that there are people out there running successful, respectful organic farms and ecotourism projects, but this was definitely not one of them.

Back in Canoa after a couple nights at the farm, we had a pleasant night's sleep, followed by a miserable bus ride to Quito to purchase a new camera. I dozed off while watching an awful movie on the bus (The Marine II) and we ended up missing our stop and having to backtrack. Angry at our less than desireable experiences in the last few days, we washed our clothes, rested in Quito and prepared to embark on our next journey to the mountainous Quilotoa Loop in the central highlands...