Colombia!!!

Sittin´ here in an internet cafe in our last night in Colombia.  We´re heading out to Peru tomorrow for a little over two weeks.  Colombia has been pretty sweet in just about every respect, from nice weather (finally), to pleasant people, to new friends met, to a good combo of beach and city time.

We´ve spent a good deal of time in the Carribean city of Cartagena, which was amazing.  We also traveled slightly to the north to the small town of Taganga for a couple days where we took a boat to the Tayrona National Park.  The last leg of our Colombian stint has been spent in Bogota, where we just finished up a nice trip to Monteserrate this afternoon.  In typical fashion, I´ll update you point by point on what we did.

Cartagena -  This town is pretty unbelievable.  The "old" city is surrounded by walls dating back hundreds of years that were aimed at discouraging unwanted visitors (read: attackers).  We stayed our first night near the Centro, which is the historical district and is quite a bit more expensive than other areas.  We then moved on to more reasonable hotel accomodations at the Hostal Casa Baluarte in the Getsemani district.  Getsemani is pretty seedy, but not dangerous.  If you´re looking for trouble (drugs, hookers, whatever) you can probably find it in Getsemani.  So after getting some drugs and hookers we checked out the rest of the city.  Just joking, Grandpa!

Cartagena is really unique in terms of our Latin American travels, in that it really resembles a European city in many respects, especially architecturally.  The streets are really narrow and almost entirely one-ways and the buildings are colorful and complete with balconies galore.  Very easy on the eyes.  We did a bunch of wandering around the city but also did a couple things worth mentioning here in blogville (and, hence, for posterity).

-  We hit up the beach at Bocagrande, the fancy shmanciest part of Cartagena.  This is where the gazillionaires go to be doted upon at fancy resorts in big hotels.  Luckily for us peons, the beach is wholly public.  Of course, along with public beaches in Colombia comes the inevitable tidal wave, so to speak, of vendors.  Vendors patrol the beaches touting their wares in hordes and the beach-going public comes to Bocagrande in, well, hordes.  However, we really lucked out.  The beaches were packed but our taxi driver had called ahead to a friend of his (something we were immediately suspicious of, to be honest) and said friend met us at the beach entrance and walked us to a restaurant / sunbathing area combo.  This worked out extremely well for us as we got to relax on some huge beach bed things at no charge other than the purchase of the occasional cocktail and snack.  No one bothered us and it was as if we were on our own private little stretch of beach amongst the masses.  Very nice.

-  We took a boat tour slash cruise to the Islas del Rosario.  Our boat was a fairly big one, accomodating about 80-100 people, and it took a good two plus hours to get to our first island.  This island essentially consisted of an aquarium, which we didn´t visit, and crystal clear water where you could see sea urchins by your feet as you walked in.  It wasn´t much of a beach but we only spent an hour there until we rolled on to our next stop at Baru.  Baru was very nice.  We had lunch that was provided for us by the tour and then moved on to the beach itself.  The beach was fantastic.  We´d met a nice Canadian couple that we ended up grabbing a beach umbrella / lean-to with and some chairs.  We had to fight off a couple semi-aggressive masseurs (seriously, these ladies start by grabbing your extremities and going from there) and a vendor or two, but the beach time was relatively quiet and relaxing.  The water was so incredibly warm it was difficult to differentiate any difference in temperature between the water and the beach.  Leann said it reminded her of the beaches in Jamaica.  We´d also met another bloke in Cartagena, Brett, who ended up staying in a hammock on Baru for 6,000 Colombia Pesos per night.  Sounds like a lot, huh?  That´s a little over 3 dollars US.

-  Later that evening we joined Joel and Katie, our Canadian friends, for a night tour of the city of Cartagena by horse and carriage.  Beers in hand, we cruised around the town, trying to understand just what the hell our driver was telling us, in Spanish of course, we were seeing.  It was great fun despite the communication barrier.  Watching our driver negotiate the tight turns was worth the price of admission.

So after doing this, and oh so much more, in Cartagena, we took a 5-6 hour bus ride up to the town of Santa Marta, also on the Carribean coast.  From there we cabbed it to the small town of Taganga.  Supposedly Taganga has just recently gotten on the tourist map and it´s grown some from even the recent guide that we´d read.  By the way, Lonely Planet Colombia is not super helpful.  Tons of inaccuracies and well out of date.  We ended up finding a really cool hostel up the hill away from the beach called Divanga.  Run by a really nice French lady, this hostel has its own tour booking branch (good), its own pool (better), and its own rooftop bar, complete with pool table and reggae music (best).  Perhaps even better than best was the amazing food.  Shrimp pasta, chicken curry, and delicious baguettes to die for.  From this hostel we booked a trip to Tayrona National Park which, among other things, boasts an area that was once a cocaine plantation that´s now been converted into a series of eco-hotels.  Of course, these ecotels ran $200 and up per night, so we didn´t stay there.  We decided to take a boat to the park and a van back.  The boat.  Holy freakin´ crap, the boat.  This boat ride was about 1000x more exhilerating than we´d imagined it would be.  There were about 8 of us tourist types on board and the boat just plain hauled ass.  I think we went totally airborne for about half the ride.  There was a French lady, we´ll call her Pukey McGee, sitting across from us that looked like she was on the verge of blowing chunks from about minute one on.  This boat trip was almost an hour.  Fortunately, Mrs. LePuke didn´t actually toss any cookies so we all emerged unblemished.  On the way, we encountered multiple flying fish, one of which actually flew into our boat.  Six foot waves, airborne boat, green-faced French ladies, and flying fish behind us we spent our time on a nice little stretch of beach where swimming wasn´t as dangerous as some other areas where the currents are too strong.  When it came time to trek out to the spot where our van was going to pick us up, we had to pack up and walk through jungle paths for close to two hours.  All along the jungle paths are gazillions of crabs that hole up as soon as someone approaches.  We walked past other tourists, locals with horses carting goods, and through muddy canyon-ish stretches until we found our van.  Pretty well beat, we headed back ¨home¨ to take a dip in the pool and grab some beers and grub.  We only spent a couple days in the Taganga / Tayrona area, but wish we´d spent more.  This place is pretty outstanding and unique.  Apparently there are even waterfalls you can dive off of into pools, as well as well-hidden jungle artesan villages.  Gotta go back and adventure there some more, for sure.

We bussed it back to Cartagena for one last night and then took the flight back to Bogota.  We´d had our fair share of hustling and bustling and decided to say ¨F it¨ and hit up a movie theater.  After checking some local theaters on my phone, we found that Harry Potter was playing at an upscale mall theater in 3D.  Decidedly not Colombian, I realize.  Screw you, we were tired.  We watched the movie (which was really good but probably not worth the 3D experience) and came out only to find a couple from Washington DC that we´d met our last night in Taganga.  Small world, eh?  We went to an outdoor arts market, stumbled on some sort of circus-esque festival in a park with folks juggling on unicycles and playing music, and then grabbed some beers and nachos, oddly enough, in an Irish pub.

That brings us up to today, where we´ve now finished exploring Monserrate.  Monserrate is the name of the mountain high above the city of Bogota at over 10,000 feet.  Up there you´ll find a neat little church and pleasant gardens where they have statues depicting the stations of the cross (all the cross-related stuff that happened to Jesus up to and including the crucifiction).  Sorry, Grandma!  Anyways, the peak is best reached via a short tram ride, which our Albuquerque brethren will certainly appreciate.  While not nearly as long as the Albuquerque tram, the ride was cool and the views impressive. 

We took a taxi back to the central historical district and took some looks and pictures in the Plaza Simon Bolivar.  We got to see some cool, palatial government buildings and took a stroll through the financial district.  We walked around for a while, grabbed a snack, and headed back to.....well, to do this here update, y´all!

The under-20 soccer World Cup is being hosted by Colombia in a variety of Colombian cities, including Cartagena, Bogota, Baranquilla, and Medellin, and the excitement level is very high. 

Sad to be leaving Colombia, but am starting to get excited for the next leg of the trip in Peru.  One of the most daunting tasks we decided to undertake prior to leaving the States was the Inca Trail hike to Macchu Picchu near Cuzco.  This hike is 4 days and 3 nights and is rumored to be slightly on the brutal side.  Hopefully my old ass can make it through (or, more accurately, hopefully my old lungs can make it through).  On night two, if I remember correctly, we´ll be sleeping somewhere well above 13,000 feet above sea level.  Wish us good weather and good luck!

Oh, and if you know people who, like those who think Mexico is a cesspool of violence, still think that Colombia is infested with the Pablo Escobars of the world and nothing else, tell them to suck it.  We were here and this place is fantastic.

Pictures coming, hopefully, within a few days.  Ciao!!!!