Hey hey, hope you are all well!
I left you last when we were about to leave Ecuador for Colombia. We were really to hit Colombia, after Galapagos Islands, the rest of Ecuador didn´t really have the same sparkle as Galapagos (I mean how can you compete with birds with blue feet!), so we were ready for a new country!
Our mission to Colombia was huge. Caught a bus from Quito, Ecuador at 8.30am to the border which took 6 hours. The border was fine... but there was a HUGE amount of trucks lined up, possibly up to 100, waiting to get searched for drugs and weapons. Fortunately our taxi got to go to the front of the line and we didn´t get searched for drugs or weapons. We then caught a bus from Ipalies, the first little town in Colombia to a gorgeous town called Popayan. The bus though was another longish one, and we didn´t get to Popayan until midnight... the roads are so so so so windy though, and unfortunately I am sad to report that literally 2 mins before the bus stopped after all that travelling I had a chuck!!! Gutted!! On this ride Rodney did get his first ´frisk´. At about 11pm the police stopped the bus (we were at a checkpoint) and asked all of the men to get off the bus. I was half asleep and didn´t realise that they only wanted men until I got off. It was a standard procedure, hands on bus and a bit of a pat pat all over the body. We weren´t worried about this, they were actually protecting our security by making sure there weren´t any dodgy people on the bus who were going to rob us.
Stayed the night in Popayan and had a quick look around the following morning... the town has whitewashed walls and is totally spanish colonial. Loved it. But we were on a mission, so caught a bus AGAIN at 10.30am. The bus was to San Agustin, which is only 120km away but because it is such a hugely windy and mostly gravel road, it took almost 8 hours!!! I was OVER buses by the time we got to San Agustin.
San Agustin is a little country town with a national park, where some statues were found a wee while again which from my understanding were tombs from back in the Indian days. So we jacked up a horse ride for the following day to go and look around all the different sites. Rodney didn´t want a slow horse, so told the guy he had been horse riding before.... so so funny, about 15 mins into the ride his horse is pretty much galloping on him up hills!!! Our guide Lucas told us that he gave us the best horses because we were experienced! I was so thankful that I had had some horse riding experience because they were pretty enthusiastic!
The statues were pretty cool, the biggest one is 7m high. And our guide was so so lovely. When people are overly nice we are sometimes a little skeptical, as more often than not if they give you a little bit of info or show you where to go they will expect a tip over here. But our guide was a geuinely nice guy, and when we left he gave us a present each! I got some earrings and Rodney got a mini statue replica. I was overwhelmed by his kindness.
We then caught a bus, thats right, only 24 hours later to Bogota. This was an overnight journey of 12 hours so at least we were sleeping for most of it.
We were looking forward to Bogota and meeting Pete Meek´s wife Carolina´s family. Juliana and her boyfriend David entertained us for most of the weekend. Was so great seeing the city from a local´s perspective. We went out for dinner on Fri night in a really fancy area which has a Lacoste store, D&G, Converse, Hugo Boss etc etc. All stores which only sold these brands, and they were all pretty flash buildings. On Sat they took us to the showgrounds where there was a fair celebrating Colombia. So there were stalls for every region of Colombia demonstrating their food (lots of yummy taste tests), arts and crafts etc. Colombia is so diverse and it was great to get a taste of it all in one day!
On Sunday we were invited to Carolina´s mum´s house for a traditional lunch. She made a traditional soup and a main dish which was a yummy chicken and rice with corn. And she was so lovely, they bought red wine and beer, because they know that is what kiwis like to drink! It was so nice to be welcomed into someone´s home, especially after backpacking for almost 4 months. That arvo we went a flea market with Juliana and David and then spoke with Pete and Carolina on Skype which was cool! I think Carolina found it strange with them in Japan and us at her house! We were really grateful to Juliana especially for spending her weekend showing us around, we had a great time!
We then moved north onto where we are now, San Gil, another 7 hour bus. San Gil is the adventure town of Colombia, just like Queenstown! They have everything here from white water rafting to kayaking, caving, abseiling... the list goes on! Today we went caving which was fun, in one section we had to army crawl on our elbows and knees for a good 10m! Another part was a bit freaky where you only had about 10cm between the roof of the cave and the water that we were in. So we had our heads back with our lips almost touching the top of the cave so we could breathe! It was only like that for a few seconds so wasn´t too scary. Tomorrow Rod is going whitewater rafting on 5 plus rapids... I decided that is probably a bit too extreme for me so am leaving him to it!
Tomorrow night we leave here for the Carribean Coast! Oh yeah!!! Santa Marta is our first stop, where we will stay with Carolina´s mum, Norah for 3 or so nights. She is up there on holiday and has very kindly invited us to stay in the apartment with her that she is staying at, as she has spare beds. So looking forward to a bit of luxury!
Best get going, am going to explore one of the water holes around here and chill out for the arvo. Is nice and warm in San Gil, which I am loving!
Hope everyone is well, we think of our friends and family often!
Adios for now!
Daile and Rodney xx
