Colombia and Panama: The end of the dream

Yes that is right. I let the blog go. Everyone said I would! Every traveller I met had good intentions, and most had let it go. It became homework. That and uploading photos. I mean fair enough right, when you could be outside at the beach, going on a hike, climbing a mountain, sunbathing, surfing... ok you get my point.

So I am going to tidy up Colombia and Panama with a summary.

Colombia was defintiely one of my fav countries.
The last time I wrote, we were in San Gil. The Queenstown of Colombia. Rod loved his grade 5 white water rafting, but didn't find it that scary. Kinda wish I'd done it now... I spent that day doing my CV!!!

So after San Gil, we did another overnight bus to Santa Marta (12ish hours). We were like excited kids at Christmas. Rod's mate Pete had jacked up for us to stay with his Colombian wife's Mum. She was holidaying up there in a friends apartment. Our 3 days with Norah turned into one week. It was awesome relaxing in this incredible complex with 3 swimming pools right on the beach. We had some great times with Norah - we can only speak 'Spanglish' and she knows the odd english word, so there were lots of laughs, pointing and sign language. We were lucky to go on a road trip with Norah and her friends to Cabo de la Vela in La Guajira. It's not very touristy, which made it pretty special. Our hosts were Norah's friends Carlos and Yolanda, and they took us in their new Renault Koleos (the last vehicle I launched in NZ before I left!!) Cabo de la Vela is a desert on the coast which is an odd concept. Barren and dusty with branchy trees and right next door is the sea... which is as warm as a bath. Weekend highlights were; sleeping on a hammock overnight for the first time (much more comfy than we imagined), seeing Wayuu Indians in their traditional dress and environment, climbing a hill that I wish I knew the name of which had incredible views from the top, eating fresh fish from the sea every day, and discovering arepa con huevos (traditional Colombian food, which is sort of like a savoury pancake with a fried egg in it).

Our time in Santa Marta was more about R&R and spending time with our new Colombian family. When it was time to say goodbye we moved onto Taganga which is a seaside town 5km out of Santa Marta - famous for its cheap diving. The hostel in Taganga (Casa de Felipe) which was French owned, was probably the best hostel we stayed in, over our whole 5 month journey in Sth America. I'm not sure what the dorms were like, as we mostly stayed in private rooms... but it had everything you could wish for - book exchange, internet, nice rooms with comfy beds, mozzie nets and big fans, a big courtyard... and the highlight - a restaurant with the BEST steak in Colombia. Rod went for a dive in Taganga. He didn't come home raving about it, but was happy he'd done it. I wouldn't recommend Taganga for it's beach, I would say it is a cliche Colombian beach tourist town, and is probably a bit overated. But given it's proximity to Santa Marta, you've gotta check it out at least. Our hostel experience made Taganga for us, and we had a great time there.

Next stop - my highlight of Colombia - Tayrona Park. I was expecting the entire Carribean Coast to have pretty spectacular beaches but I was quite disappointed that they didn't blow my mind... that is until I got to Tayrona. WOW WOW WOW. White sand, warm turquiose water, coconut trees, hammocks - the place had everything you could ever want. But the mosquitos were hell. They were like killer bees. And there were far too many tourists. But that certainly didn't ruin our experience. We slept in luxury hammocks with mozzie nets the first night at the first beach Arricifes, and then moved along to Cabo San Juan, and slept in a tent, which is officially the worst night sleep I have had in my life, it was so HOT! This prompted us to move to a hammock on the top of a hill which got a nice breeze. So while sleep quality was low, the mozzies were biting and it was super hot and muggy, the beauty of this place was just incredible, and still managed to make it on the top of my Colombia list in terms of stunning sights. Cabo San Juan in Colombia makes my list of top 3 beaches thats for sure!

Moving on from Santa Marta region, we had a short 4 hour bus ride to Cartagena - our last stop in Colombia, which saddened both of us. Although we had mixed feelings because this was also where we were organising our trip to sail from Colombia to Panama. More about that shortly...

The old town of Cartagena was just as gorgeous as everyone said it would be. It is full of old Spanish Colonial buildings which had been restored into beautiful colourful buildings. There is also a huge concrete wall which surrounds the town, which was built to protect the town from pirates (back in the 16th century, I think?). The wall certainly added interest and character to the city, which along with La Paz in Bolivia, is one one my favourite cities, because of it's uniqueness.

I celebrated my birthday in Cartagena. There is a 15m mound which is a volcano, about an hour out of Cartagena where you can have a mud bath! This was my choice of activity for my bday! We were covered top to toe in mud - hair and face included! I have an awesome photo of us, which I will have to post up here... I think that will be one of my most memorable birthdays. We had a great night at our local pub - Media e Luna (also a hostel) which we frequented every night we were in Cartagena with our crew, who were eventually the people we went on our sailing trip to Panama with.

Back to the sailing trip - I was a bit anxious because it would be my first boat trip in open water with no land in sight, so it was important we picked a good boat. We spent 2-3 days researching, asking around, checking out flyers around the hostels, looking online at blogs etc to find our perfect boat. It costs $375 US per person for the 5 day trip, so of course we wanted to make sure we spent our money wisely! We were stoked to find "Lost Elvis" with Captain Randy and his first mate Mark. Randy had a gorgeous 51 foot yacht - check him out at http://www.lostelvis.blogspot.com/

Unfortunately not much of our trip was documented on the Lost Elvis blog as Randy's better half does the blog, and she wasn't on our trip... but we had an awesome time with Randy and Mark (the crew) and Aussies Tracey and Tim, Rob and Jennifer and an English chick Natasha and her Belgium boyf.

The highlight of the sailing trip was our 2 days in the San Blas Islands. More white sand, coconut trees and turquoise water. Reminded me a lot of the Pacific Islands... We spent 2 days diving on and off the boat, mucking around on the kayaks and swimming from island to island. It was absolute paradise. We also had a crazy drunken night which ended up with far too much nudity and some crazy guy running around the island with a flaming palm tree... say no more! Lost Elvis was good times all round where I was introduced to the Gypsy Kings and Jimmy Buffet, and every time I hear those bands I will always think of our time in the San Blas Islands.

The San Blas Islands are part of Panama and are populated by Kunas who are the local people. They are pretty much self governed and have these amazing huts on some of the islands and spend their days fishing in these little crazy skinny boats which they carve from trees. We went visiting and got a ride from island to island in the kuna boats... I nearly wet my pants watching Rodney get paddled across to the island... he nearly sunk their boat!!! Rodney did not look comfortable as the sea lapped the sides - he was so close to going for an involuntary swim!

So that pretty much sums up Colombia. I don't feel like I have done it justice in my quick attempt to get this blog up-to-date, but I have to say that I enjoyed myself the most here. I am not sure why... maybe it was my expectations - from the start I was nervous about Colombia because of its reputation, but I enjoyed every moment. Perhaps it was because we got to see a lot of it from a local perspective and got involved in the culture of it a bit more by spending time with our Colombian family. Or maybe it is because we met some new great friends in Colombia Randy, Tim and Tracey) who we hope to keep in touch with. It was also one of our last stops, so I was appreciating every moment we had left. And the locals are so lovely... more so than any other country we visited. Colombia is also a good looking country which is pretty easy on the eye, so I guess that pretty much sums up why I liked it so much! I'd like to think that we will go back there one day, to see the areas that we didn't visit.

One more thing I loved about Colombia - I found my favourite Sth American food there! Arroz con Coco! A rice and coconut dish to die for!! I need to work out how to make this for myself...

Panama to come... writing about our trip in hindsight is making me wish I was still there! More soon,

Dahlia xo

Welcome to Colombia where the only risk is wanting to stay

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