Finding the Lost City

Excuse the lack of updates but I was in the jungle. I got back from my trip to Ciudad Perdida (Lost City, now found) about three days ago and since then I have been up to my ears in seawater. I started my PADI Diving course here in Taganga as soon as I got back and tomorrow will be my third day of diving (For those of you who know their shit, I´m doing the PADI Open Water and Advanced Open Water courses here).

So, I had a frickin´ ball on the trip to the Lost City. It took three days of (relatively easy-going) walking to get there, we spent two nights there and then it took two days (slightly less easy-going) walking to get back. I was lucky with the group as well: two Aussie guys, an English girl, a Scottish girl and a French guy... all cool people.

We took a jeep from Santa Marta at the coast until the road stopped and then hiked from there through to the Lost City through the most amazing landscape. We crossed rivers wading, over crazy-assed bridges and by hanging cage. We visited an untouched indigenous village and battled with all kinds of livestock for our right of way. We cooked over campfires, drank water from the streams and rivers, slept in hammocks and cleaned ourselves in the rivers and under waterfalls. It was fucking idyllic.

This part of the country is controlled by the paramilitaries (i.e. not the government) but they were friendly and let us pass without problems (they get paid off by the guide). They even explained their raison d´etre and ideology to us, gave us fruit and cigarettes when we passed and even let us take pictures of them (and us with their guns - see thephotos). See links below for more info about Colombia´s civil war:

Q&A to Colombia´s civil war (BBC)

Profile of Colombias Armed Groups (BBC)

We walked early every morning so that we could avoid (most of) the afternoon rain... remember that its rainy season here and that although the mornings are glorious, the heavens open at some stage in the afternoon and it doesn´t let up until the next morning. On the fourth day, we had to walk for nine hours so we got caught in a serious downpour but it only serves to cool you off after all the walking (although it does make it more likely that you will fall on your snot). The evenings were spent playing cards and other relaxing social activities.

The Lost city itself is an impressive array of foundation sites for mud/wood huts used by the Tayrona Indians about fifteen hundred years ago. It has stairs and irrigation systems everywhere and is spread across a ridge between two mountains with spectacular surroundings.

Anyway, check out the pics and I will update soon with some diving pics hopefully. Am doing wreck dive and night dive on Monday and today I saw a trillion fish and lobsters and moray eels etc. Smellya later people.

A-bomb-inable behaviour

Imagine a beautiful old Colombian town on the Caribbean seafront. Standing in a small square in the workers quarter of the old town... a handsome church adorns the plaza and its colonial buildings are washed in a myriad of different colours.

It´s five o´ clock in the afternoon and the plaza is packed with people swinging and grooving to sweet salsa sounds. Young and old are dancing to the beats, everyone looks like they´ve been born on the dance floor (and Conor looks like he was born with water on his brain).

A messy parade with a plethora of different dancers push their way through the mob, who in turn give them their full attention. People are selling bags of water, water balloons, flour, snow in a can and a variety of other things for throwing on people... Every now and then someone clasps their hands around your face covering you in blue face paint if you´re lucky... motor oil if you´re not... You have your bottle of Aguardiente in your pocket and pull it out every so often to drink to the health of you, your friends, your dogs, the random person you just bumped into etc. etc. etc.

This is Carnival in Cartagena.

Its the same carnival that happens in February all over the world, but Cartagena has their one in November because that's when the city gained its Independence from the Spaniards. (They also vote for Miss Colombia in Cartagena on the same weekend just to fuel the testosterone levels).

We were in the slightly poorer (and hence funnier) part of the old city and when there was a gap in the parade, the locals ran over from the other side of the road to soak us (the only five "Gringos" on the plaza) with water or fake snow... next gap, we would run over and soak them... it was a fun Gringo v. Locals war... but they outnumbered us about a trillion to one and naturally took the battle. We were left soaked to the skin. All we could do in the end was wave a white t-shirt as a sign of our capitulation and a drunken peace was declared with a few shared shots of Aguardiente.

I´ve gotta say that it was some experience... I have never, ever seen anyone party like these dudes did on Carnival... They were throwing bangers (or little bombs to be more accurate) everywhere. It was what I would imagine Fallujah to look like if the Americans gave everyone a bag of Semtex and a ripped-up Koran for Christmas. Pics of Carnival and Cartagena can be found here.

Since then I have been shown around every corner of the city (rich and poor) by a local friend and tonite I´m leaving Cartagena, the last city on my itinerary, for the hotter (and wetter) eastern coast. The plan is a last forage inland to see the Lost City of Santa Marta, previously inaccessible due to guerilla-paramilitary fighting, but now a bit of a off-the-trail gringo attraction.

And yeah, I lost my credit card, so I´m a kind of up shit creek with a toothpick for a paddle. I´ve cancelled it and we´ll see what happens on that front. (Nothing was spent, I think I just lost it down the side of a seat somewhere).

Peace brothers!

Goooood Mooorrrrning Cartagena

Arrived in Cartagena this morning after a relatively pleasant bus journey and the only thing that comes to mind is a line from Good Morning Vietnam:

"It´s hot and it´s wet... which is fine when you’re with a lady, but ain’t no good when you’re in the jungle..."

I suppose I´m not strictly speaking in the Jungle but I´m not far off. Luckily enough its still festive here with Miss Colombia being voted in tomorrow and crazy drunken people wandering around the streets at all hours. I´ve had my little siesta and am now pondering the merits of a bottle of aguardiente to shag in the freezer to wake up my fiesta hormones later.

There´s rumba, salsa, reggaetone, meringe etc. blasting from every street corner and I have a sneaky suspicion that tonite may be another occassion for some messy salsa impressions on my behalf.

Had a walk around the old town this morning and it actually is quite impressive.

Everyone waffles on about how great and old and colonial Cartagena is, but when we arrived this morning we took a taxi through some serious slums before we got to the old city... The roads were flooded and the water came up to the dashboard of the taxi... it actually started coming into the inside of the car.... but the driver didn´t mind, ha, didn´t mind that we were getting soaked because the seals on his rustbucket were pre-Inca... But whatyagonnado huh?

Right, I´m burning this joint... l8r compadres

Livin' la vida... Colombian style

As promised, this is what I have been up to in Colombia for the past two weeks:

I arrived into Bogota on the 27th of October and had a great (Halloween) weekend there with a plethora of different parties and all. I met an American guy called Tom and and an Italian girl called Mara in the hostel there who felt like doing a little trip so on the Monday after the hectic weekend we set sail for San Augustin in the South of Colombia. (Pic of Tom & Mara here).

They say about Colombia that it filters out all the shit travellers, i.e. those that want their travelling experience to be as close to their home life as possible and aren't really out for adventure or difference (i.e. "Ohmygod, why do the Peruvians not have air conditioning on their buses, that is like sooooo annoying, and what really pisses me off about Bolivia is that you can't get good felafel's there" etc. etc. blah, blah, blah). I'm sure you've noticed that yours truly is a great traveller which is why I am here in Colombia (I got through the "slick" filter.... obviously).

No but the thing is, that this country is perfectly developed, it has an infrastructure which is one of the best down here in South America, the roads are great, the buses are great, the standard of living is high... yet, nobody comes here because of the "war" (more on that in a later post). This lack of "gringos" lends a novelty factor to those of us that are here and the locals view us with an open, friendly, curious attitude. In the two weeks I have been here I have had more interaction with the Colombians than in the same amount of time in any other country so far. So far, I perceive the Colombians to be the friendliest people I have met so far.

San Augustin - Nature, Shrooms and near-death Rafting

This is a small town in the southern Sierra. It was a great intro into the Colombian countryside. I have problems describing this countryside without referring to the standard cliches "lush" and "green", although it should be noted that they are very applicable.

Try to imagine the rolling hills of the lower Alps (think Edelweiss The Sound of Music), covered in an unbelievable variety of rich green tropical growth speckled with a kaleidoscope of other deep colours. Throw in the occasional canyon complete with rushing river and you've more or less got an idea of what this place looks like. (you can also click here for a sample).

So when we got to San Augustin we stayed in a great little hostel (we had the place to ourselves - a frequent facet of travelling in Colombia). But with the people that worked there, there was a sense of a little community... one of the guys was studying hallucinogenic plants and the other was testing them for him... 'nough said! We spent our days wandering around in nature and seeing the millenia-old unexplained stone carvings that put this place on the map. Evenings were spent inside playing cards or chatting about the meaning of life. (More pics of San Augustin here).

We decided also that we would take the opportunity of the aforementioned rivers and their awesome canyons to engage in a little rafting (classes 3 to 4.5 for those of you in the know) and this was to prove one of the highlights of my trip. After a brief course in Rafting 101 the three of us set off with three guides, six paddles and a raft. Well all I can say is Holy Jayzus.... Rafting rocks! We were all having a fucking ball, the river was high and the rapids really lived up to their name. All was good until we hit the quickest rapid (somewhere between class 4.5 and 5) and just at the start of it, the raft went over into a ditch and up the other side at a near vertical angle. Yours truly went headfirst into the water (I actually thought that the whole raft had capsized but it was only me that went in).

It was a real shock to the system and I went into the water without a chance to grab a lung full of air. I fell straight into the wake of a huge rock. It had water cascading down either side which created a kind of twilight zone of still water in the middle but with an incredibly strong downward pull. I was kept stationary in this wake for about five to ten seconds, but I was under the water swimming up towards the surface but not progressing an inch. The surface of the water was about a foot away from me and I could see the sky and the rock clearly but no matter how I persisted I could not reach the surface. I thought it was the end... I really thought that that's how it would finish for me... I could see the headlines "Irish guy drowns in rafting in Colombia"... I could see my parents coming down here to repatriate mortal remains and I felt bad cos I promised my mum that I wouldn't die here.

Luckily enough, I eventually remembered my rafting lesson and remembered that Armando (the head honcho) had told us that if we fall in, then swimming makes no difference, we were just to cross our arms over our chests and let the water take us trying to keep our feet first so that we protect ourselves against the rocks. I felt that another second or two would conquer my consciousness so I folded my arms and against all my instincts stopped trying to reach the surface. Before I knew it, the current swept me out of the wake and I was bopping at the surface gasping for air... I was still in rapids but at least I was above the surface. I kept my feet in front of me and had to push off a couple of rocks with them, always trying to stay out of the wake on the other side for fear of a repeat experience. Finally, the river calmed and I was thrown a rope and pulled aboard the raft in absolute gasping disbelief at my survival.

That was the closest I have ever been to the end... I was sure that this was the final curtain and was thinking about family and friends and how unfair it was that I should have to die so young. I spent the rest of the day walking around in a state of disbelief and awe at being alive. Pics of rafting are here)

Salento - Coffee, Aguardiente & Salsa

You must remember that this is the rainy season in Colombia so every late afternoon/early evening the sky's open and it buckets down for a couple of hours thoroughly watering the countryside. However the mornings are beautiful and the late evenings and nights are usually dry as well (except for the ground after the downpour).

After our rafting experience we took an overnighter to Salento, a small town in the Zona Cafetera (coffee region) about 12 hours north of San Augustin. Here the countryside was similar to San Augustin's but with slightly higher mountains (not so hilly, more grassland and a piss-pot full of coffee farms (Finca's)).

Our days here were spent seeing coffee farms and the giant wax palms that the region is famous for. But the highpoint of Salento was the nightlife. As I previously mentioned, I was lucky enough to be here for a fiesta gastronomica, a fiesta-fueled long weekend. Tom and Mara came out with me on their last night before going back to Bogota and the locals broke us in to their salsa dancing and aguardiente, the local spirit here - sugar cane with Anis... an all-too-drinkable melange.

On the next (Saturday) night I lost all my gringo friends by 3am and spent the rest of the night (and following day) cruising around town with a group of Colombians looking for aguardiente (which we managed to find in vast quantities despite the fact that none of us had any money). When the farmer boys had to go to work, they brought me up to try my hand at milking cows and then we sped around the fields on motorbikes and mopeds for a bit.

I woke up Sunday night at about 8pm in some dudes apartment not knowing where I was or what the hell had happened. When I got back to the hostel, they had all thought that I had been abducted or something. What a great night! Click here for pics of Salento.

So after that super-dooper weekend in small town Colombia, I made my way to Medellin, the second biggest city of Colombia, where I have been chilling out since then.

I'm being a bad tourist in Medellin, I haven't seen anything of any touristy value here and I am going tonite... but I don't care... cities are cities... I went out on Wednesday night and ended up in some Karaoke bar where myself and an Aussie dude broke the chain of Spanish songs with a drunken rendition of YMCA, that got the locals a-boogyin' despite our slurred speech. (YMCA was one of the only English songs that they had on option - before anyone says anything else! You people are so predictable...)

Anyway, tonite I'm off to Cartagena, an apparently beautiful old colonial town and guess where it is in Colombia... I'll give you hint, its at a certain coast... no, not the Irish sea....... not the pacific either, no the Atlantic isn't it... No mis amigos, tomorrow at long last, I will reach the Caribbean, the promised land and the stuff of my Patagonian and Andean dreams.

I will arrive in Cartagena tomorrow for another fiesta-style long weekend and will then make my way along the northern Colombian (ahem Caribbean) coast towards Venezuela and my final destination of Caracas from where its "Home James and don't stop the horses".

I may never update again because I have a sneaky suspicion that the lure of the beach will overcome the glow of the screen for the next month. However, I will try.

Signing off for your man in Colombia, this is el Conoro... hasta la proxima!

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Hostels I stayed in:

Bogota: Platypus Hostel - fantastic hostel for meeting people, owner German is the most helpful, nicest person in history, nicely placed in La Candelaria

San Augustin: La Casa de Francois - great community feeling to this hostel, a little bit outside town with great nature and great views... the guys there are really helpful with everything

Salento: The Plantation House - nice, comfortable place... good for meeting people but consider staying in non-Gringo hostel in this town.

Medellin: The Black Sheep - new Gringo Hostel in town, in a nice area (although slightly residential), good for meeting people, but lots of tellys so not quite as social as others...

Sorry for not updating, but I`m having an unbelievable time here... Been in Colombia just over a week now and have had a great weekend in Bogota (halloween parties & barbeques) and then headed down to San Augustin in the South (rafting, nature & hippies) and am now in Salento in the Zona Cafetera (coffee & salsa).

Went out last night and ended up at a table with just me and locals trying to outdrink each other at aguardiente (crazy-assed local booze)... so I feel pretty f%$ked up today and everyone in the town seems to know my name ... (tonite is a big fiesta cos its a long weekend in colombia ... fiesta gastronimica... doesn`t sound too bad so I have to recuperate quickly)

I have loads of shit to talk about but I feel like someone`s nailed a 2x4 across my forehead so I`m going back to bed... will update on monday, I swear!